by hilzoy
"Gingrich pushed further in an op-ed, claiming that '[b]y their own admission, Uighurs being held at Guantanamo Bay are members of or associated with the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an al Qaeda-affiliated group designated as a terrorist organization under U.S law."
No, they have never admitted that, says Abbas, adding that the Uighurs call the claim "baseless, factless slander against them." Abbas returned from Guantanamo Monday. She now works with the Uighurs' defense attorneys.
The Uighurs call relatives in the United States and Europe often, she says, so stay up on the news. They were surprised to hear the accusation from the former Speaker of the House.
"Why does he hate us so much and say those kinds of things? He doesn't know us. He should talk to our attorneys if he's curious about our background," Abbas relates. "How could he speak in such major media with nothing based in fact? They were very disappointed how Newt Gingrich was linking them to ETIM which they never even heard of the name ETIM until they came to Guantanamo Bay."
The Uighurs are apparently under the misconception that American columnists are fact-checked for accuracy. "They just cannot understand," she says. "How come the media doesn't even verify the story? How could they just publish something like that without checking whether what he says is true or not?""
"Abbas, however, says that the detainee who went off on the TV has already been released to Albania and that it had nothing to do with any bare arms. Rather, he had repeatedly requested to speak to camp supervisors and had been ignored, so he chose to cause a scene. Scandling said Wolf's account of the TV smashing came from a story in the L.A. Times."
That means that even if you don't think, as I do, that it is perfectly understandable that someone who had been imprisoned unjustly for seven and a half years might throw a TV to the ground in frustration, and even if you overlook the many US citizens who have tossed the odd appliance around during (say) a bar fight without thereby showing themselves to be terrorists, there is no need to worry about any TV-throwing Uighurs being released into the US. The only Uighurs still in Guantanamo have never thrown any TVs at all.
Maybe folks should consider the possibility that Newt Gingrich is a lying, venal, mendacious SOB.
The simplest explanation that accounts for the phenomena is often the right one.
Apparently, one can write all manner of blatant falsehoods and the Washington Examiner will be happy to publish them. I wonder if they’ll publish a piece I have describing how Newt Gingrich and the entire Examiner editorial board are serial child rapists?
Abbas, however, says that the detainee who went off on the TV has already been released to Albania and that it had nothing to do with any bare arms.
I never really understood what the whole ‘bare arms’ thing was supposed to be about anyway. Is having strong cultural/religious sensitivities—no matter how much we might look askance at their patriarchal content—reason to lock someone up without cause for an indeterminate length of time?
Have conservatives really been reduced to existential terror over TV-throwing men in Albania?
Never mind, that’s a stupid question which answers itself.
Newt Gingrich is a lying sack of shvt, leads a party full of ignorant, fearful haters, and needs an issue on which to attack Obama and Democrats.
What’s Jim Webb’s excuse for being an idiot about this? Or Mark Warner’s?
Besides, we could use a few smashed TVs here – it would boost the economy by giving people a good reason to buy a digital-ready one. But, of course, you wouldn’t want to smash it with bare arms, you might get cut. What were we talking about again?
Sorry, if I read too much Gingrichian spew too quickly, I switch into nonsensical blather mode. I’m better now.
“Newt Gingrich… leads a party full of ignorant, fearful haters…
What’s Jim Webb’s excuse for being an idiot about this? Or Mark Warner’s?”
This is probably nitpicking, but…
Well, irregardless of the party’s quality, it has quantity — fastly falling quantity, but still quantity. And releasing these (albeit, factually innocent) prisoners will scare the shit out of said quantity, thus increasing their voter turnout., i.e. more republicans will turn out on election day.
Unfortunately, doing the right thing here doesn’t seem to bring in the votes needed to make up for this effect. You could certainly argue that a politician shouldn’t (morally speaking) make decisions like these based on political calculations of this sort, but that wouldn’t really make either of them “an idiot”.
Like I said, probably nitpicking…