The Worst of the Worst

Ruth Marcus has a very important column today in the Washington Post about the continuing travesty that is Guantanamo.  The piece focuses on poor unfortunate detainee Huzaifa Parhat, a member of China's Uighur ethnic group, a Muslim people who are subject to continued oppression by the Chinese government.  Parhat had fled China to Afghanistan, which he in turn left when his refugee camps was bombed by the Americans, fleeing this time to Pakistan, where he was turned over to U.S. forces for a bounty payment.

He has been held as an enemy combatant for over six years without charges.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has now ruled that absent some proof of his enemy combatant status he must be released.  Interestingly, the government while continuing to press his enemy combatant status, has evidently cleared him for release -- unfortunately there is no country to which to return him.  Such is the state of justice in this country seven years into the term of a president who has shamed us in so many ways that they are hard to enumerate.   

Comments

[Joe Klein's conscience]

I hope all the Republicans and enabling Democrats are proud of themselves for enabling tragedies like this.

[Corvus9]

Reading about things like this makes me feel like I am not a citizen. Not because I hate America or something. But It makes me feel so alienated from what the powers that be allow to happen that I just cannot feel like this country actually includes my voice. And really, how can one be the a part of the America I was taught to be a part of in school if such stuff is occurring? It's like watching a loved one die of cancer, and listening to them berate the rest of your family, while completely ignoring you. There is a surface of discomfort, covering a deeper throbbing pain: the awareness that your memories will be forever tarred.

[janinsanfran]

Corvus -- sounds like you are channeling Michele Obama.

[Lisa Simeone]

Fortunately, this story has gotten a lot of coverage. Unfortunately, so many people in the U.S. don't care. It's infuriating. I find I have to stop reading the news entirely every now and again because otherwise I just walk around furious all the time and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

And yes, I've written to my worthless reps in Congress about it, several times, over the years. And they send back their usual formulaic namby-pamby responses, to which I usually fire off some version of "how do you people at sleep at night?" and then nothing changes.