Thanks to our own Steve King (R-IA), I got to learn a bit bout Uyghurs. I’ve heard about Uyghurs, the oft persecuted muslim minority from China, through This American Life episodes, and other NPR sources. But now Uyghurs have moved from complete persecuted obscurity to big news (which comes with its own flavor of persecution), and Iowa’s Representative Steve King has wonderfully equated their transfer from Guantanamo to a swimming-pool equipped Bermuda-based “home” with a Jimmy Buffet hang-out scene.

(BTW, GlobalVoicesOnline has some excellent blogposts from Bermudans on this issue)

There’s a comic/tragic irony in Steve King deriding these seven-year falsely-incarcerated men’s final release to an island paradise, at the choice of said island paradise, when Iowa was not exactly queueing up to accept the detainees. The islands of Palau and Bermuda (amongst others) actually stepped up to the plate and per accounts I’ve been reading the Bermudans, and to some degree the Palauans, have welcomed these ex-gitmo detainees into their communities.

Iowa (amongst other midwest states most notably Minnesota) has had a rich history of accepting refugees, political and otherwise, in the past. I’ve worked with Laotians who escaped the Khymer Rouge’s bloodbath thanks to the hospitality of a refugee program which connected them to Iowa farm communities. The sad thing is that Iowa seems to be leaning away from this graciousness.

To be fair Senator Harkin, in his response to the 90-6 vote against detainees being transferred to the US, said that the detainees don’t pose a threat to the US if they’re transferred here. But this is a far cry from taking responsibility for our quite obvious culpability in potentially destroying some innocent lives (not that we don’t do that almost as a matter of course, but that’s an issue for a different day).

Bermuda’s acceptance of the detainees was a back-door, middle-of-the-night, highly-secretive deal that transpired between only a few people in both governments, obviously leaves much to be desired as far as transparency in the process goes. However it appears that the deal was done with good intention, and because it was “the right thing to do”. There was also the bonus of pissing off the Brits who were a bit miffed at not having been included in the discussions. (But really UK?! I mean you guys let your own homeboys be detained by us yanks and aside from a bit of silly posturing there really wasn’t much by way of defence of your peeps. So why the indignation now?!).

Something more dishonorable than Steve King’s derision of the transfer to Bermuda is the US Government’s stance on these freed detainees’ future (from FoxNews’ British Government Raises Concerns Over Detainee Transfer to Bermuda:

Despite the Bermuda government’s comments about “potentially” resettling the Uighurs elsewhere, an administration official told FOX News the Uighurs “will not be able to travel to the United States unless the U.S. government consents in advance.” The official said such restrictions would apply no matter where the detainees are sent.

Steve King is possibly not as much of an idiot as he came across in the video making its rounds (his voting record, though, might make him more of one). And yet I’m left wondering why he has not come up with some witty comment about the other 13 Uighurs who got to move to Palau. After all, he’s made assertions that living in Iraq is safer than living in D.C.

Steve King probably doesn’t think the Uyghurs deserve to be shipped off to any island “paradise”. But after the way we’ve treated these guys (who’ve not only been demonstrated to be innocent, but were actually fleeing persecution in China when we decided to ship them off to that other island “paradise” just next to Cuba – how’s that for irony?!), I can’t think of a more American thing to do than send them off to at least be comfy for a while (except maybe bringing them HERE!).

One question remains tho’ (other than why the hell is Steve King being re-elected with a 63% vote?!): why did only four of the Uyghurs got to go to Bermuda?!