Ted Rall:Why 8,000,000 People You've Never Heard Of Hate Us

[billbuckhead]

Why 8,000,000 People You've Never Heard Of Hate us


SELLING OUT THE UYGHURS
Ted Rall


NEW YORK--A four-day ride on the westbound express train out of Beijing takes you to China's Wild West. The massive Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, hundreds of miles beyond an eroded mound that was once the Great Wall, lies southwest of Mongolia, east of Afghanistan (news - web sites) and north of the Tibetan plateau. Full of dusty deserts, soaring mountains and eight million Muslims, Xinjiang is--like so many geopolitically sensitive places--the middle of nowhere. (Early 20th century British explorer Aurel Stein noted the region's "desolate wilderness, bearing everywhere the impress of death.") Today Chinese-occupied Central Asia is a case study in how American foreign policy turns pro-American Muslims into deadly enemies.

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Then came 9/11. The Bush Administration, wanting to avert a Chinese veto of its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (news - web sites) in the U.N. security council, drafted China into the "war on terrorism" by granting it a free pass to beat up its Tibetans and Uyghurs. Citing the fact that ETIM members had received arms and training from the Taliban (but only to fight China), China convinced the U.S. State Department to declare the group a "terrorist organization" affiliated with Al Qaeda. In "Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland," Graham Fuller and Jonathan Lippman write that this "U.S. declaration catastrophic" for the Uyghurs. The United States had given Beijing "carte blanche to designate all Uyghur nationalist...movements as 'terrorist.'"



Twenty-two Uyghurs have since joined the ranks of the "terrorists" incarcerated at Guantánanamo concentration camp. Two Uyghur men, 29 and 31, faced a U.S. military tribunal on November 19, charged only with membership in ETIM and attending a Taliban training camp for anti-Chinese fighters. Military insiders say most of the Uyghurs will eventually be released, but not to China--our ally in the "war on terrorism"--because they would probably be tortured and/or executed.


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<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ucru/20041215/cm_ucru/sellingouttheuyghurs>


From friendlies to Gitmo in no time flat. Another victory in the war on some terrorists.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Oh no!

Most of these Muslims were, at least at one time, Sufis-our Way is not one of violence, but tolerance. It is sad to know that people are turning to fundamentalism because of the policies of the US.

[DrDebug]

2. The Uyghurs are a one of those typical forgotten minorties

And China has not only committed genocide in Tibet, but also in East-Turkmenistan. There is not much known about what was gone on there but the sources which are known tell of a destruction which is even worse then in Tibet and probably even more people killed.

And of course China would be the first to use the anti-terrorist measures to excuse the human rights violations in their minority regions.

[signmike]

3. If Bush doesn't need U.N. approval,

then why does China need his? There must be more to the story, like maybe they had actual help from Bush?