Wonkette
Hot damn it’s a good thing the United States refused to allow “these Uighur characters” to resettle in Northern Virginia because, aside from all the terrorism they were planning to plan in your backyard, against you, they are shiftless beach bums who refuse to ever take jobs. You know those slobs who go on Spring Break during college but refuse to ever go back and just slum around the bars of South Padre Island for the rest of their lives, eating raw crawdaddies and roofie-ing wacky old lesbians for bloodsport? Well they are all Uighurs.
The New York Times, among others, has sent its most liberal reporters to Bermuda to check in on the four Uighurs who were sent there from Guantanamo last week, to resettle as “guest workers,” against Her Majesty Elizabeth Windsor’s royal objections. But no one is working. All they do is eat ice cream and catch dumb fish and go swimming in their tee shirts, like grandfathers.
In newly purchased polo shirts and chinos, the four husky men, members of a restive ethnic minority from western China, might blend in except for their scruffy beards. Smelling hibiscus flowers, luxuriating in the freedom to drift through scenic streets and harbors, they expressed wonder at their good fortune in landing here after a captivity that included more than a year in solitary confinement.
“I went swimming in the ocean for the first time ever yesterday, and it was the happiest day of my life,” said Salahidin Abdulahat, 32.
[...]
Now they can play in the waters. Khaleel Mamut, 31, said he went fishing on a boat on Saturday and caught his first fish ever. “I was so excited,” he said. “You just drop the hook in the water and you get a fish.” Hearing that fishing did not always bring such quick results, one of the other men quipped that perhaps the fish were joining in Bermuda’s welcome.
Oh forget the gimmick. This just makes us happy. WE WANT A PET UIGHUR!
Out of Guantanamo, Uighurs bask in Bermuda [NYT]
These guys were never a threat, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even the Bush administration admitted this.
The way I see it, we’re lucky if all they want is to spend the rest of their lives on a tropical beach at our expense.
Is everyone shedding a single silent tear, or is it just me?
That totally makes up for 7 years of torturous, pointless incarceration.
What the fuck is going on at the NY Times? I mean, seriously.
Those dang Uighurs and their rap music and saggy pants.
That’s gotta be the weirdest lifestyle transition in history. For now I’m just happy that these guys aren’t completely messed up in the head after what we did to them.
The yellowtails are waiting to be caught by their friends the Chinese muslims.
Crab1: I’d spend 7 years in jail if it would get me to Bermuda. Hell, I’d spend 7 years in jail if it would get me to Fresno.
Hope they manage to get some sexy sexy sex too.
They simply cannot be happy without Jesus in their lives.
I’m going to buy Sims 3 for the express purpose of putting virtual Uighurs wherever the fuck bedwetting reactionary terrorphobes congregate.
This sounds too much like a Pauly Shore movie.
It’s a great vacation package, but the preliminaries are complete hell.
NoWireHangers: No, it’s not just you.
Fox n Fiends: Or Rush n Newt…
DEATH TO AMERI… oooh look, a butterfly!
Monsieur Grumpe: Guantanodome: “Salahidin and Khaleel are here to save the world. But who’s gonna save the world from Salahidin and Khaleel?”
I suspect this is a side effect of growing up under a repressive regime: one takes it as given that one will eventually be incarcerated at the government’s pleasure, and possibly even tortured and killed. What one does *not* ever plan for is that your captors will then ship you off to a tropical island to fish and splash around in the ocean.
I’m surprised that Higgins is cool with letting them crash at his place—I thought for sure he’d make Rick and T.C. chopper ‘em back to Gitmo. Should of known that Magnum would work everything out in the end…
Udargo: hmmm, having lived in hell, otherwise known as Fresno, for seven years, I think that I have already done “7 years of tortorous, pointless incarceration.”
I read the NYTimes article, complete w/numerous photos of said Uighurs. There was a quote about them “not resenting” the USA at all for their inconvenience of being jailed and tortured for no reason for 7 years. Either someone’s blowing smoke, or I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. I’m glad these dudes are now living large in a tropical paradise, but… ya gotta wonder if some of these “ex” prisoners don’t get mad about the “inconvenience.” Just saying… but prefer to set them free.
NoWireHangers: so it’s all red stripe and rum, shrimp and jerk chicken for them now. I thought these were among the “worst of the worst” and the redcoats were going to hang them on Execution Dock in Ramsgate as a warning to the Somalis. Or something.
Monsieur Grumpe:
I was thinking this movie…
“Red: [narrating] I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope. “
paintitblack: Oops, responded to your comment before you made it. Apologies for the inconvenience.
the Uighurs won. Get over it.
I wonder how the Uighurs who were sent to ALBANIA(!!!) feel about all this?
I think Joseph Heller organized this whole thing from heaven. It ends with the macarena and mood rings for everyone!
Hart88: Agreed. What was done to them was monstrous. Good for Bermuda, Palau, and Albania.
My question is: if they were never a threat, why couldn’t they have stayed in/come to the U.S.? After what we did to them, the least we could have done is set them up with housing, jobs, and transition services somewhere here, though I wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t want to stay in the land of guns, God (Christian only!), and Gingrich.
Is the U.S. government assuming that seven years of unlawful imprisonment in a hellhole without cause or a chance to defend yourself might be enough to turn peaceable folks into terrorists against those who imprisoned them? Shoulda thought of that before you went around locking them up. Thanks a lot, Bushies.
They should get a decent stipend/pension/guilt money for as many years as they were held captive. It should be delivered monthly by Dick Cheney who will beg thier forgiveness on his knees in downtown Hamilton. Once Cheney is no longer available the honor could be rotated among John Bolton, William Kristol and Richard Perle.
Hmph. First this and then next it’s “The sheriff is a UIGHUR!”
There’s nothing like spending a year in solitary confinement to make you stop and smell the roses.
I love a happy ending.
Uighurs may learn about this typeof massage in Bermuda.
19kevin8: oh snap
The Lucky Republican: Albania’s got some beaches. It’s like Greece or so I’ve heard…
It’s like these guys were pieces in some kind of totally crazy Monopoly game. Happy endings, men!
“I’m on a Boat” by Andy Samberg, f/Khaleel Mamut and T-Payne
Nanks: The US Govt was probably afraid of being sued, and losing.
Zhu Bajie
mrpuma2u: Say that to a Greek and you risk going to their version of Gitmo. Even if it’s true.
“Bermuda: It don’t GITMO better than this.”
Frolick, Uighurs, frolick!
That article just made me weep with happiness. I’m taking my next vacation in Bermuda, dammit. You know, if I can ever afford a real vacation again.
if these guys are happy just wait until we hear from the ones being sent to a south pacific paradise
The U.S. is just lucky that they’re not suing us for every last penny.
I would rip their skin off (skin them alive) and make them walk into the clear, blue Bermuda salt water….OUCH!
That’s cause they know we don’t have any pennies left.