Aks Uncle Mxy a Political Question (Enlightenment Inside)

[Fool]

Someone make one of those and av and it'll be all over the net in days.

[Tahoe]

Hey Mxy that was a bunch of shit that Stevens lost his elections days after being convicted on charges by our gov't when the prosecutors did some serious wrong doings in that case? No?

Our Gov't = Fuckheads

[Tahoe]

And yes, I know Bush was President for the last 8 years.

[Uncle Mxy]

Hey Mxy that was a bunch of shit that Stevens lost his elections days after being convicted on charges by our gov't when the prosecutors did some serious wrong doings in that case? No?

Yeah, there was a lot of bad shit happening there.

My understanding here is that Stevens received gifts that he did not disclose as required by law. He did significant political favors specifically for the folks who gave him the gifts. His defense of "I'd have paid the bills if only they had billed me, and then they wouldn't have been gifts" doesn't pass the laugh test given the breadth of the gifts involved. Tahoe, you do this sort of thing for a living. How often do you add a wing to someone's house and not discuss the costs or send them a bill?

By all rights, the prosecution should have been able to win this case handily. Instead, they attempted to hide evidence which could support his feeble argument, and we end up with a fucked up mess instead of a baked Alaskan. In Stevens case, the right sort of punishment ultimately happened. Voters had the key facts of his unethical behavior and voted him out. It seems like Holder did the right thing as far as re-prosecuting. Let's see if there's any followup in sanctioning the bullshit prosecutors.

[geerussell]

To: Uncle Mxy, WTF Political Analyst


Mxy.

Outside of direct government spending, what sectors are going to create jobs in a couple years when the huddled survivors emerge from their caves to survey the aftermath of the ragnarokonomy?

[Uncle Mxy]

To: geerussell, the demanding list writer

gee,

Invest in funeral homes and other death-related services. And, the world's oldest profession will always endure and lure.

[jturbo]

Hi Mxy,

So this past weekend my Dad commented to me about how that crazy Obama was going to let Al Quida(sp?) prisoners from Gitmo into the U.S. to live....oh and he'll give them money.

PLEASE destroy this.

[Uncle Mxy]

This is about the Uighurs/ETIM prisoners, which are being called "inmates" and "Al Qaeda" by the press to obscure what's going on.

Uighurs are Muslim Turks within China (and other countries') borders. Their status within China is roughly analogous to the Kurds' in Saddam's Iraq and in Turkey. ETIM is a separatist movement of Uighurs. The Chinese don't want the Uighurs to be their own distinct nation for much the same reasons that the Iraqis and Turks don't wanted the Kurds to be their own nation - they're in oil-rich terrain and no country wants a hostile state AT its border.

The connection between the Uighurs/ETIM and Al Qaeda is tenuous. They're clearly connected in the sense that the Taliban allowed both to operate in Afghanistan. But the ETIM folks ar focused on "terrorism" against China and its lovely human rights record, and aren't part of general attacks against the western world. The Chechens have ties to Al Qaeda through the Taliban and some other channels, but they aren't Al Qaeda, and their principal target is Russia.

Shortly after 9/11, the Chinese said "the Uighurs are Al Qaeda". We captured the ones in Gitmo and stated that based off our interrogations, "yes, they're part of Al Qaeda". Between the U.S. and China, the U.N. said "yes, they're part of Al Qaeda". You'd think that if China and the U.S. could agree on something, it must be true. If only the facts didn't get in the way...

The Chinese are known to lie about such things, and their announcement seemed timed to get us to attack their enemies for them once we committed to attacking Afghanistan. The paper trail of our investigations with them concluded that they weren't much of a threat, especially not to us. They never attacked us, and there wasn't indication that they would attack us (as distinct from China, who isn't exactly pleasant to the Uighurs -- they rank right up there with Tibetans).

So, what do we do? Well, if we're the Bush administration, we keep them cooped up (often in solitary confinement) with a kangaroo court and turn their brains to mush while giving the world a reason to hate us. Obama is trying to do something different, keeping in mind that they haven't wronged us in any real way, they've done hard time for whatever crime they may have committed against us, and the world would hate us if we deported them to China to be executed.

Remember, the Chinese have said that Tibetan dissidents have ties to Al Qaeda. Why do we let the Dalai Lama into our country and make money being in ads and such? Why is your grandpa falling for Chinese propaganda? Too much Fox News and Weekly Standard? Hell, even the Bush administration figured out that these guys were a bunch of nobodies as far as our overall interests were concerned, but just didn't know what the fuck to do so they kept 'em in jail.

[Tahoe]

Hi Mxy,

So this past weekend my Dad commented to me about how that crazy Obama was going to let Al Quida(sp?) prisoners from Gitmo into the U.S. to live....oh and he'll give them money.

PLEASE destroy this.

Tahoe's translation of what Mxy wrote and I know you didn't ask for it....Its basically true.

This is about the Uighurs/ETIM prisoners, which are being called "inmates" and "Al Qaeda" by the press to obscure what's going on.

Uighurs are Muslim Turks within China (and other countries') borders. Their status within China is roughly analogous to the Kurds' in Saddam's Iraq and in Turkey. ETIM is a separatist movement of Uighurs. The Chinese don't want the Uighurs to be their own distinct nation for much the same reasons that the Iraqis and Turks don't wanted the Kurds to be their own nation - they're in oil-rich terrain and no country wants a hostile state AT its border.

The connection between the Uighurs/ETIM and Al Qaeda is tenuous. They're clearly connected in the sense that the Taliban allowed both to operate in Afghanistan. But the ETIM folks ar focused on "terrorism" against China and its lovely human rights record, and aren't part of general attacks against the western world. The Chechens have ties to Al Qaeda through the Taliban and some other channels, but they aren't Al Qaeda, and their principal target is Russia.

Shortly after 9/11, the Chinese said "the Uighurs are Al Qaeda". We captured the ones in Gitmo and stated that based off our interrogations, "yes, they're part of Al Qaeda". Between the U.S. and China, the U.N. said "yes, they're part of Al Qaeda". You'd think that if China and the U.S. could agree on something, it must be true. If only the facts didn't get in the way...

The Chinese are known to lie about such things, and their announcement seemed timed to get us to attack their enemies for them once we committed to attacking Afghanistan. The paper trail of our investigations with them concluded that they weren't much of a threat, especially not to us. They never attacked us, and there wasn't indication that they would attack us (as distinct from China, who isn't exactly pleasant to the Uighurs -- they rank right up there with Tibetans).

So, what do we do? Well, if we're the Bush administration, we keep them cooped up (often in solitary confinement) with a kangaroo court and turn their brains to mush while giving the world a reason to hate us. Obama is trying to do something different, keeping in mind that they haven't wronged us in any real way, they've done hard time for whatever crime they may have committed against us, and the world would hate us if we deported them to China to be executed.

Remember, the Chinese have said that Tibetan dissidents have ties to Al Qaeda. Why do we let the Dalai Lama into our country and make money being in ads and such? Why is your grandpa falling for Chinese propaganda? Too much Fox News and Weekly Standard? Hell, even the Bush administration figured out that these guys were a bunch of nobodies as far as our overall interests were concerned, but just didn't know what the fuck to do so they kept 'em in jail.

[Uncle Mxy]

Tahoe's translation of what Mxy wrote and I know you didn't ask for it....Its basically true.

<laughs> Man, do I ramble when I'm tired.

The short answer is: The Chinese trumped up these guys connections to Al Qaeda so we'd take down people they didn't like without their lifting a finger. These prisoners aren't exactly nice people, but they're not terrorists against anyone but China. They didn't do anything bad to us, but we put 'em in Gitmo anyway. The world thinks we're shitheads because of this, and we want to play kissie-face with the world, so we are playing nice. Letting them go on U.S. soil doesn't really hurt us, and sticks it to China.