The story behind a story

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen

By Cal Thomas

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?" - "Alice in Wonderland"

What we are led to believe by an often lazy and Obama-supporting big media, enabled by a deliberately ignorant public that lacks, rather than longs, for the truth, is not as it first seems. Take just one example.

Remember the four Chinese Uighurs released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay? They were flown to Bermuda, where they now reside under conditions that are better than any they might have imagined. The story line cast the men as innocent victims of a military terrorist sweep in Afghanistan.

There are other Uighur detainees at Guantanamo ... for now, despite the fact that the left is doing everything in its power to have them released and resettled elsewhere. This is also despite the fact that the Obama administration, which no longer uses the words "war on terror" to describe the war on terror, seems intent on redefining those held at Gitmo - the better to make them seem nonthreatening. Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley recently referred to them as "refugees."

Last Tuesday, The Washington Post carried a story about two of them, brothers Bahtiyar Mahnut and Arkin Mahmud. The Post story suggested that Mr. Mahnut and Mr. Mahmud were being held for no good reason and should be freed. Problem is most countries are hesitant about accepting the Uighurs for fear of angering China. The Uighurs, you see, are a Turkish ethnic group - Muslim Chinese nationalists - whom the Chinese government has labeled "terrorists." The South Pacific island of Palau, however, agreed to take Mr. Mahnut but not his brother. In an apparent demonstration of Uighur "family values," Mr. Mahnut refused to leave without Mr. Mahmud.

The Post's Web page features an embedded video of the brothers' lawyer, Elizabeth Gilson, who explains that the men just "ended up in Afghanistan," apparently like one might end up pregnant, without knowing how.

Had The Post dug a little deeper, it would have found the truth about the brothers. According to Gitmo's Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT), a senior al Qaeda terrorist in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan trained Mr. Mahnut. Mr. Mahnut admitted as much when he explained to his interrogators why he went to Afghanistan: "To our knowledge there was no fighting with the Chinese in Afghanistan, and it was therefore a safe place to train so we could one day fight the Chinese. The person running the camp was Abdul Haq, and he was a Uighur."

And who, you might ask (but The Post didn't) is Abdul Haq? According to the U.S. Treasury Department, he's a senior al Qaeda member who sits on al-Qaeda's Shura Council. He is also the leader of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), also known as the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, which has been designated by both the United States and the U.N. as a terrorist organization.

Given these facts, one might reasonably doubt that these brothers were anything less than brothers in arms with a distinct mission. The only allusion to any of this was contained in three sentences in the Post story. It said, "Authorities alleged at the time that the men trained in military-style camps affiliated with the Taliban or al-Qaeda. The accusations later dissolved upon close scrutiny by the courts."

There was no "close scrutiny" by the courts. Abdul Haq is a known terrorist. That the Uighur detainees (excuse me, refugees) were trained by him ought to be all the evidence needed to convince us they were up to no good.

Need more? The NEFA Foundation (www.NEFAfoundation.org) has obtained and translated an article published in the Turkistan Islamic Party's "Islamic Turkestan" magazine titled, "America is Leading the Capitalist World Toward Collapse." The article says charging interest is against the will of Allah and "His Messenger" and that those who use interest will be "struck with the wrath of Allah," apparently with the help of the Uighurs and other terrorists, uh, refugees.

These are the doctrines followed by those who wish to destroy us. We had better pay attention.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist.