Andy McCarthy Cheers on the Commies
Over at The Corner, National Review's Andy McCarthy sees the Uighur uprising in China as vindication of the Bush administration's detainment of several Uighur Muslims in Guantanamo:
Hard to Believe the Lovable Uighurs Could Be Involved in Terrorism…
…even though the ones we were holding at Gitmo were trained in al-Qaeda-affiliated camps.
The Wall Street Journal (as flagged in the NRO web briefing) reports on rioting in China by Uighur "students" that has left scores dead and hundreds wounded. The "students," described elsewhere in the story as from a "predominantly Muslim ethnic group[, which has] long chafed at restrictions on their civil liberties and religious practices imposed by a Chinese government fearful of political dissent," expressed their dissent by torching cars and buses, as well as — according to accounts of some witnesses to state-controlled media — rampaging "with big knives stabbing people" on the street.
No reason for non-Muslims in Bermuda, Palau, or the United States to worry, though. The lovable Uighurs are merely trying to address "economic and social discrimination." Once they get social justice, I'm sure they'll stop.
There was once a time when, if an ethnic minority was rising up against an oppressive communist regime, you could count on National Review to side with the rabble-rousers fighting for political freedom, not the commies. But I guess that was pre-September 11. Now it's apparently all about siding with whoever is killing Muslims.
McCarthy might want to look over this FBI report (PDF, via Obsidian Wings) about the Uighurs at Gitmo, whom even the Bush administration conceded were captured by mistake and never posed a threat to the United States.
The Uighurs are moderate Muslims who occupied East Turkestan, which was taken over by the Chinese and renamed the Xinjiang province of China. The Uighurs were offered land in Afghanistan in order to gather personnel opposing Chinese oppression. They were often inspired by Radio Free Asia, which [redacted] was often a broadcaster for. The Uighurs considered themselves to be fighting for democracy, and they idolized the United States. Although the Uighurs are Muslim their agenda did not appear to include Islamic radicalism. They claimed to have no political connection to Islamic terrorists or the Taliban. However, their camp in Afghanistan was bombed, and they fled to Pakistan. The Uighurs were captured by the Pakistanis, with half being transferred to US custody, and half being remanded directly to Chinese officials. It was alleged that the Uighurs who were transferred directly to the Chinese were immediately executed. At the time of my TDY, US officials were considering whether to return the Uighurs to the Chinese, possibly to gain support for anticipated US action in the Middle East.
McCarthy might also want to read this account of the Uighurs plight since China seized what was then called East Turkistan a half-century ago, although it was admittedly written for some crazy left-wing rag:
My homeland has been under Chinese Communist rule for the past 56 years. Uyghurs, like Buddhists in Tibet, are forbidden to pray or speak freely. When Western reporters talk about how China's political situation is improving alongside rapid economic growth, I know they have not visited East Turkistan. Where I grew up, people today are still being executed for speaking out against injustice. East Turkistan is the only province in the People's Republic of China where people are still being executed for political reasons. Of course, China no longer labels us "counter-revolutionaries" or "American running dogs." Now Beijing calls us terrorists, hoping to legitimize their oppression by describing it as part of China's war on terror.
…and what happened to them after September 11:
…the government seized the opportunity to advance its campaign to assimilate forcefully Uyghurs into the Chinese culture. Uyghur books were burned, and now we Uyghurs can no longer speak our language in universities (and an increasing number of high schools). It is hard to describe to someone who lives in a free society, particularly in America, which has never been occupied, how it feels not to be able to own and speak your language.
Our freedom to practice religion has turned into a privilege regulated by the CCP. Chinese officials recently bragged that three million births in East Turkistan were avoided, meaning that that unborn Uyghur children have been forcibly aborted. In short, the Chinese Communist Party's assault on the existence of the Uyghur nation has been intensified under the banner of China's own war on terror. Uyghurs who peacefully oppose this injustice are labeled as terrorists. Many who escaped to neighboring countries like Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were returned to China and executed. Uyghurs want peace, freedom, democracy, and human rights, including the right to be Muslim.
If the Uighur students are indeed "rampaging 'with big knives stabbing people' on the street," that's a regrettable form of protest. It's amusing, though, to see a National Review contributor quote a communist country's state-controlled media account of anti-government protests in order to make his point.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Regrettable? Eh.
Er, obviously it’s sad if innocent people died, but it seems that in large measure the Han are inflicting slow genocide on the Uighurs, and in that case lashouts are entirely forgivable, and every official sent from Beijing ought to be strung up.
Its official, Spoonmanm, we can stick a fork in Radley’s inexplicable and indefensible use of the the word regrettable to describe what more of us should be doing to any person in the employ of, or sympathetic to, the state.
Nothing the US government does (domestically) compares to the apparent Chinese treatment of the Uighurs, libertymike.
Wow! did McCarthy fuck Balko’s wife or something?
“It is hard to describe to someone who lives in a free society, particularly in America, which has never been occupied, how it feels not to be able to own and speak your language.”
quoi?
Why is it always the ones with the least amount of perspective who have the loudest voices?
So all these Uighurs received al queda training and the best they can do is hack some Han to death with gardening tools? I’m sleeping easier tonight.
The most interesting fact here is that McCarthy — a former prosecutor — apparently thinks it sufficient reason to oppose a prisoner’s release if crimes have been committed by other members of the same ethnic group.
To coin a phrase, I think you’re lookin’ for logic in all the wrong places.
National Review has utterly invested itself in the “War on Terror”, Guantanamo, and all things related. At this point I’m surprised they haven’t retroactively supported the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. So I’m not getting too surprised here.
How times have changed- when I was kid a Uighur was a white kid who listened to Rick James records!
Too bad Reason wasn’t this skeptical of NRO back when they were smearing Ron Paul at a critical point in his campaign.
“rampaging ‘with big knives stabbing people’ on the street,” that’s a regrettable form of protest.
Um, no, it is not “a regettable form of protest.” It is ugly violence. Apparently National Review is not the only right-of-center journal to voice a dubious stand.
Not your best moment, Radley.
“How times have changed- when I was kid a Uighur was a white kid who listened to Rick James records!”
Where the hell was Rick James’ Staples Center send-off?
Hit the bricks, Howee Carr.
Last time I checked, the victims of totalitarian regimes had the moral right to insurrection.
I guess you too will soon be ret-conning the past to show how you supported the Soviets against the Afghani revolution all along, also.
Howee Carr: “Those guys who tried to assassinate Hitler? Monsters.”
Dick.
Um, no, it is not “a regettable form of protest.” It is ugly violence.
Perhaps, if that’s actually what’s happening. But then, if the forced abortions, executions, and suppression of language, culture, and political dissent that the Uighur writer describes are all true, I’d be hesitant to cast moral aspersions on a violent uprising.
I’m willing to believe the over 150ish deaths so far in the riots. I’m just a wee bit skeptical that all of those deaths were caused by those evil terrorist Uyghurs, while those poor defenseless Chinese riot police tried to break things up with soft pillows and comfy chairs. None of those deaths could have possibly been caused by the military breaking up riots in a country that doesn’t exactly have the freest press in the world. No, we should all trust the official propa^H^H^H news coming out of China, because we’re all fighting the same bad guys…
~Jon
Is it OK to overthrow a regime before it becomes totalitarian? What if that means not following “the principles of democracy”?
(I’m hinting clumsily at the situation in Honduras with ex-president Zaphod)
Is it OK to overthrow a regime before it becomes totalitarian? What if that means not following “the principles of democracy”?
(I’m hinting clumsily at the situation in Honduras with ex-president [Zelaya])
How about the situation in Niger?
And, for what it’s worth…
“US condemns Niger third-term bid”
(The White House statement was apparently issued after Mr. Zuckerman’s post.)
“Is it OK to overthrow a regime before it becomes totalitarian? What if that means not following “the principles of democracy”?”
Democracy != liberty. This lesson seems hard to internalize. Democracy may be necessary for liberty (although it might not) but it’s definitely not sufficient.
If you elect a totalitarian government through democratic process, that doesn’t magically make you more free.
I’m baffled by our insistence, in Iraq at the least, on establishing a democratic form of government. Without a guarantee of individual liberty, what does it matter how the tyrants are chosen?
It seems that if we are in the dubious business of building new states, our refusal to declare something like our Bill of Rights as a primary goal is… counterproductive at best, and maliciously self-defeating at worst.
A great dose of Irony here since the NRO was calling our Clown in Chief a terrorist sympathizer since he didnt support the Iranian students.
Some years ago, before 9/11 I believe, I saw Paul Weyrich, noted conservative, on CSPN talking about his trip to Russia. He announced his support for the Russian government’s war on the Chechens, because the Chechens were tied in with Islamic terrorists.
At the time, the Russians were applying barbaric levels of force against the Chechen people, and Mr Weyrich did not even comment on it. Paul Weyrich’s talk was a spiritual antecedent to Andrew McCarthy’s new support for Red China’s police state.
We need to start shipping them stingers and AK’s immediately. Maybe we can just buy the arms from China and not have to ship them. Fuck ya, we can pay off some deficit with that.
Islam is a big threat and its good to see National Review opposing it.
It is a far cry from the Libertarian Rhoemites who kept quiet when a disciple of Islam shoot and nearly killed the wife of a Libertarian organizer. The Libertarian movement kept quiet because anti-Semitism is more important that survival/self interest just as Hitler would give rolling stock priority to shipping Jews to death camps rather than resupplying the whermacht on the eastern front.
“There’s no need to fear. Underzog is here!”
The Jewish Defense League Marching Song
underdipshit, you love to call us “Rhoemites”, yet his name was spelled R?hm, or sometimes anglicized to Roehm, but not Rhoem.
Try to get your idiotic hyperbolic insults right, m’kay?
Islam is a big threat and [it’s] good to see National Review opposing it.
So why isn’t NR taking a tough stand against the world’s most-populous Muslim country?
How you creeps cover up for Islam. Are Jews really that bad?
If the Muslim take over, I hope they cut off your heads first.
It’s only fair.
“There’s no need to fear. Underzog is here!”
Fluffy, I don’t see how sunday afternoon shoppers and random pedestrians equate to Hitler, but Im sure they all had it coming and deserved to be beaten and hacked to death according to the moral insurrection rights of the Uighurs.
Unfortunately the Han Chinese civilian population are unsatisfied and feel that their rights of life and property have been infringed upon and have admirably organized themselves independent of the state to defend those rights as any true libertarian would and maybe torch the nearest mosque while they are at it.
Obviously they feel that the Chinese police didn’t machine gun down enough Uighor rio… sorry demonstrators, to properly put them in their place. It couldn’t have been the fact that great majority of dead are Han Chinese civilians butchered by a Muslim mob. Can’t be that at all. Don’t you know Islam is the religion of peace?
How you creeps cover up for Islam. Are Jews really that bad?
So, it’s better for Muslims to be killed than for them to be saved?
“Equate to Hitler….”
The Muslims are worse than the Nazis. Even the Nazis didn’t jump up and down with joy when they killed Jews; ergo, the Libertarians are supporters of people worse than Hitler.
Incidentally, Phyllis Chesler points out that the rampant pederasty of the Arab world contributes to their murderous anti-Semitism. The Libertarian party has been called the child molestors party. It makes me wonder if vast numbers of Libertarians were sodomized as children and have muderous hatred for Jews as a result like their Arab/Muslim heroes.
It’s a scary thought to contemplate.
“There’s no need to fear. Underzog is here!”
p.s. As Libertarians feel completely at home with Muslims murdering Jews and maybe everyone else, there is no way the narcotic saturated Rhoemites can save them.
[Me:] So, it’s better for Muslims to be killed than for them to be saved?
[Underzog:] p.s. As Libertarians feel completely at home with Muslims murdering Jews and maybe everyone else, there is no way the narcotic saturated Rhoemites can save them.
Obviously, you didn’t follow the link; if you had, you would’ve understood what I meant by “saved”.
I did follow the link you dofus!
Why should Libertarians save a group they seem to largely agree with and make criminal rationalizations for?
The stupid things you guys say write. Are you all on drugs?
“There’s no need to fear. Underzog is here”
“And thou shalt call him Ismael and he will be a wildman. His hand against everyman and everyman’s hand against him.”
Genesis 16:12
“The Arabs are savages who just don’t want to use their minds.”
Ayn Rand
Between 100 and 200 are dead from the riots. The Uighur Muslims may have cause to complain, but killing their neighbors is not justified.
I did follow the link you [doofus]!
Why should Libertarians save a group they seem to largely agree with and make criminal rationalizations for?
If you really did understand what I meant by “saved”, you would realize that it’s not me or anyone else here “saving” them.
I’m not saying that you would agree with the Christian doctrine of salvation (especially as it relates to evangelicals), but I’m pretty sure that you would understand the basic concept that it refers to.
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9 (New International Version)
One more thing EJM, you’re wrong about me. During a Cindy Sheehan peace demonstration, I wore an Ann Coulter t shirt, quoting the beauty when she said we should bomb their countries, kill their leaders, and convert the population to Christianity: HERE
If I was a Christian I would’ve become a Christian martyr as the Commies were gently saying they would beat the shit out of me.
I also told Ann Coulter about the incident HERE
“There’s no need to fear. Underzog is here”
The Jewish Defense League Marching Song
One more thing EJM, you’re wrong about me. During a Cindy Sheehan peace demonstration, I wore an Ann Coulter t shirt, quoting the beauty when she said we should bomb their countries, kill their leaders, and convert the population to Christianity
How many missionary organizations have agreed with her statement? (Any of the ones listed here, perchance?)
My my my EJM. Picky picky picayune.
Since my attempt to suggest that Muslims should convert to Christians is not good enough for you (and the suggestion was done at risk to my own life), there is obviously no getting on your good side (if you even have one).
As that is the case, we’ll need to kill a lot of Muslims to calm them down from their bloodlust. Just as the West’s appeasement of Islam will fail because the Muslims regard kindness as weakness, so my attempts to get along with the Ernst Rhoem wannabe Libertarians will fail because they are of the same mindset as the Islamic savages: Palestinians celebrating 9/11 attack
“There’s no need to fear. Underzog is here!”
Since my attempt to suggest that Muslims should convert to Christians is not good enough for you…
That wasn’t your suggestion at all; you were advocating forced conversions–along the lines of, say, what Spain did to its Jewish population in the 15th century.
Moral equivalence.
Murdered Jews and murderous Arabs/Muslims are not the same thing, EJM.
“There’s no need to fear. Underzog is here!”
Murdered Jews and murderous Arabs/Muslims are not the same thing, EJM.
No, they’re not. But, it’s just as correct to say…
Murdered Christians and murderous Hindus are not the same thing, EJM.
…or…
Murdered Christians and murderous atheists are not the same thing, EJM.
…or…
Murdered Sinhalese and murderous Tamils are not the same thing, EJM.
…or…
Murdered Tamils and murderous Sinhalese are not the same thing, EJM.
If you want to argue that Islam, as a religion, does promote violence, go right ahead. However, you cannot argue that it, therefore, is some sort of infection that precludes any free will among its adherents whatsoever. After all, without free will, you can’t truly convert.
Your ignorance and your methods deserve nothing but scorn.
If you chaps are ignorant about Islam and you certainly are, then you should find out about the subject before your fellow Reasonoids go about bashing the Jews for the half hearted attempts they do make to defend themselves.
Underzog,
Their is no law that says that you cant fly to the Middle East and kill them yourself. If your such a staunch defender of freedom why dont you and your other Buchananites do it yourself or are you just like alot of other nuts and are nothing but punks and just want our military to do it.
The Buchananites are on your side, LibertarianBlue.
They want the destruction of Israel, too. Pat Buchanan may hate the Jews because he might’ve been molested as an altar boy, just as many of the Palis growing up hate the Jews because of the rampant pederasty that goes on in their society (per Phyllis Chesler).
Where do you get the idea that Pat Buchanan is pro Israel? Or are you that much anti-Semitic that even the most avant garde of the anti-Semites pales in comparison to you chaps?
Sheesh!
“There’s no need to fear. Underzog is here!”
Underzog, you’ve got your foot very far in your mouth with your responses to this article. Some Muslim countries in central Asia have a good history of being tolerant towards Jews and are building warm relationships with Israel. Peres just visited Azerbaijan despite objections from Iran. Infact, Azerbaijani officals are peeved at the Iranian government for its attempts to nix the visit. Peres also got a warm welcome during his recent trip to Kazakhstan. Muslims are not a monolith.
The Austrailian has updates on the situation in China. China’s president left the G8 meeting early to handle the riots. Ethnic Hans are rallying for revenge. The police have imposed curfews and restrictions on protests.
I’m not talking about hitting Azerbijan — it’s Iran with its upcoming nukes that are the problem.
Also, it’s clear that Azerbijan is very loose in its practice of Islam. The same cannot be said for Iran.
Anyone who has follwed it can see the wreckage that Islam has done in Europe with the torture death of the Jew Halmi in Paris or the rape hunts of women in the Swedish town of Malmo HERE
And the general atmosphere of Islamic terror has come to America, though not the frequency of Europe because there aren’t enough Moslems yet. In this LINK the Islamic thugs are attacking people for just asking questions of a pamphlet that the Islamics themselves put out.
Don’t give me this bs that Islam is peaceful. Mohammed made it a death cult/warrior creed and that is the way they are acting it out.
p.s. I expect some cowardly reasonoid will call for the video to be taken down because it shows the American Muslims in their true light. The reasonoids/Rhoemites here are such scum that I put nothing past them.
Balko makes a good point, but a lot of the Uighur resistance isn’t based on freedom vs. communism, but on good ol’ fashioned ethnic tribalism. Even a good part of the Tibetian resistance to Chinese occupation can be better explained by ethnic tribalism. In the riots last year in Tibet, Han shopkeepers were targeted more than government facilities.
Han Chinese are reviled in most parts of Asia except for in China. The roots of the hatred mimic stereotypes that we in the West are familiar with. First, the Chinese leave China and “take argggh jyobs!” [Lonewacko call your office]. Second, the clever, money-grubbing chinese emigrants use their secret and wily influence to cheat the honest and hard working ethnic aboriginals.
Han Chinese are reviled in most parts of Asia except for in China. The roots of the hatred mimic stereotypes that we in the West are familiar with. First, the Chinese leave China and “take argggh jyobs!” [Lonewacko call your office]. Second, the clever, money-grubbing chinese emigrants use their secret and wily influence to cheat the honest and hard working ethnic aboriginals./i>
There is also the fact that China, having conquered areas on its borders, wants to make those possessions permanent by forcibly relocating Han Chinese to these areas in numbers sufficient to swamp the native populations.
That’s what makes the animosity towards the Han different in Tibet and among the Uighurs than it is in Malaya, for example.
Fluffy, I don’t see how sunday afternoon shoppers and random pedestrians equate to Hitler, but Im sure they all had it coming and deserved to be beaten and hacked to death according to the moral insurrection rights of the Uighurs.
If you’re going to argue that oppressed people can’t engage in insurrection if it creates any chance that any civilian whatsoever will be injured, fine. That is a plausible moral position.
Now apply it to the war in Iraq.
I’ll be happy to trade you a “The Uighurs are monsters and their cause is proven evil because innocent bystanders were injured when they rioted” for the absolutely analogous “The Bush administration was made up of monsters and the Iraq war was proven evil by the fact that innocent civilians died during its prosecution”. Want to make that trade? I’ll bet you don’t.
Sorry, close tag.
Trying again.
Han Chinese are reviled in most parts of Asia except for in China. The roots of the hatred mimic stereotypes that we in the West are familiar with. First, the Chinese leave China and “take argggh jyobs!” [Lonewacko call your office]. Second, the clever, money-grubbing chinese emigrants use their secret and wily influence to cheat the honest and hard working ethnic aboriginals.
There is also the fact that China, having conquered areas on its borders, wants to make those possessions permanent by forcibly relocating Han Chinese to these areas in numbers sufficient to swamp the native populations.
That’s what makes the animosity towards the Han different in Tibet and among the Uighurs than it is in Malaya, for example.
Fluffy, I don’t see how sunday afternoon shoppers and random pedestrians equate to Hitler, but Im sure they all had it coming and deserved to be beaten and hacked to death according to the moral insurrection rights of the Uighurs.
If you’re going to argue that oppressed people can’t engage in insurrection if it creates any chance that any civilian whatsoever will be injured, fine. That is a plausible moral position.
Now apply it to the war in Iraq.
I’ll be happy to trade you a “The Uighurs are monsters and their cause is proven evil because innocent bystanders were injured when they rioted” for the absolutely analogous “The Bush administration was made up of monsters and the Iraq war was proven evil by the fact that innocent civilians died during its prosecution”. Want to make that trade? I’ll bet you don’t.
Fluffy, first, there is a difference between accedentally killing civilians and going into shops with knives and clubs to kill civilians. Second, if you want to argue that sucession for the Uighurs via armed revolt is justfied, I’m willing to listen. Start by giving your criteria for a legitimate claim for sucession and your rules of engagement for the sucessionists.
Second, if you want to argue that sucession for the Uighurs via armed revolt is justfied, I’m willing to listen. Start by giving your criteria for a legitimate claim for sucession and your rules of engagement for the sucessionists.
China doesn’t have a legitimate government anywhere, let alone in its ethnic minority regions.
I’m a little more hesitant than Radley to enthusiastically endorse opposition to the Beijing government based on ethnic nationalism. Luckily, I don’t have to directly endorse it because since China doesn’t have a legitimate government, anyone under its rule who wants to start an insurrection anywhere inside its borders is entitled to do so.
The rules of engagement are a difficult question. Ordinarily, a strict distinction between violence against the state and violence against civilians has to be maintained at all times. This neat distinction is hard to maintain, however, in the face of one-party authoritarianisms where the line between the party and the state is nebulous, and the party has mass membership. I would argue that the situation is analogous to insurrection in a slaveholding society: the slaveholders, nominally civilians, are actually participate directly in the administration of the police power, and thus are fair game for violence. Civilian communist party members stand in for the slaveholders in this analogy.
Of course, it’s pretty certain that not everyone killed in the riots would be subsumed by those RoE. But any act of insurrection will create anarchistic situations in which petty grudges and hatreds will be acted upon. That does not in and of itself discredit the insurrection. If while I’m off fighting the police, someone else busts into your store and kills you, that doesn’t mean that what I’m doing is wrong.
In any other context, if antigovernment riots were underway in China, the National Review would cheer it on, despite the fact that the tide of violence would inevitably sweep over private individuals. Radley is 100% right that they just hate Muslims so much over there that they would damn them even if they were rioting against Stalin himself.
p.s. As Libertarians feel completely at home with Muslims murdering Jews and maybe everyone else, there is no way the narcotic saturated Rhoemites can save them.
I guess I missed the part where the Uighurs were murdering Jews.
You guys are pro Islamic terror — against Jews, against Americans, against anyone who is on the receiving end of the Muslim machete!
“There’s no need to fear. Underzog is here!”
Underzog, take the meds. They will make the voices stop.
Fluffy, I whole heartedly support nonviolent protest against dictatorship. I’m much less willing to cheer a violent uprising. But I guess that’s just my nature. I’m more willing to be killed for a cause I believe in than to physically harm others in the name of that cause.
Read this and weep you anti-Semitic Rhoemites: Jewish Defense League members arrested for trashing Pali Bookstore
I realize the action of the JDL freedom fighters in Paris isn’t as thorough as the Muslims torturing that Jewish guy to death for two weeks, but it’s good to see Jews fighting back against creeps who are so responsible for present day anti-Semitism and our suffering.
The Jewish Defense League Marching song
“There’s no need to fear. Underzog is here (and the JDL is here, too).”