posted May 30, 2009 12:27 PM         

take another look at any list of the 10 most successful countries in the world. successful meaning where people are happiest and most comfortable, with a good average income and productivity....

posted May 30, 2009 02:01 PM         

I know enough...and a hell of a lot more than you do about the history of Socialism in the 20 Century to know it's a poisonous political, social and economic system.

I know Socialism doesn't work, hasn't worked and isn't working anywhere in the world...and I know exactly why Socialism is doomed to fail every time it's tried.

posted May 30, 2009 02:37 PM         

quote:

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Are we to understand you believe it's rational to present the terrorists viewpoint here for bringing those same trained terrorists to the United States and releasing them acoustic.

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Are we lying again, Jwhop? I didn't present the "terrorist's viewpoint." I presented the reason the U.S. is being forced into releasing the Uighurs into it's own population , which already contains Uighurs as it is. What you said is a complete, illogical distortion of what I've said.

quote:

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what is the benefit to the American people in having trained terrorists walking around in our general population?

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The United States has spent money in the following ways on the Uighurs:

• They bought the Uighurs as supposed terrorists

• They transported them halfway around the world

• They gave them food and shelter for years

• They spent money fighting the Uighurs petitions in court

What benefit have American people gleaned from this?

quote:

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drool with admiration for terrorists as brave warriors...brave warriors who hide behind the skirts of women and children and use them as shields

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Yet another lie on your part. Are you starting to see how this lying works?

quote:

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You may be willing to overlook the facts that NO court has adjudicated these trained terrorists not guilty but rather ordered them released on procedural grounds but that's not a rational reason to bring them to the United States and release them in the general population of US citizens.

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You have yet to adequately make this argument. What I know from Kiyemba v. Bush is that the court wished the government would make the case you believe is true. The government declined.

Although expressly offered the opportunity by the district court, the government presented no evidence that the petitioners pose a threat to the national security of the United States or the safety of the community or any person. Mot. Status Hr’g Tr. at 10-11 (Oct. 7, 2008); see 8 U.S.C. § 1226a(a)(6); Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. 371, 387 (2005)(O’Connor, J., concurring).

Until you can adequately tackle such an argument with reasonable sources, you're sunk. You can't even source calling them "trained terrorists"...unless maybe you find something from the Chinese government.

quote:

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Quit digging acoustic. Your irrational arguments already have you in so deep they don't make an extension ladder long enough to get you out.

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posted May 30, 2009 05:40 PM         

Having spent money on these trained terrorists is no reason to spend more money and also put US citizens at risk by releasing them here.

Yes, the court hearing was just exactly what I said it was...a "show cause" hearing and the decision of the court was a "procedural matter" and not an adjudication of their guilt or innocence. The fact the government didn't present any evidence at the hearing doesn't mean there isn't any. It could mean lots of things...which I have previously spoken to...such as not wishing to broadcast to the world the means and methods used to identify and track them or reveal in court the name(s) of informants who fingered them.

"Under the Graham/Lieberman legislation, enemy combatants ordered to be released will be transferred into the custody of the Department of Homeland Security while waiting to be returned to their home country or if they unable to return there, another nation. Media reports have suggested that there is consideration of the release of Chinese Uighurs (Wee-gurs), who trained at terrorist camps in Afghanistan and have been detained at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, into the northern Virginia suburbs." http://lieberman.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=313148

Let's see acoustic, wasn't it you who denied there was a move afoot by O'Bomber to release any detainees at Gitmo into the US? Well, I can answer that acoustic. Yes it was.

I'm not the one who drools over the ballsy terrorists...great warriors who hide behind
women and children and kill innocent civilians...deliberately. That's you acoustic. I don't think they're at all ballsy but rather the biggest cowards on earth.

As for whom is sunk. Let's just say we're not playing battleship. You're at best, a dinghy.

Btw, when are you going to get around to stating a rational case for releasing trained terrorists in the US and housing the others in US prisons..in light of the fact Gitmo is a secure facility, state of the art and already cost the US $200,000,000 to build? What's wrong with Gitmo acoustic? What would be better about a mainland US prison acoustic?

posted May 30, 2009 11:29 PM         

quote:

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Of course you presented the trained terrorist position for being released into the United States...and nothing but that viewpoint.

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Obviously I haven't. First off, I am still without proof that the Uighurs are "trained terrorists." Secondly, I haven't looked in to what the Uighurs would or wouldn't like, so your statement is a patent falsehood.

quote:

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The fact the government didn't present any evidence at the hearing doesn't mean there isn't any. It could mean lots of things...which I have previously spoken to...such as not wishing to broadcast to the world the means and methods used to identify and track them or reveal in court the name(s) of informants who fingered them.

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And, as I said before in response if the Administration found them to be a national security threat, their lawful obligation would be to make that case as that is one of the President's primary duties.

I think it's interesting that you say the court did not make any decision regarding guilt or innocense and yet mandated their release, while the Lieberman site stuff you quoted states rather emphatically, "The Uighurs are certainly guilty of this offense." In 2005 the Washington Post wrote:

All 15 Uighurs have actually been cleared for release from Guantanamo Bay twice, once after a Pentagon review in late 2003 and again last March (2004), U.S. officials said. Seven other Uighurs were ruled to be enemy combatants and will continue to be detained. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/23/AR2005082301362_pf.html

If any of them have not been cleared as "enemy combatents," and are not cleared for release, then I have no issue with their continued incarceration anywhere. This article quite clearly illustrates that many of them have been cleared for release for a very long time.

It's an instructive article to read in full. I suggest you send it to Joe Lieberman, who may not be aware of what he's talking about. It's always interesting when an issue that's been subtlely worked on for years suddenly grabs the spotlight, and people who could've and should've known more of the facts about the case are just in the dark. This is Rumsfeld-era stuff.

quote:

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What would be better about a mainland US prison acoustic?

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Access to the judicial system (I told you it was an easy and rational case).

quote:

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You keep ducking bobbing, weaving and evading answering this question

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The only ducking, bobbing, and weaving is yours about proving ANYTHING with regard to the UIGHURS.

posted May 31, 2009 04:03 PM         

quote:

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If you've never lived in a socialist country and have only lived in one place your whole life, I really don't care what you say since you really have no idea what's 'better' since none of the arguments are grounded in real life experience, they're all speculation, and one worst case scenario after another.
Get out there and live it and then come live here. Then we can talk.

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The making of this statement requires an unduly disbelief in some of the loftiest of abilities that reside in the human being. It can only be made with a complete disregard of the faculties that lead to and go beyond the realm of intuitions. So my question to you, MVM, is: Is that your stance? Somehow I don't believe it to be so.

quote:

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Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
-J.K. Rowling

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quote:

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Modern times have produced the superstition that the means for making the social organism healthy can emerge from the political state or the economic sector. If humanity continues in the direction indicated by this superstition, social institutions will be created which will not lead humanity to what it strives for, but to an unlimited increase in the oppression which it seeks to avert.
-Rudolf Steiner
(for an inspiring lecture on the issue of Capitalism and Socialism, try this link

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It is one thing to express the shortcomings of modern-day Capitalism in the life of the social organism and it is another thing to completely ignore the areas in which Capitalism allows the flourishing of the social organism to take place. By definition, that is the very realm of thought in which Socialism resides. The ideas behind Socialism were fertilized by this frame of mind. It arose as an acknowledgment of the areas in which Capitalism can be criticized while avoiding the very fruits that Capitalism makes possible for society.

The very notion that an individual cannot possibly understand something that he/she has not directly experienced suffers from the same lack of understanding of the principles involved in the realm of human life. It is quite acceptable for someone to deny the existence of such principles, but it would only be fair to ask their admittance of such a stance. And if any deem Socialism to be a more efficient blueprint for governmental/economic institutions, then there are already many countries that are available for them. But just to be fair, we should present the promise lands of the socialist-leaning left (those countries like Norway, Sweden and Switzerland that show so much "promise" for Socialism) in the truthful light which they deserve.

We should include the oppression of those Norwegians that often try to speak out against the injustices that occur in their homeland. We should include the existence of Fampo in our discussions and keep in mind the atrocities that were committed in these states and the kind of thinking that Socialism cultivates. Let's not exclude those of the Norwegian populus whom are showing signs that they are worrying "about too much socialism" and how the "growing tax burden apparently prompted segments of the working class to vote conservative in the last two parliamentary elections".
Let's also keep in mind that the relatively recent rise in Sweden's startup businesses was possible because of an implementation of conservative-minded policies that is greatly responsible for the manifestation of success that Sweden has experienced.

posted May 31, 2009 05:14 PM         

My 'stance' is that I don't think it's right to bash other systems blindly. What works in one place might or might not work in another. Some people like the system they live in (that would include some individuals I personally know)...and, yes, some don't.

Not everyone wants to live in a capitalistic country. And there's nothing wrong with them, either, for not wanting it.

posted June 01, 2009 03:10 PM         

American capitalism gone with a whimper
27.04.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

posted June 02, 2009 09:24 AM         

A REAL Problem for Obama
By: Stephanie Hessler
Weekly Standard | Tuesday, June 02, 2009

On his second day in office, President Obama issued an executive order to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within one year--without any plan for how to dispose of the 241 detainees held there. With the clock ticking, the president is discovering that closing Guantanamo is more easily said than done, especially now that his own party in Congress has deserted him.

Recently, the Senate, including the Democratic leadership and nearly all of its members, refused to grant the president the $80 million he asked for to close the facility, voting 90 to 6 to strip the requested funds from a war-spending bill. In a stunning rebuke, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said "Democrats under no circumstances will move forward without a comprehensive, responsible plan from the president. We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States."

The president may find it nearly impossible to meet his deadline to close Guantanamo without Congress's support. And the $80 million may be the least of his challenges. His greatest obstacle could be a national security law--and one that he voted for. The REAL ID Act of 2005 prohibits anyone affiliated with terrorist activity from entering and living in the United States. (It does not cover people brought here to be incarcerated.) Primarily an immigration reform measure, the act specifically excludes from our nation any foreigner who "has engaged in a terrorist activity . . . is a member of a terrorist organization . . . endorses or espouses terrorist activity or . . . has received military-type training . . . [from] a terrorist organization." This would cover many, if not all, of the prisoners at Guantanamo. The act was included in an appropriation bill, which then-Senator Obama voted for, along with 98 other Senators.

The REAL ID Act could pose a significant impediment to President Obama's plan to close Guantanamo. There are approximately 30 detainees who have been cleared for release from imprisonment, and the administration is trying to find them a home--possibly in the United States. The president has embarked on a major diplomatic effort to convince our European allies to open their doors to some of these 30 prisoners; but our allies have been reluctant to comply unless President Obama also allows a number to live freely in the United States. Indeed, its appears the administration has practically guaranteed domestic release to European leaders: "we would release them into this country," said Attorney General Eric Holder, after meeting with European officials, when asked about the possible fate of some of the Guantanamo prisoners. Meanwhile, the Europeans have pressed for specifics on the number of inmates the United States plans to free domestically before they make any promises of their own.

But for the administration to make any firm commitments to European leaders, first it may have to persuade the Democrats in Congress to repeal or amend part of the REAL ID Act. But, how will President Obama explain that 99 Senators--including himself--got this important issue wrong only four years ago? If Congress is unwilling to fund Guantanamo's closure, they may be all the more reluctant to rescind part of the REAL ID Act so that former detainees can live freely among the general public. And President Obama may have trouble defending why he has put his administration on a collision course with a law that he recently voted for.

Meanwhile, one federal district court judge has already ruled that several Guantanamo detainees must be released in the United States. Last fall, in a ruling from the bench, Judge Urbina of the D.C. District Court ordered that 17 Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs--who have received paramilitary terrorist training--be brought to Washington, D.C., and set free in our nation's capital. The judge cited no law or treaty to support his order. Nor did he attempt to reconcile his ruling with the REAL ID Act, which excludes anyone who has trained with a terrorist organization from entering the country. The Uighurs were cleared for release over four years ago, but no nation has been willing to accept them. They do not wish to be returned to their home country of China, for fear that they could be imprisoned and tortured.

The Bush administration appealed, arguing that the release of the Uighurs into the United States conflicts with the REAL ID Act and other immigration laws. This February, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Urbina's ruling on the grounds that he had no "power to order an alien held overseas brought into the sovereign territory of [our] nation and released into the general public." Instead, the D.C. Circuit Court left the Uighurs fate to the political branches, while noting (without deciding) that there could be legal issues as to whether the president "may ignore the immigration laws and release [the Uighurs] into the United States without the consent of Congress."

The Uighurs appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court where it is currently pending. Late last Friday the Obama administration filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to deny the Uighurs' appeal, based largely on separation of powers grounds. While arguing that the Judicial Branch has no power to free the Uighurs, the Department of Justice repeatedly emphasized the Executive Branch's prerogative to decide their fate.

And, the administration may well determine that some (if not all) of the Uighurs should be released in our country. In fact, one administration official has said that the President may not only seek to free the Uighurs--but also may offer them government assistance to adjust to life in America: National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said the Uighurs, if freed to the United States, might receive taxpayer-funded aid to "start a new life and not return to some of the conditions that may have inspired them in the first place."

Not so fast says Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. He has sent two letters in the last two months to Attorney General Holder asking how the administration plans to release people with terrorist ties into the United States without directly violating the REAL ID Act. The administration has yet to respond.

Senator Sessions states that "it would be both dangerous and contrary to our immigration laws to admit trained foreign militants into our civilian population." Specifically, REAL ID expressly bars entry to anyone with paramilitary terrorist training. Sessions explains that the act, therefore, forbids entrance to the Uighurs because they have "trained at camps run by the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by both the United States and the United Nations." (President Obama is aware of this fact, having acknowledged that its leader is a "brutal terrorist.")

The reason the administration has yet to reply to Senator Sessions may be that it recognizes it will have to ask Congress to repeal parts of the REAL ID Act for domestic detainee release to be lawful. And--until recently--the president might have expected full support from members of his own party. Given that Congressional Democrats have just refused funding to close Guantanamo (evidently they are not especially concerned about the President's self-imposed deadline)--they may be in no hurry to rescind part of a national security law so that we can open our doors to trained militants.

Stephanie Hessler is a former constitutional lawyer for the Senate Judiciary Committee.

posted June 02, 2009 10:08 AM         

Ie, don't knock it OR tout it until you've tried it.

That argument doesn't fly with me of itself in any situation. There are numerous situations I haven't lived through myself that I am quite capable of denouncing and I think the same can be said for most people. I don't think anyone is going to tout the supposed virtues of child molestation on the grounds that, "well, hell, it didn't happen to you so how would you know?" And that's the difference. That argument only works one way, ie, with the perception of the thing in question as ALREADY and essentially good; it does NOT work for those things that one can see are not good based on supporting evidence.

Thus the problem, I think, is that people who support socialism come from a perspective where they've already decided that it's not bad, not that bad or that it at least is better than what we have regardless of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And, uh, denouncing socialism in no way suggests that one thinks life is a bowl of cherries for all in the US and yet that is the argument often made. There is room for improvement without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

For my part, I know people personally and closely who have lived through communism and socialism and their perspectives add quite enough weight to my arguments against those systems without overshadowing my own ability to comprehend.

Now, show me a constitutional republic with a strong democratic tradition, one with as similar a structure to the US on as many levels as possible, and I will NOT be offended if the suggestion were made that I might be happier there if socialism did actually overcome the US. In fact, I would probably already have gladly gone there myself. However, no such place exists. Yet socialist nations exist. In the plural ....

posted June 02, 2009 12:29 PM         

these are not marxist regimes! yet people who have not lived there seem to think they know more about it. from books and right-wing propagandists they have gleaned a picture far worse than it actually is. the oft-repeated remarks about places that won't let you out does not apply to most of the semi-socialist countries lumped in with other more dictatorial regimes. the other often spouted example of people having to pull their own teeth, well guess what, those atrocious medical problems exist right here in the good old USA. redtape and costcutting are not exclusive to other countries!

i happen to agree that too much socialism is a bad thing. i also happen to agree that too much government intervention under whatever ideology/political affiliation is a bad thing. i merely object to people who WILL NOT accept any evidence that doesn't meet with their own point of view.

as for your remark about reasonable people and the gay question, jwhop, once again you have jumped to erroneous conclusions. i don't think all reasonable people have to love gays. but the reference in that article was obnoxiously homophobic. and whether you approve of them or not, gay people are here. are they not entitled to equal rights? are you saying gay people are pedophiles? and what skin off your nose if gay people are equally entitled to call themselves married in the eyes of the law? what will that detract from your life?

i don't care what you think about homosexuals but consenting adults have the right to their orientation without humiliation. the "pervert basking in his homosexuality" is just a nasty self-righteous comment by a narrowminded person and has nothing to do with anything. gay people are perfectly capable of thinking and dealing with life. there have been gay people in politics forever, why should they have to hide it to be "acceptable"?

therefore i have a hard time giving much credence to the author who has proved that he thinks his point of view is the only one.
russia was a hard place to live under the czars, the bolshevists, stalinists and it is still a hard place to live. just because they are not communists right now doesn't make them wonderful. i have heard that they also have their dissenters who would like to see some socialism reinstated there. why is that? because everyone is doing so well under the new mafia?

posted June 02, 2009 03:35 PM         

I haven't jumped to any conclusions at all katatonic.

posted June 02, 2009 05:02 PM         

i do not think reasonable people talk about gays the way he did. nor was the dissipation of religion done by any recent politicians or activists. it has been going on for ages(since the reformation really) and the result of dogmatic abusive practices justified by religion and religious zealots. the constitution separates church and state!

what the soviets lived through is very different from what the danes and english, for instance, have experienced. apples and oranges.

the pendulum swings.nothing stays the same. the world is changing. is america completely immune to natural law? the founding fathers knew that they could not know everything that was to come. that's why amendments were part and parcel of the constitution. but the right seems to think it is above the law of the land. because they don't like what's going on they want to sabotage the whole show.

the bolsheviks are not here. but it seems we are cultivating our own christian taliban here, people who think it's okay to execute someone who doesn't believe as they do. and people who think that is okay! to me this is not a reasonable way to solve the problem. it is a way to civil war and worse. at best, the reappearance of the wild west where one cannot live without a gun. fun fun fun, eh?

posted June 02, 2009 05:42 PM         

Further, you did dismiss what he said..solely on the remark he made about homosexuals and you're still talking about it.

His viewpoints about O'Bomber and O'Bomber's Marxist Socialist leaning aren't skewed at all and he didn't talk about the half of it as to what O'Bomber has said, his Marxist Socialist associates and what O'Bomber has already done.

posted June 10, 2009 01:20 AM         

Palau President Johnson Toribiong said the administration of President Barack Obama made the request last week and that his country was "honored and proud" to resettle the detainees from China's Uighur minority as a humanitarian gesture.

His archipelago, with a population of about 20,000, will accept up to 17 of the detainees subject to periodic review, Toribiong said in a statement released to The Associated Press.

The Obama administration sought a solution for the detainees after facing fierce congressional opposition to releasing them on U.S. soil despite a Pentagon determination that they were not "enemy combatants."

"Palau's accommodation to accept the temporary resettlement of these detainees is a humanitarian gesture intended to help them be freed of any further unnecessary incarceration and to restart their lives in as normal a fashion as possible," Toribiong said.

Palau, made up of eight main islands plus more than 250 islets, is best known for diving and tourism and is located some 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of the Philippines in the Pacific Ocean.

A federal judge last year ordered the Uighur detainees released into the United States after the Pentagon determined they were not "enemy combatants." But an appeals court halted the order, and they have been in legal limbo ever since.

U.S. officials have not said publicly where the detainees might be sent, but said privately that Palau was a prime candidate for their relocation.

Asked Tuesday about discussions with Palau on the Uighurs, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly declined to comment beyond saying the U.S. is "working closely with our friends and allies regarding resettlement" of detainees at Guantanamo.

Two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. was prepared to give Palau up to $200 million in development, budget support and other assistance in return for accepting the Uighurs and as part of a mutual defense and cooperation treaty that is due to be renegotiated this year.

The U.S. would not send the Uighurs back to China for fear they will be tortured or executed. Beijing says Uighur insurgents are leading an Islamic separatist movement in China's far west and wants those held at Guantanamo to be returned to China.

China's Foreign Ministry did not immediately react to the news when contacted by the AP on Wednesday.

Palau is one of a handful of mainly Pacific island, Latin American and African countries that does not recognize China and maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

In 2006, Albania accepted five Uighur detainees from Guantanamo but has since balked at taking others, partly for fear of diplomatic repercussions from China.

The State Department said last week that Daniel Fried, the career diplomat who was named earlier this year to oversee Guantanamo's closure, had visited Palau but offered no details on his mission. Fried has been negotiating with third countries to accept many of the Guantanamo detainees.

A former U.S. trust territory in the Pacific, Palau has retained close ties with the United States since independence in 1994 when it signed a Free Compact of Association with the U.S.

While it is independent, it relies heavily on U.S. aid and is dependent on the United States for its defense. Native-born Palauans are allowed to enter the United States without passports or visas.

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posted June 11, 2009 06:38 PM         

But I think if not the South Pole, then maybe Montana. They have a helluva a lot of land and not a whole lot of people there. Plus I hear they built a really nice, secure new prison.