Under what circumstances do hawkish freedom-lovers support Communism, state-enforced abortion, and the suppression of liberty? When the victims can be portrayed as Muslim terrorists, of course.

Last Monday, National Review’s legal affairs writer Andy McCarthy threw some fairly dense sarcasm at those who expressed sympathy toward the rioting Uighurs in China. “Hard to Believe the Lovable Uighurs Could Be Involved in Terrorism,” he blogged, “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.

Perhaps it’s unfair to suggest that McCarthy is endorsing communist tyranny, but his implication is pretty clear: the Uighurs are terrorists, therefore their protests must be stopped at any cost, and there’s no point being a bleeding-hearted lib about it.

At Harper’s Scott Horton fires back:

Of course, the Uighurs are Muslims. And that makes them into terrorists in the minds of the National Review legal affairs writer. Having taken meals with them and worked with them for two decades, I see things differently. They are proud of their Islamic heritage, and resentful of the heavy hand of the atheist Communist state. The changes in China since the early eighties have opened economic opportunities for the Han Chinese. But not for national minorities like the Uighurs. They don’t know much about America, but what they hear makes them jealous. They most assuredly are not America’s enemies, much as Andy McCarthy wants to make them into just that.