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Thread ID: 83200	2007-09-23 06:11:00	Guantanamo Bay Question	radium (8645)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
594156	2007-09-23 10:15:00	As far as I know, Guantanamo Bay is a US base on Cuba over which Amerika still claims whatever Americans call sovereignty (not having a sovereign, I am not sure what they call it in their legal system). You may be mixing up sovereignty and jurisdiction, which are two different concepts. Amerika uses the concept of Separation of Powers, which means briefly that the legislature, administration, and judiciary are all kept separate under their consititution and in theory at least they act as a check and balance over each other to stop tyranny (I have to stop a minute to get my laughter under control - we are talking theory here, not reality). I may be confused, but I thought Bush/Cheney/Rice kept the detainees in a military base (which is what G Bay is) to keep them within military court jurisdiction, rather than the jurisdiction of the mainland civil courts? He rammed legislation through the legislature to legalise his activities, but somewhat inconveniently the courts have chucked out each of the kangaroo military processes the dumb schmuck has tried to impose. An example of the Separation of Powers in action. It is all a bit embarrassing really, but I am afraid I am probably totally confused, and stand to be corrected... Most of the time I avert my gaze from what Bush and his cronies are up to because it is so offensive. One thing I have learnt as a result of your mate's questions though is that I only knew about the Cuban exiles in Amerika post the revolution in the 1950's, but I have found out that there have evidently been Cuban exiles in Miami for over a century, all wanting "Cuba Libre".	John H (8)
594157	2007-09-23 10:59:00	I would call the people incarcarated there more innocent buggers.	tedheath (537)
594158	2007-09-23 10:59:00	I mean poor innocent buggers. Sorry drunk	tedheath (537)
594159	2007-09-23 17:16:00	Gonna have to scratch a few gray brain cells here and remember my US Constitution studies in school . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WARNING! . . this isn't easy to condense and is a lot to read . . . but it's very interesting . . . . . OK . . Guantanamo is by international acceptance, a chunk of land deeded to the US after the Spanish/American War as Wikipedia states: (ibid)" . . . . . . . . . . . . . at the southeastern end of Cuba has been used by the United States Navy for more than a century, and is the oldest overseas U . S . Navy Base and the only one in a country with which the United States does not have diplomatic relations . [1] The United States controls the land on both sides of the southern part of Guantánamo Bay (Bahía de Guantánamo in Spanish) under a lease set up in the wake of the 1898 Spanish-American War . The lease was established in a 1903 agreement between the two governments, and its terms were modified in a 1934 treaty . [2][3] The current Cuban government considers the U . S . presence in Guantánamo to be an illegal occupation of the area, and argues that the Cuban-American Treaty, which established the lease in 1903, now violates article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, though the issue is still open to argument . [4][5] However, Article 4 of the same document states that Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties shall not be retroactively applied to any treaties made before itself . [6]" (I opened the paragraphs for easier perusal) The "prisoners" are called "detainees" and the act that was invoked was . . and this is very interesting here: "The Clear And Present Danger Act", better known as the Monroe Doctrine . I BELIEVE that this act was written in action against European nations in their attempt to retake or recolonize countries and lands of the Americas . . both North and South . . . . with the big gun of monies OWED and services NOT RENDERED by them in the view of reestablishing a stronger foothold in those areas as a protection against what was misconstrued and ill-perceived as (then) US colonization activities . . . . . . . . . . and allowed the US Navy and Marines (Leathernecks) to intercede when it intercepted boats, ships and vessels that were carrying pirates and militia from kings and dynasties that had hired them to perform acts against such countries in appearance of what the US considered at the time, "acts of war or grievous intentions" . It's also my belief that the mining of the hull on the USS Maine (ACR-1) was an act of revenge for this same reason that the US had the big stick and was resented by insurgents with long memories and also a little goading by seething hostilities from years past . Those with the long memories just stirred the pot a little and got the Cuban/Spanish fires all up and congealed for what seemed to be for a solitary reason, which in fact had many facets of hate, displeasure and discontent against the US's presence in lands and places where they were not wanted . Kinda sounds like today's headlines,,huh? The OFFICIAL US Navy results of the investigation of the Maine sinking: 1911 Court of Inquiry By 1908, the war drums had long stopped beating (against Spain by the US), and many parties demanded that the Maine be raised from Havana harbor . Cuban officials became worried about the safety of having a sunken ship in their harbor, U . S . officials wanted the remains of the sailors trapped in the wreck recovered and buried, and a few people wanted to confirm the cause of the sinking . Begun in December 1910, a huge waterproof cofferdam was built around the wreck and water was pumped out, finally exposing the wreck by late summer 1911 . Sections of the hull of the Maine were numbered, many photographs were taken, and models of the Maine and her wreckage were built by the single Navy employee assigned to the job in Havana . Except for many souvenir items retained by the Navy and frequently distributed to the public, most of the tangled wreckage was dumped into the sea off the coast of Cuba . Between November 20 and December 2, 1911 a court of inquiry headed by Rear Admiral Charles E . Vreeland (my relative) visited the wreck . The conclusions of the Vreeland Board differed with the Sampson Board only in detail . The Vreeland Board agreed that the explosion of the magazines was triggered by an external blast, but the damage to the Maine was much more extensive than the Sampson Board had thought . It was also concluded that the initiating blast occurred further aft on the ship, and a lower powered explosive breached the hull than was originally thought . After the investigation, the newly located dead were buried in Arlington National Cemetery and the hollow, intact portion of the hull of the Maine was refloated and ceremoniously scuttled at sea on March 16, 1912 . Anyway . . . . . . . . . (ibid)" . . . . . . . . . . (the) doctrine's authors, especially John Quincy Adams, saw it as a proclamation by the United States of moral opposition to colonialism, but it has subsequently been re-interpreted in a wide variety of ways, including by President Theodore Roosevelt, who asserted the right of the United States to intervene to stabilize the economic affairs of small nations in the Caribbean and Central America if they were unable to pay their international debts . This interpretation, intended to forestall intervention by European powers who had loaned money to said countries,[1] has been termed the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine . The United Kingdom was torn between monarchical principle and a desire for new markets; South America as a whole constituted, at the time, a much larger market for British goods than the United States . When Russia and France proposed that Britain join in helping Spain regain her New World colonies, Britain vetoed the idea . British naval power, commercial interests, and common cultural, philosophical, and political links to the United States contributed to the strength of the doctrine . Britain was in fact negotiating with the United States before it was announced as to whether the policies in the Monroe Doctrine should be declared jointly . (Ref removed as spurious to this post) . The United States was also negotiating with Spain to purchase Florida, and once that treaty was ratified, the Monroe administration began to extend recognition to the new Latin American nations — Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico were all recognized in 1822 . (me here: I also believe this was a genial payback, in form, to Spain as the US would then cease overt activities against Spain, allowing Spain to now interact with the South Americas with full recognition of legal trade and activities as such, but not to install any militia or commit any military pretense in those lands . It was thought that Spanish activities there were greatly more appreciated than French trade in the same areas . This imbalance in forces by Spain now entreating the South Americas caused a shift in power and spread Spain a little thin over lands that were too far away to allow for rapid recall of military vessels and militia if there arose needs for them in the homeland . ) In 1823, France, taking advantage of this thin spread military force, invited Spain to restore the Bourbons to power, and there was talk of France and Spain warring upon the new republics with the backing of the Holy Alliance (Russia, Prussia and Austria) . This news appalled the British government — all the work of James Wolfe, William Pitt and other eighteenth-century British statesmen to expel France from the New World would be undone, while markets in the former Spanish colonies that had recently become open to British trade might be closed off if Spain regained control . " (me here: The duality of force in the form of the US/English world power was being formed as a mighty hand of enforcement and appropriation(s) in the Americas by this time . This alliance still stands as a prime directive-bearing and enforcing codicil to this day . ) So, now we see that the base in Cuba was needed and quite heralded at the time . That the US has continued to possess this and the immediate waters was SUPPOSED to be assuaged by the relinquishing of the Panama Canal a few years back . . in return the heat on the Guantanamo land-base would be overshadowed by this act of magnanimosity by the US . The idea was thus: the countries that got to now own and possess the Panama Canal and surrounding countries would put the thumbscrews on Castro and tell him to be quiet . . at least the US was conceding lands to the indigenous peoples and Cuba might just be next to get their land "gifted-back" by the US if the political currents weren't getting muddied up by constant haranguing and moaning about his (Castro's) problem . So far it hasn't worked and the South Americas have a short, if not convenient memory and the Cuba/US base is still in the hot seat . Bear with me here, as I know this is kinda wordy . . but here's a very interesting point to consider: In 1954, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles evoked the Monroe Doctrine at the Tenth Inter-American Conference, denouncing the intervention of Soviet Communism in Guatemala . This was used to justify Operation PBSUCCESS . NOTE: The CIA assigns various cryptograms to things, and this needs a little clarity here: # PBHISTORY: Central Intelligence Agency project to gather and analyze documents from the Arbenz government in Guatemala that would incriminate Arbenz as a Communist . # PBSUCCESS: (Also PBS) Central Intelligence Agency covert operation to overthrow the Arbenz government in Guatemala . and so . . . . . . . . . . . . . U . S . President John F . Kennedy at an August 29, 1962 news conference: “ The Monroe Doctrine means what it has meant since President Monroe and John Quincy Adams enunciated it, and that is that we would oppose a foreign power extending its power to the Western Hemisphere, and that is why we oppose what is happening in Cuba today . That is why we have cut off our trade . That is why we worked in the Organization of American States and in other ways to isolate the Communist menace in Cuba . That is why we will continue to give a good deal of our effort and attention to it . " . . . . . . . . . . . . and finally, this is the authority under which the US still holds the Cuban land area as a very convenient offshore base of operations . It is away from general eyesight of the press . It can be or cannot be, according to will, considered an area of US Constitutional law and The Bill of Rights . It can be and cannot be considered hostile territory for needs as seen at the moment . It can be and cannot be called an area of "defacto personna non-gratus" as the needs dictate . . . . depending on the needs at that moment and the general desires of the military . A VERY interesting sidebar here: Of the regions of the Americas which were directly influenced by a European colonial power, it is notable that the colonies and territories of British North America were not included in the implementation of the Monroe Doctrine . The War of 1812 had already been fought between the United States, the United Kingdom and Canadian colonials for possession of Lower and Upper Canada, and any further attempts at intervening in the northern colonies would almost certainly have led to another U . S . -UK war .	SurferJoe46 (51)
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