GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, 1903-2013

(Rolling Stone, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Guantanamo Bay Gazette, Frazer Chronicle)

 

Okay, okay, sorry honey, but the lighter side of the Frazer Chronicle will have to wait for a day or so, I just couldn’t pass this one up. It seems so easy to me, to close a United States Naval Base on the tip of Cuban land and water that measures 45 miles. The base has to be some kind of poke in the eye to the Castro administration after all these years, kind of like the neighbor coming over and craping on your porch for 110 years and you can’t do anything about it.

 

I could care less whatever officials might say, the coaling and Naval Station is obsolete, and serves next to no use to a modern navy that now exists. It has served as a sign of American military elitists attitude for more than 50 years, and everybody on the planet knows by now that the United States could kick Fidel Castro’s butt whenever it wanted to…..so it’s time for the U.S. military to leave bag and baggage, to cut whatever losses we may have, to finally acknowledge that Cuba and the Castro people don’t really count for very much with regards to a military threat.

 

I however must enclose this titillating bit of information gleaned from the pages of the Guantanamo Bay Gazette; yes the naval station does have a newspaper. According to Public Affairs person, Justin Ailes, the San Antonio-class amphibious transport was in port for logistic support including adding 150,000 gallons of fuel.

 

“We’re here to support ships any way we can,” said Chief Boatswain’s Mate Bernard Hall, Port Services leading chief petty officer. “Any day we can serve the fleet here in GTMO is a good day.” The naval station is the logistical hub for military vessels operating in the Caribbean theater. The installations Port Operations department provides operational support for more than 150 ships a year.

 

Well great big whoop-de-do, isn’t that their job, shouldn’t we…..as tax payers expect nothing less, seems to me, if you don’t have anything more important that telling people that “ya, we’re doing our job, you should feel appreciative that we are.    

 

Included in with GTMO facilities is the despicable and offensive, at least to me, detention camp where since 2002 has contained military combatants captured in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places! That’s right, you read it here first, there are prisoners being held against their will, and we aren’t being told where they are from.

 

Let me see here, these people are being held against their will, incarcerated for God knows how long, and for possible crimes that even God doesn’t know about, and to top the whole thing off, these people are living on the taxpayers dime…..are you out of your fricken mind, which convict is running the prison, cause he definitely isn’t getting paid enough.

 

I mean which idiot dreamt this kind of crap up, now I know it was a politician because normal people wouldn’t have the savvy to even attempt so an act. Now I understand that Afghanistan is a war, and that Iraq was too….but Iraq is over and done with, so are there any of those prisoners left?

 

I also understand that Afghanistan is still a smoldering piss pot of a war, and that we occasionally take prisoners, but why in hell do we keep some of these people for years. You know, the information that they might have had…..by now is obsolete, so either shoot them and roll their bones into a trench, or release them back into the wilds of Turkey, or Iran, or Iraq…..but let’s quite feeding, clothing, medically taking care of them, and guarding them. I mean their mothers only carried them for nine months, how long is Uncle Sam supposed to carry them?

 

KIDDING ALL ASIDE

Guantanamo Naval Station, in the beginning was probably a necessity, and served a vital purpose, it probably served as a jumping off point for many of the luminaries that did business in the country. Those folks who drove Cubans in the cane fields to 14 hour, 7 day work weeks for mere pennies a week in pay.

 

And of course that wasn’t the best parts of good old American innovation, beginning about 1890; American business interest began to pump millions into the country, to the tune, by 1895 about $50 million dollars, or by today’s standards, $1.3 billion. Is it any wonder that during Cuba’s war for independents against Spain, that in 1895 the United States intervened to protect its interests.

 

The Platt Amendment, (1902-1934) assured that the United States would control massive amounts of trade between the U.S. and Cuba. To cement the hold that the Americans would have over Cuba, the Treaty of Commercial Reciprocity that there would be a one sided relationship between sugar cane, pineapples, bananas, tobacco, and what Cuba got and what the United States received…..of course you can guess who came out smelling like a rose…..Cuba…..not.

 

And later, in the 1940’s and 50’s, when gambling casinos, massive hotels and island fruit manufacturing facilities were established, the United States again came smelling again like the proverbial rose, let’s put it this way, it wasn’t Fidel Castro and his freedom fighters.

 

United States industry…..in Cuba made money, took advantage of every possibility to make money, even making wives, mothers, daughters and wives whores to vitiating American dignitaries, don’t believe me…..like it up, and be prepared for a lesson in history.

 

So when somebody tries to justify Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, you might want to hold your voice until you understand exactly why the military base is there, on that hot, seamy spit of land and water, it’s for the Cuban’s living in  Miami, Florida, and for those politicians who have some sort of testosterone imbalance, Cuba has suffered enough!

 

BUSH, CHENEY AND THE WATER-BOARD

GTMO is like a sore thumb, a big fat wart on the end of America’s world impression, everybody know what went on there at the detention area. Torture pure and simple, acts were committed that were against the Geneva rules, and were a clear breach of international law.

 

Very little information came from the tactics that were practiced there, during the time of darkness in American history that will take decade to repair. The Bush administration DID NOT REPRESENT ME; there is a code that military people need to take away from the battle field. I’m not naïve with regards to battlefield behavior, war is hell and all that stuff, but when you have a prisoner, he needs to be treated with the respect that you would want your people to be accorded.

 

The Bush administration and it’s talking heads, and it’s legions of attorneys attempted to circumvent every restraint that they possible could. And then of course there was the stupid, weak minded military personal as well as intelligence personal that fell into line with the atmosphere that the White House had created.

 

Close Guantanamo Naval Station…..ABSOLUTELY, as quickly as possible so we can start the healing!

HAVE A NICE DAY!