The United States says it requires human rights improvements in Cuba for normalization of diplomatic relations to occur. But much of the torture of political dissidents that happens in Cuba happens at Guantanamo.
Normalization
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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What kind of relationship exists between Cuba and the U.S. when a cancer like Guantánamo can be allowed on Cuban soil? 🙁
Mein geschätzter Lehrer, the relationship would seem to be that between the largest military power on the planet and a small country hitherto unable to remove the base by diplomatic means or by force. The US, by a treaty imposed upon Cuba in 1903 and modified in 1934, was given the right to lease this base which occupies some 120 km² of Cuban territory for an annual fee of 4085USD (unchanged since 1938), i e, at a rent of 34USD per km², which must be considered a bargain – who says the US government wastes taxpayers’ money ?!!…
As Tyler Durden indicates above, the Cuban government has refused to cash the checks for the lease – I presume since 1960 – which would indicate that the US government would have to pay its Cuban counterpart some 224675USD for the use of the base between 1960 and 2014, should, as a result of the proposed restoration of diplomatic relations, the latter decide to cash the payment cheques, which I assume to be in the care of the United States Interests Section of the Embassy of Switzerland…. 😉
Henri
I guess they’re gonna cash the rent checks soon, I hope we can cover the withdraw.
Read, e.g. Lord of the Rings. There are the ‘good’ and the ‘evil’. In Lord of the Rings, orcs and goblins and hobgoblins are always evil. Elves are good, and the men who ally with elves are good. (Men who ally with orcs are evil.)
Clearly, the US are the ‘good’ because, well, that’s difficult. And all those who kill or injure agents of the US government are the ‘bad’, because again, that’s difficult. But one must accept that according to Thrasymachus.
So, as long as the US is the strongest, it is the ‘good’ and the ‘just’. And all those who fight against the US leadership are the bad, the unjust, the evil. (At least until the US is no longer the strongest.)
Hey, if the Cubans didn’t take the money, that’s their problem. The US didn’t know, until 2002, that Guantanamo would be the perfect place, a place where the US Constitution does not apply.
The Constitution says ‘No cruel or unusual punishment.’ It does NOT say, ‘to US citizens’. It does not say, ‘This amendment does not apply to enemy combatants.’ But our great legal experts said, ‘The Constitution does NOT apply to Gitmo!’ And the Constitution cannot stand before the Great Legal Experts of the US government.
The top legal experts for the US government said that Gitmo was not covered by the US Constitution. And who are we to question them?
And if we did question them, the US Constitution bans ‘cruel and unusual punishment’. Now that Bush, jr and Obama have made it very usual, it’s not banned by the Constitution. So what more could we ask?
These are heinous criminals. They were goatherds, who had done nothing but herd goats. But they were sold to the US as terrorists by their enemies for 100 years median income. Then they were subjected to ‘enhanced interrogation’ until they confessed that they were the terrorists who were entirely responsible for 9/11/’01. What more proof do we need? They are guilty. And, I understand, they were all shooters on the grassy mound. And they were all responsible for sinking the USS Maine. Not to mention killing those young women in Whitechapel. And committing arson during an Imperial Concert in Rome. So incarceration and torture for life is an entirely reasonable sentence.