Author Topic: Obama's Cuban Move Could Mean Loss of Guantanamo Bay  (Read 510 times)

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Obama's Cuban Move Could Mean Loss of Guantanamo Bay
« on: December 19, 2014, 02:33:35 pm »
http://www.newsmax.com/PrintTemplate.aspx/?nodeid=613934


Newsmax
Obama's Cuban Move Could Mean Loss of Guantanamo Bay
Thursday, December 18, 2014 08:43 PM

By: Cathy Burke

Normalizing relations with Cuba could mean the end of the U.S. naval base and post 9/11 detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, according to one former Reagan administration official.

Lawrence Korb, a senior adviser with the Center for Defense Information and a former senior Department of Defense official during the Reagan administration, told Military.com the controversial decision announced Wednesday by President Barack Obama "will probably open [the lease] up to negotiations.

The United States has maintained the 45-square-mile naval station at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba’s southeastern tip since 1903, but the communist government long complained it was a land grab, The Washington Post notes.

According to the lease, the United States got the right to build and operate a naval base with sole jurisdiction over the area, and in return, Cuba got about $2,000 in gold per year — up to more than $4,000 annually now, Military.com reports. The Cuban government has not accepted the money since its revolution in 1959, the website reports.

"We probably should be out of there," Korb told Military.com. "It's caused us lots of problems. It was a way for us to get around U.S. laws and traditions, which came back to hurt us with this torture thing."

Jeffrey Engel, an expert on American presidents and U.S. diplomatic history at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said it's possible "the two sides will agree to discuss this at some future date ... "

"I have no doubt whatsoever that the Cubans would like to see the Americans leave their island," Engel told Military.com. "It's been a sore point in the national psyche for the Cubans."

That said, "It seems very unlikely to me that the U.S. government will totally give up its lease on Guantanamo," Engel said. "Even with the political quandaries over the future of the prison — no matter what one thinks of that policy — it demonstrates there is utility to having the flexibility that goes with having an offshore site, entirely subject to American regulation and jurisdiction."

Outside the detention center, thousands of U.S. troops and some of their families live at Guantanamo Bay, the Post notes, adding the base is used regularly for training by Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard units, and has a hospital and a few restaurants.
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Offline GourmetDan

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Re: Obama's Cuban Move Could Mean Loss of Guantanamo Bay
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2014, 02:36:28 pm »
Yep, EC called that one...

Either way, Cuba wins. They either get the money or get a nice, well developed naval base and high security prison for free. In the second case, the Worm gets his way about closing Gitmo for good.

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Offline NavyCanDo

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Re: Obama's Cuban Move Could Mean Loss of Guantanamo Bay
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2014, 07:25:24 pm »
I'm pretty sure Obama could not close Guantanamo Bay on his own, because it is a treaty and requires Senate approval.   Having been to  Guantanamo Bay when I was in the Navy, I would have a hard time visualizing turning it over. It would be a political disaster for the Democrats. 
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Offline EC

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Re: Obama's Cuban Move Could Mean Loss of Guantanamo Bay
« Reply #3 on: December 19, 2014, 08:08:44 pm »
It's also a lease - and the lease payments have not been cashed for 54 years.
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Offline jmyrlefuller

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Re: Obama's Cuban Move Could Mean Loss of Guantanamo Bay
« Reply #4 on: December 19, 2014, 09:11:18 pm »
It's also a lease - and the lease payments have not been cashed for 54 years.
But it was still paid. What the Cubans chose to do with it is irrelevant. The U.S. has held up its end of the lease.
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Offline EC

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Re: Obama's Cuban Move Could Mean Loss of Guantanamo Bay
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2014, 09:24:26 pm »
But it was still paid. What the Cubans chose to do with it is irrelevant. The U.S. has held up its end of the lease.

You could equally well argue it was not. Payments drawn on an American bank - for a lot of years they were uncashable due to the embargo. A bit like paying a debt to a dead person by writing them a cheque and putting it in the coffin with them. Technically, you have paid. In practice, you have not.

If it were any other President, this would never have even crossed my mind. The Worm though WANTS Gitmo closed. Full stop and with whatever it takes. Think he's worried about passing over a seriously well developed base? This is the same administration who armed ISIL by not repatriating billions of dollars of equipment and weapons from Iraq.
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Offline EC

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Re: Obama's Cuban Move Could Mean Loss of Guantanamo Bay
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2014, 09:33:24 pm »
In a nice bit of synchronicity, this just popped up on my twitter feed:


Does China Think the Sino-British Joint Declaration Is Void?

On Nov. 28, Ni Jian, China’s deputy ambassador to Britain, visited the British House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee to speak with its chairman, Sir Richard Ottaway. Ni brought a message: the delegation that hoped to visit Hong Kong as part of an investigation into Britain’s relations with its former colony would be denied entry. The meeting between Ottaway and Ni soon turned sour. What happened next is disputed, but Ottaway believes the Chinese side signaled that the Sino-British Joint Declaration, an agreement signed between the two countries to decide on the handover of the former crown colony, ceased to be effective after Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997. The news that China may have disavowed the document – and China’s subsequent refusals to deny the same – have deeply upset some in Hong Kong.

According to Ottaway, during the late November meeting, Ni “conveyed” the message that the “Joint Declaration signed by China and Britain is now void and only covered the period from the signing in 1984 until the handover in 1997.” In response to the putative disavowal and also to the delegation’s setback, the U.K. parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee held an emergency debate, a rare occasion for the House of Commons.

The Joint Declaration was negotiated in the 1980s between Britain and China — notably without the participation of Hong Kong citizens. The two ultimately agreed that Hong Kong would revert to Chinese rule, but only after a 50-year period where Hong Kong’s “current social and economic systems will remain unchanged” and the legal system would remain “basically unchanged” for 50 years. China’s paramount leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, proposed the now-famous “one country, two systems” formula to govern Hong Kong. Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher signed the agreement in Beijing in December 1984, enshrining Deng’s concept.

China has not said explicitly that the international treaty is no longer effective. Hua Chunying, the spokeswoman of China’s Foreign Ministry, only said that Britain “has no sovereignty, jurisdiction, or right of supervision” and no “moral obligation” to Hong Kong. Chen Zuo’er, former deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, also did not directly answer whether the Joint Declaration is no longer in effect. “Britain no longer has a right to supervise China’s domestic matters. No clauses in the Joint Declaration stipulate this,” Chen said after a conference on December 14, although Chen also acknowledged the Joint Declaration still had “great life.” The ministry has not replied to an Foreign Policy email requesting comment.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/12/18/does-china-think-the-sino-british-joint-declaration-is-void/
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