Cuba Demands Closure of Gitmo or No Total Normalisation of Relations

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On Wednesday, Cuban Ambassador to Russia Emilio Losada García said that Washington should close US Naval Station Guantánamo Bay to restore relations with Havana, noting, “No American base should operate in Cuba under the socialist government”. He said that an American withdrawal from the base was a condition for total normalisation of bilateral relations.

18 February 2015

ITAR-TASS

http://tass.ru/en/world/778400

Editor:

This happened soon after the visit of Defence Minister S K Shoigu. Now, it’s clear that Cuba received a security guarantee from Russia. If the USA wants an Embassy in Havana, it has to close Gitmo. This puts Obama on the hot seat. If he closes Gitmo… he’s in the shitter big-time with the GOP (more so than he is now, unbelievably)… if he keeps it open, it knackers his much-ballyhooed opening to Cuba, and makes him look a fool. In short, he can’t win, no way, no how. Methinks that this is a diplomatic pawn… that is, if the USA plays ball with Russia in the Ukraine, Russia MIGHT talk Cuba into softening its demand. Vova’s not a black belt for nothing, kids…

BMD

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Poll Sez Most Americans Opposed to Closing Gitmo Gulag

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According to a Gallup poll, held from 5 to 8 June, involving 1,207 adult American residents, after the exchange of an American soldier captured in Afghanistan for five Taliban commanders, the majority of Americans don’t support ​​closing the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba. According to the survey, only 29 percent of Americans want the prison closed, whilst two-thirds (66 percent) oppose closing it and transferring its prisoners to American prisons. Gallup. The margin of error was +/- 4 percent. According to US National Security Council, over the past 13 months, the USA released 13 prisoners from the facility. Thus, now, there are 149 prisoners at Gitmo. In 2008, then-presidential candidate Obama promised to close the prison in 2010. However, in March 2011, the military courts for terrorism suspects resumed their work. In addition, Obama president signed a decree that established special procedures to allow holding detainees at Gitmo without charge if they pose a serious threat to national security. In 2013, Obama announced in a keynote speech that the USA should close the prison, and that suspected terrorists should face trial in the USA.

Editor:

Nothing like the Gitmo Gulag existed in the Cold War… the Americans feared that the Sovs would run with it and ruin their image abroad. In any case, Gitmo is extralegal… it’s illegal as all get-out, and that meant something prior to the time of Slobberin’ Ronnie. Reagan defied legality (look at PATCO), Bush I was a former CIA director (need I say more? What about Neil Bush and Silverado?), Clinton was the last of the Good Ol’ Boy Dixiecrats (and the last of the “conservative” Democrats), Bush II was a spoilt brat crony crapitalist, and Obama won’t face down Republican filibusters in the Senate (the true source of the gridlock in our government today). In short, Gitmo is a symptom of a dysfunctional, crank, and ultimately systemically unlawful American “conservatism”. Trust me… Bismarck and Stolypin wouldn’t call Rush, Ann, Boehner, McConnell, and the Tea Party conservatives (after all, Bismarck was the Father of Single-Payer Healthcare and Stolypin favoured prosperous smallholders over aristocratic landowners)… they’d call ’em what they are… Nihilist Radical Right Anarcho-Capitalists (Slobberin’ Ronnie is God and Ayn Rand is His Prophet). American “conservatives” make UKIP and Marine le Pen look LEFTIST (they’re not… but they ARE traditional conservatives, not rightwing greedsters like the Americans are). Leftists and True Conservatives can dialogue and find common cause… Radical Right Nihilists, like those in the US Republican Party, are the enemies of all decent people.

Orthodox people… I have a word for you… SYMPHONIA. The Church blesses the state and it curses anarchy of any sort (not all anarchists are bearded and toss bombs… most are “respectable” and quote Ayn Rand). It does NOT bless “deregulation” or “libertarianism”, as it believes that fallen man is unable, inherently, to police himself adequately. That means that you spit on the Lord Christ and His Church if you vote Republican. Think on that.

BMD

14 June 2014

Voice of Russia World Service

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_06_14/Most-Americans-oppose-closing-Guantanamo-poll-8216/

People Across the USA Protest on Guantánamo Gulag’s 12th Anniversary, Demand Its Closure

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On Saturday, Americans took to the streets across the country to demand the closure of the Guantánamo prison, on the 12th anniversary of the notorious American-run prison’s opening. Exactly 12 years ago, on 11 January 2002, the USA airlifted the first prisoners into the prison complex at US Naval Station Guantánamo Bay in Cuba following then-US President George W Bush‘s 13 November 2001 executive order authorising the prison’s establishment to detain American-captured “terror suspects”. Out of 779 prisoners ever held at the camp, courts only convicted and sentenced seven of them. According to The Guardian, those charged and convicted of a war crime were lucky, as they might get out of Guantánamo, whilst most of the prisoners held there without charges could spend the rest of their lives in prison.

During his 2008 presidential campaign, US President Obama promised to close the prison as he acknowledged that the detention camp was a symbol of the US government‘s violation of human rights. Today, twelve years after the opening of the prison and almost five years after Obama promised to close it, Americans all across the country took to the streets to demand the shutting down of the prison. Protests occurred at the White House in Washington DC, and in a number of other American cities including Miami FL, Santa Monica CA, and Chicago IL.

In early February last year, Gitmo prisoners began a hunger strike to protest harsh conditions and indefinite detention without trial. The mass protest peaked in July as over 130 prisoners took part in the hunger strike. Images from the detention centre published in June showed how military guards force-fed prisoners, strapping them into a metal restraint chair, feeding them through plastic tubing forced up their noses. In December, the DoD said that it would no longer release reports of hunger strikes staged at the prison to the public since disclosing such news wouldn’t be in American interests.

 11 January 2014

Voice of Russia World Service

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_01_11/People-protest-across-US-on-Guantanamos-12th-anniversary-demand-prisons-closure-9030/

Editor’s Note:

President Obama couldn’t close the Gitmo Gulag because Republicans in the US Senate used obstructionist tactics, using abuse of parliamentary procedure to bollix up the Prez. That means something, kids… it means that Republicans are ungovernable brats at heart, which means that they’re criminal in their very souls. They advocate a “deregulated” anarchic “libertarian” society where the rich run roughshod over all others, and they advocate a foreign policy of lawlessly arresting people in foreign parts, kidnapping them by force, and taking them to the USA for trial by kangaroo courts. That’s not right… US law has no force outside the borders of the USA… that is, it has no jurisdiction; you can’t apply it to actions that took place outside the USA. That makes such trials criminal farces… far worse than any Soviet troika (and here) or Freisler’s Volksgerichthof… at least, they DID have jurisdiction in their cases, like it or not. America arrogantly proclaims that its law spans the world… and that’s not right (it puts a new spin on the Cold War, doesn’t it?). Remember that on Election Day…

BMD

Russian Delegation to Meet Gitmo Prisoner

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On Friday, Konstantin Dolgov, MID RF Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, said that a Russian delegation would visit the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba in January to meet a Russian imprisoned there for over a decade. The delegation will meet on 17 January with Ravil Mingazov, a former Russian soldier. Dolgov said that the delegation would discuss Mingazov’s detention to try to alter his situation, including possibly returning him to Russia, saying, “We’d use this visit and put the question bluntly so that this special facility would be closed as soon as possible”, noting that the Americans delayed the long-discussed meeting for “many months, if not years” because conditions for the visit weren’t agreed upon with the USA.

Mingazov, incarcerated at Guantánamo in October 2002, but the Americans never charged him with a crime. American military documents from Guantánamo list him as a member of the “al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan”, and claim that he spent time living in Central Asia before linking up with Islamist militants in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, where they say that he received explosives training. A judge ordered his release in May 2010 under a writ of habeas corpus; it’s a safeguard in the English legal system requiring the authorities to deliver a person under arrest before a judge or into a court.

Since it’s founding in 2002, the Guantánamo Bay detention camp was the target of criticism by human rights activists and many international government officials, who condemned its controversial interrogation methods and the dubious legality of holding prisoners indefinitely without charging them with crimes. The USA defended the prison as a necessary measure for dangerous prisoners who pose a serious threat to American and international security. US President Barack Obama promised to close down the camp whilst campaigning in 2008, but ran into congressional opposition in negotiating the transfer of prisoners to other prisons in the USA and abroad. As of December 2013, the US Defense Department said that 158 prisoners remain in Guantánamo Bay.

27 December 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131227/185979866/Russian-Delegation-to-Meet-Guantanamo-Prisoner.html

Editor’s Note:

Let’s not be coy… the Republican Party insists on the Gitmo Gulag‘s continuance… just as it insists on the legality of the NSA domestic spying (“We’re only protecting you”), the TSA Gestapo (“Have you had your grope today?”), the needless “Department of Homeland Security” (the American “Committee for State Security“… do note the similar terminology), and torture at black sites (“They’re only wog terrorists, so, who cares?”). They’ve used perversions of congressional rules to keep these repressive means alive… no doubt, to redouble them if they got back into power. Mark it down… the Republican Party advocates torture, extralegal imprisonment, domestic spying, invasive groping of all airline passengers, permanent war in foreign parts, and fear-mongering (the Bushies did all of that and more). Bear that in mind when you mark your ballot in November 2014. A vote against the Republicans is a vote for freedom. Don’t forget, the Republicans brought us the McCarthy era and the Bush dictatorship (after all, they made passports obligatory for travel to Canada, after decades of free movement… that’s called repression, kids). It’s time to oppose these feral and violent sorts… yes, God DOES will it…

BMD