This seems like a good time to ask my dumb question of the month.
"U.S. military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba"
Can someone tell me how you marry our official rejection of the Cuban government and/or Castro, yet we have a prison there? Don't take me wrong. I'm all for our rejection of the Castro regime. I just must be missing something in that he allows us to maintain a prison there.
Any wisdom on this for me? Thanks.
We had like a hundred year lease for a naval station at Gitmo, and Castro didn't really have any way to throw us out when he took over did he? Besides, he needs the money. The military prison was built after 9-11 though.
I think we've occuped Guantanamo Bay for the past 100 years or so and just decided to keep occupying it after 1959.
We have a long term lease on the base in Cuba
we have a lease of 45 sq miles forever.
We have a perpetual lease on Guantanamo Bay. It was implemented after the US liberated Cuba in the Spanish American War. The lease runs in perpetuity, until the US voluntarily gives it up - which will never happen. The US pays some amount to the Cuban government annually for that lease... but rumor has it that as an act of "protest" Castro never cashes the check.
BTW - even the moonbattiest conspiracy theories about the tortures hapening to terrorists at Gitmo doesn't come close to the horrors committed to political dissenters in te jail on the Cuban side of the fence.
It dates back to the Platt Amendment (March 1901) which stipulated the conditions for the withdrawal of US troops remaining in Cuba after the Spanish-American War. One of the conditions for withdrawal was that Guantanamo Bay be ceded to the US.