Posted on 03/01/2003 12:35:15 PM PST by 4Freedom
Popular Democratic Party Sen. Juan Cancel Alegria said Friday Navy Adm. Robert J. Natter's decision to close the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility at Naval Station Roosevelt Roads is illegal, citing the National Defense Authorization Act of 2001.
He also called on U.S. government officials to investigate the legality of the matter.
"Section 1504 of the Act is clear to the effect that the termination of training and related closures are specifically and exclusively limited to Vieques Naval Training Range. No authorization was granted to affect the rest of the AFWTF," Cancel Alegria said in a letter to several U.S. officials, including Secretary of Homeland Security Thomas Ridge and Hansford T. Johnson, acting secretary of the Navy.
"What is more, Adm. Natter's actions constitute a 'realignment' under 10 USC 2687, and, as such, expressly prohibited," he said.
Cancel Alegria's district includes Ceiba, where Roosevelt Roads is located.
According to the lawmaker, Natter issued an order about two or three weeks ago, for the demobilization and disestablishment" of the training facility "on or about March 9, 2003."
The lawmaker showed reporters a copy of several documents allegedly from Natter, ordering the demobilization.
"It is not economically and operationally feasible to continue battle group training in the Puerto Rico operating area...Directed to cease AFWTF operational and training support after the last scheduled event (on or about 9 Mar 03)," states one document.
Cancel Alegria said his office received the documents from union employees at the base.
Roosevelt Roads spokesman Oscar Seara said the training facility had been ordered "dismantled," but referred the STAR to Natter's office at the U.S. Atlantic Fleet headquarters in Norfolk, Va. However, officials there could not immediately be reached for comment.
Cancel Alegria says the decision to close the training facility also leaves the Navy fleet "without adequate training facilities because the fleet will not have equivalent or comparable training facilities available immediately or within a short period of time after the AFTWF is closed."
"It is uncontested that the AFWTF offers to the U.S. Navy Atlantic Fleet unique characteristics which would be difficult, if not impossible, to replicate elsewhere," he said.
"For years, the AFWTF has been regarded as the 'premier training range for ensuring combat readiness of Atlantic Fleet Forces.' Now, suddenly and unexpectedly, the U.S. Navy no longer needs the AFWTF," he said.
They were too busy ROTFLTAO!!!
No, no I mean they were all in meetings.
The Popular Democratic Party asked for it and they got it.
Goodbye 5,000 jobs and over $250 million dollars per year.
Ceiba will shrivel up and die in the short-term.
Anybody wanna buy some houses on a real anti-Navy, anti-Gringo island, cheap?
LOL!
Is that about right?
So sue us. I worked 6 weeks in PR. Not impressed.
Nice shootin', Jhoffa. You nailed that target 'dead center', 'bull's eye'.
They believe our whole country and every taxpayer in it exists for the sole purpose of supporting them in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
And for not a damn thing in return.
They're in total shock this time.
They want to know just who is this Adm. Natter and where does he get off.
LOL!
"Hey man, they can't let China or anyone else that close.. We can do whatever we want and they won't cut us off. No way!"
That kind of thing.
?
While not entirely obsolete, it is nowhere are important as it was back when the Atlantic/Mediterranean Fleets had to counter a huge Soviet presence. Everything that was done a AFWTF can be done elsewhere.
Serves the left right that they will be blamed for helping the US make the decision to leave.
I wonder what fat cat was behind the Vieques thing just to get a discount on some tourism property?
The irony is that five years from now, after Fidel is gone and a Free Cuba has opened up again, tourist locations everywhere else in the Caribbean are going to suffer greatly. Cuba is *really* nice and will dominate as a vacation spot among Americans. Vieques is a dry, dusty island... its most useful purpose what exactly what it was: a bombing range. Whoever thinks they will make money there opening a tourist resort doesn't have his (or her, maybe all this is Hitllary's idea?) head screwed on very tight...
Despite all of the blather about "gringos", PR would never allow itself to become independent (and if they ever did, there would be a huge rush of most of the island's population to move to the mainland before it took effect). The reason is simple: they wish to remain within the same political system as the productive white middle class so that they can engage in government-managed income redistribution. Without us in the same polity, where would they get all of their handouts?
This is also why, despite centuries of sometimes terrible treatment, no significant number of blacks have ever left the USA. The anti-white tirades are not the rhetoric of a population that wants the independence to pursue its own destiny, but is rather a giant political guilt-inducing temper tantrum designed to gain redistributed income. The scam doesn't work if you aren't in the same political system as the taxpaying middle class workers.
And a big "beso" for Al Sharpton too.
This could be a nice preview of the coming German reaction.
If the U.S. Taxpayers took away the $18.8 billion dollars in cash we gift to Puerto Rico each year.
Close down the hundreds of U.S. Post Offices and Mail Distribution Centers on the islands and take away those thousands of jobs.
De-federalize the 3 airports in Puerto Rico and their cruise ship docks and take away those thousands of jobs.
Take away the hundreds of FEMA jobs and federal assistance after hurricanes and other disasters.
Take away the over 1,000 IRS jobs.
Close all of the other military bases and the VA Hospital and VA Administration offices.
Stop the FDIC from insuring all of their bank accounts.
Shut down the U.S. Border Patrol/INS, U.S. Marshalls, Federal Courts, FBI, DEA, U.S. Customs, EPA, USDA, FDA, National Parks, Dept. of Highways and Trans., Dept. of Energy and every other federal government agency that employs the ingrates down there, we'd have to invent a new category for them.
Maybe, 4th or 5th-world, 'Stone Age', etc.. They'd be beyond destitute.
How long do they think that all the American businesses that went down there to avoid paying 90% of their U.S. income taxes would stay there after all of those BILLIONS dried up?
LOL!
Everyone should visit all of the tax dollars that were hijacked from our paychecks and sent to Puerto Rico at least once.
Just so we might never let our pandering politicians do it to us, again.
Fat chance.
Their politicians are so confident that they have both of our political parties stateside cowering in fear of the Puerto Rican 'vote' that they can coerce $10s of billions more of U.S. Taxpayer's dollars out of them for the commercial development of the 35,000 acres that the 2 Naval bases were on.
And all 35,000 acres and existing infrastructure for FREE, of course.
I'm not so sure they're wrong.
The children we have in charge will do anything for votes.
Puerto Rico: Turnover of Roosevelt Roads would be boon for island, investor says
Among other things, the politicians in Puerto Rico think the U.S. Taxpayers should cough-up $550 million more dollars to build them a bridge between Vieques and Ceiba at Roosevelt Roads.
Nice, huh?
LOL!
They owe a 'thank you' note to the Clinton's, Al Sharpton, the Cuomos, the whole Kennedy family, Edward James Olmos and many others. It's a real big list socialists and political extremists that got them screwed over.
Yep, there's some property speculators and corrupt politicians that look to make a lot of money on this U.S. Taxpayer rip-off. That's for certain.
You make a lot of good points about Cuba's eventual impact on the tourism industry in the Caribbean.
But don't forget the drug smuggling trade, though.
For the first time ever, the PR newspapers mentioned the dirty little secret that everybody knew. Most of the young men taking up fishing on Vieques are using their fishing boats to smuggle drugs.
The Navy was a big thorn in the side of the drug cartels. They want that Over-The-Horizon, 'HARP' radar installation on Vieques out of there, too.
I've heard reports that as much as 45% of our illegal drugs are smuggled through PR.
No doubt, a lot of the protests were funded with drug money.
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