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Scientists Propose Biodiversity Lab To Redeem Guantanamo Prison Camp
HughPickens.com writes: The American presence at the Guantanamo Prison Camp has been deeply contentious since even before terrorism suspects began to be housed there beginning in 2002. Now as President Obama prepares to make the first presidential visit to Cuba in almost 90 years, ecologists Joe Roman and James Kraska have published their case in the influential journal Science for creating a Guantanamo-based research center to study biodiversity in the Caribbean. The primary benefit of a Guantanamo Bay research station is symbolic. "The main goal is trying to take Guantanamo and make it an inspiring place, and redeem it," says Roman. But the case for Guantanamo Bay as a science lab goes beyond political optics. According to Roman and Kraska the land and the sea offer an ecosystem uniquely worthy of study. The research hub of Roman's dreams would be a state-of-the art facility to help understand how biodiversity loss can be prevented across the Caribbean. "A parcel of the land, perhaps on the developed southeastern side of the base, could become a 'Woods Hole of the Caribbean,' housing research and educational facilities dedicated to addressing climate change, ocean conservation, and biodiversity loss. With genetics laboratories, geographic information systems laboratories, videoconference rooms — even art, music, and design studios — scientists, scholars, and artists from Cuba, the United States, and around the world could gather and study. The new facilities could strive to be carbon neutral, with four 80-meter wind turbines having been installed on the base in 2005, and designed to minimize ecological damage to the surrounding marine and terrestrial ecosystems"
Hugh Pickens continues: According to Roman, the main idea is that science can be healing: a way to bring diverse nations together, a way to rectify a complicated history, and a way to help better the lives of all people through research. The biggest roadblock won't be the Obama administration but Congress. Republican lawmakers have derided Obama's preliminary framework for closing the prison, so for the foreseeable future, the status quo will remain. But Roman can still dream. "At a certain point, I don't know when, that base is going to close. It's going to return to Cuba at some point. This is a great use of that property. You don't have many places in the world like that."
How about just giving it back to Cuba?
It's as anachronistic and wounding to national pride as it would be for Americans having to tolerate a foreign military base on Manhattan island.
The Brits gave Hong Kong island back to China for a good reason. Shit like this belongs in the 19th century, not the 21st.
This seems like the ideal population to use for human experimentation - things that would not be normally allowed under US Law. Genetic experimentation, pain thresholds, drug toxicity, experimental vaccines, and similar. I don't see any reason we cannot turn lemons into lemonade here.
to Redeem Guantanamo Prison Camp...
there is no redemption in a torture camp. Auschwitz and Dachau didnt find salvation in an agricultural or a climate research institute. Instead they perist in silence, discipline, and remorse as a sterling reminder of some of the most profound human genocide mankind has ever committed. Many israeli jews, including new IDF troops, make a pilgrimage to these sites yearly to remember.
Prisoners at Guantanamo have been beaten, waterboarded, subjected to forced intubation and rectal feeding, extreme temperatures, and have experienced some of the most brutal and least reported abuse under the US governments authority that any human has seen in the 21st century outside of Darfur. Some prisoners have been kidnapped from their home countries under extraordinary rendition, and others simply scooped up during the occupation campaign in Iraq. Once theyre free, many are in limbo as their home countries no longer want them and no foreign nation will consider them for immigrant status.
Good people go to bed earlier.
and chagos marine protected area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... was created to protect marine life. ha!
The US military isn't giving that real estate up period. Obama said he would close it and failed to do so. The next president will do the same. Where do you think the extremists will go for their rightfully deserved enhanced information gathering sessions?
If you really want to redeem it you have to give it justice. Sentence every last war criminal to life in prison there. From every president to every private. Of course nobody has the gonads to actually stand up for justice.
Guantanamo Bay is primarily a U.S. Navy Base. It is only secondarily, if that, a prison camp for those who made war against the U.S. outside of the boundaries of the Geneva Convention (this may not be true of all of those imprisoned there, but that is the justification for the prison camp aspect).
Guantanamo Bay is the best harbor in the Caribbean for Naval operations and the U.S. has retained control over it for that reason.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I mean, since we're dreaming.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Obama can't close Guantanamo prison camp, the military is blocking it with administrative hurdles, blocking interviews with prisoners from their prospective receiving countries diplomats. Refusing to release their IDs to diplomats, or release medical records. Any obstacle they can use to prevent it happening they're using:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcQxAsoEh6g
The low level military won't do anything without top brass military orders, so some unknown General has given the order to the grunts in Guantanamo to block release of these, and those soldiers have followed that General rather than the Commander in Chief.
As long as Republican Lawmakers will side with the military, then it doesn't matter what the chain of command is, it only matters who controls the military.
just like Auschwitz, as a constant reminder of the wrongs that were done, and by whom.
Either Candidate Obama lied about his intentions, or President Obama found that the world isn't a simple place.
Where do you put people willing to break any and all international rules of war in order to conduct jihad? And that's a REAL WORLD problem.
...where else will the U.S. have a romper room to abuse human rights outside of international conventions, answer me that!
Maybe we can move Sea World's orca breeding program there and let them flog their dolphins in peace.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Leave it open, let the terrorists rot.
> Auschwitz and Dachau [...] perist in silence, discipline, and remorse as a sterling reminder of some of the most profound human genocide mankind has ever committed [...]
And rightly so. And it seems to have helped for a while. But seeing the emerging things like Pegida and AfD, I have the impression that such things lose their effect after 70+ years. Sadly.
At least the terrorists may have won ...by having passengers take off their belts and shoes prior to boarding, ...by 3-hour long security and frisking measures even if your name is not even the least bit shadowed by a hint of an arabic-sounding name, ...by making us turn off our phones before the movie starts,
but they will NOT DENY US A BIO DIVERSITY LAB while I sip my Coronas catching some rays at Guanta-frickin-mo bay! Where I can surfboard while you waterboard...
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
They're called septic tanks!
If Gore had won, it would be a place of great honor, a national shrine. Or, if we had an honest media... But we don't, so it is evil, because Bush.
Keep in mind that the legal status of nearly all internees there is essentially "deferred summary execution", and none of the "torture" that happened there (or at Abu Ghraib, for that matter) would even rise to the level of hazing at a decent frat.
Those of you that are paying attention may have noticed that the lugenpresse hasn't said a damn thing about Obama's drone execution and collateral damage killing spree. In about 11 months, expect them all to decide that the war on terror is suddenly a bad thing again.
"A parcel of the land, perhaps on the developed southeastern side of the base, could become a 'Woods Hole of the Caribbean,' housing research and educational facilities dedicated to addressing climate change, ocean conservation, and biodiversity loss. With genetics laboratories, geographic information systems laboratories, videoconference rooms — even art, music, and design studios — scientists, scholars, and artists from Cuba, the United States, and around the world could gather and study. The new facilities could strive to be carbon neutral, with four 80-meter wind turbines having been installed on the base in 2005, and designed to minimize ecological damage to the surrounding marine and terrestrial ecosystems"
It would be nirvana, heaven on Earth: diverse, socially and environmentally conscious. All it needs is some magic pixie dust to make it a reality.[/sarcasm]
And let them take care of it. After all it is their territory.
Right. Because there aren't dozens of other locations in the Caribbean to build a research lab.
Cue up all the Castro apologists and Che admirers.
History is about to be rewritten again.
Time to free the Sandwich islands eh? But we get to keep them awesome rolls right?
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Never mix science with politics; you end up with neither...
Obama wants to put them in the general prison population. That's a stupid idea unless you're a radical leftist who wants to create a lawsuit since now you're confusing normal prisoners with stateless terrorists.
Release them? Well, the Spanish security forces caught a released Gitmo detainee as part of an ISIS cell.
So, uh, good luck with that.
We're also brilliant, clever, optimistic, and still one of the most desirable places to relocate if you were born somewhere else.
How do you attract the best and the brightest, while simultaneously punishing the poorest in numbers not seen anywhere else on the planet? A self righteous penchant for punishing minorities combined with Draconian drug laws, if I had to guess.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Castro should tell Obama "Your lease is up. As of 00:00 AM January 1 2020, it reverts to Cuban internal territory. Being Cuba, INTERnational law does not count, only INTRAnatinal (Cuban) law counts. We will mortar the power plant, poison the ground water, sink tankers, put holes in the runway. Get all your junk out of here. Until the end of 2019 ships and planes LEAVING Guantanamo will not be interfered with."
Quantanamo is one of the most shameful things in U.S. history. Why weren't those prisoners taken to Florida? Because the Pentagon didn't want them to have any legal rights.
You are talking about it's function. The rest of us are talking about reputation.
The worldwide reputation of Guantanamo Bay is now as a prison camp and center for torture. The die is cast; you never get a second chance to make a first impression. The average citizen of the world had never even heard of Guantanamo Bay until the terror suspects were taken there and stories of torture started to emerge.
That's why those scientists are working in vain. Probably well-meaning and all, but really. They aren't going to be able to remove the taint of torture.