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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.
god fucking dammit. six minutes late to post, and i don't even have mod points.
ah well, at least i have anonymous company.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
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.
[...] things that would not be normally allowed under US Law.
I think the symbolic point is to stop doing that.
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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
Since "Guantanamo" also has obtained a somewhat unpleasant ring to it (why? no idea!), let's just give it a new name, too. Perhaps something fitting based on classic literature, like "Island of Dr. Moreau".
I mean, since we're dreaming.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
just like Auschwitz, as a constant reminder of the wrongs that were done, and by whom.
The difference being that those that were responsable for Auschwitz at all levels were and continue to be prosecuted to this day. The US has a very big democratic deficit in that it says "we're sorry we did this and that" but never ever brings charges against the men who did the atrocities and those who put up the whole institutional torture program for more than a decade. I mean George Bush, Chenney, Wolfowitz, some DOJ officials and a good part of the military leadership basically redefined torture to be not torture and got off scot-free ? This is banana republic shenanigans.
Think about that when we hear talking about the US and how just it is. Justice and the rule of law isn't just some abstract concept that applies in some cases and not others. No one should be above the rule of law. And that is simply not the case in the US. No one protects its own monsters better than the US.
> 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.
It is a concentration camp already after all, so why pretend it ain't...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Umm... Romania, Poland, Israel, ... all you really have to do is ask nicely, it ain't like we'd say no...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"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.
Obama can't close Guantanamo prison camp
Obama is Commander In Chief. He can actually order the troops of the base. What would happen to the prisoners is the big question. Last marine out unlocks the cells and the front gate. And Cuba has to deal with them. Republican lawmakers can't do squat if Obama issues a direct order. Their military buddies will either comply or get their own orange jumpsuits in Leavenworth, KS.
Have gnu, will travel.
Right. Because there aren't dozens of other locations in the Caribbean to build a research lab.
I think Unit 731 might be a bit more appropriate.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
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.
Kill them, or put them in prison. Not military prison, not "secret" "interrrogation" facilities like Gitmo. Just plain, regular, federal prison. Solitary of course, like you would any provably dangerous (to themselves, society, other inmates, and staff) criminal. If you treat them like anything but especially violent criminals you are not just legitimizing them and their grievances, but also providing them with powerful propaganda. The word is already getting out there that living in ISIS controlled territory isn't as great as it was originally made out to be (they've cut pay for fighters substantially, limited use of vehicles, etc). Allow their potential recruits to see that and the fact that the fate that awaits is most likely either a painful death or many long, boring years of isolation in prison and the ISIS appeal begins to fade, especially for those that are slowly being converted.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Windscale...Sellafield...
http://www.acetonestudio.com
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
It is a concentration camp already after all, so why pretend it ain't...
Maybe your definition is different, but it doesn't match mine.
concentration camp
noun
noun: concentration camp; plural noun: concentration camps
a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. The term is most strongly associated with the several hundred camps established by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe in 1933–45, among the most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz.
Just another day in Paradise
He can order all he wants, but the money to pay for things isn't controlled by him. Good luck paying for that.
Just another day in Paradise
Never mix science with politics; you end up with neither...
Kennedy, lunar mission, discuss.
Just another day in Paradise
Paying for what? When you rotate personnel out of a base, you just don't send any replacements in. Those funds already exist, and I suspect that Congress would have to completely defund the military to prevent personnel from being moved.
Have gnu, will travel.
They have far less to apologize for than those who supported Fulgencio Batista.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
"Spanish security forces caught a released Gitmo detainee as part of an ISIS cell."
And damned right too. If I was taken against my will, held without trial or evidence and tortured you can bet your bottom dollar I would do everything I could to get back at the people who did this to me. So would you.
You suspect incorrectly. Let me give you a civics lesson then.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Just another day in Paradise
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
That article is talking about closing just the prison and transferring the prisoners somewhere else. Funds for that are indeed restricted. I'm talking about closing the entire Guantanamo base. Returning the Navy and marine personnel and weapons to the USA and just unlocking the prison doors on the way out.
Have gnu, will travel.
The distinction you're trying to make doesn't matter. Congress controls the purse strings, and can refuse to pay for whatever it wishes.
Just another day in Paradise
Congress controls the purse strings, and can refuse to pay for whatever it wishes.
When the last marine leaves, there will be nothing to pay for regardless.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.
Why should I care what the "worldwide reputation" of Guantanamo Bay is?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison