RicardoHead
12-18-05, 11:01 AM
Given all the bullshit we normally hear, this story is nice to read. And although I'm the first one to laugh at Castro, while abroad I watched a lot of interviews with the guy and he's pretty funny, even if he's a commie dictator bastard. But when it comes to commie dicatators, I think there are plenty worse to have lived under than Castro.
Anyway, we all know how politics is politics but is not necessarily reality and here's how everyday people on both sides the street deal with reality .....
BTW, what did these 25 Catholic Worker peace-nuts think was going to happen?
Cuba avoids friction with US over Guantanamo (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051218/ts_nm/cuba_guantanamo_dc)
American anti-torture activists who marched through southeastern Cuba to protest the detention of terror suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay had to settle last week for a prayer vigil five miles away.
Cuba's Communist government did not allow the 25 members of the Catholic Worker movement to march to the gates of the U.S. military enclave and demand access to the prisoners.
Instead of jumping at the chance to embarrass its foe, Cuba preferred to avoid an incident in the no-man's land of barbed wire and mines surrounding the 45-square-mile (117-sq-km) base.
"It's a very sensitive zone where two enemy armies have faced each other for four decades," a Cuban official said.
Billboards in Havana denounce the abuses at Abu Ghraib as the work of "fascists," and President Fidel Castro, who has long railed against the U.S. presence in Guantanamo, accused the Bush administration of turning the naval base into a "concentration camp."
But on the ground, the Cuban and American military cooperate through daily telephone contacts in securing the perimeter of the base.
"The Cuban military is just loath to have any kind of incidents on that trench line that could result in a heated event," said Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst for Latin America. "They do not want to challenge the United States military."
The United States has controlled the entrance to Guantanamo Bay since U.S. troops landed there during the Spanish-American War in 1898. Washington pays Cuba $4,085 a year in rent, but Castro refuses to cash the checks, saying the land was stolen.
When Washington announced that the base would be used as a prison camp, Havana did not protest, and remained silent when the first detainees arrived, chained at the feet and manacled.
Castro's younger brother and designated successor, Defense Minister Raul Castro, has said Cuba would return any detainees who escaped.
Cuba allows U.S. military transport planes to use Cuban airspace to avoid accidents when wind directions change, the deputy commander of Cuba's Eastern Army, Brig. Gen. Jose Solar, said in 2002. Cuba also helped the base by spraying the perimeter against mosquitoes to prevent diseases, he said.
Latell said the cooperation indicated that Raul Castro and senior Cuban military officers may favor improved relations with the United States.
"Where Fidel's instincts would be to confront and antagonize the United States, Raul's instinct is to reduce tensions," Latell said in a telephone interview. "We don't hear Raul and the generals talking about a concentration camp in Guantanamo."
Anyway, we all know how politics is politics but is not necessarily reality and here's how everyday people on both sides the street deal with reality .....
BTW, what did these 25 Catholic Worker peace-nuts think was going to happen?
Cuba avoids friction with US over Guantanamo (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051218/ts_nm/cuba_guantanamo_dc)
American anti-torture activists who marched through southeastern Cuba to protest the detention of terror suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay had to settle last week for a prayer vigil five miles away.
Cuba's Communist government did not allow the 25 members of the Catholic Worker movement to march to the gates of the U.S. military enclave and demand access to the prisoners.
Instead of jumping at the chance to embarrass its foe, Cuba preferred to avoid an incident in the no-man's land of barbed wire and mines surrounding the 45-square-mile (117-sq-km) base.
"It's a very sensitive zone where two enemy armies have faced each other for four decades," a Cuban official said.
Billboards in Havana denounce the abuses at Abu Ghraib as the work of "fascists," and President Fidel Castro, who has long railed against the U.S. presence in Guantanamo, accused the Bush administration of turning the naval base into a "concentration camp."
But on the ground, the Cuban and American military cooperate through daily telephone contacts in securing the perimeter of the base.
"The Cuban military is just loath to have any kind of incidents on that trench line that could result in a heated event," said Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst for Latin America. "They do not want to challenge the United States military."
The United States has controlled the entrance to Guantanamo Bay since U.S. troops landed there during the Spanish-American War in 1898. Washington pays Cuba $4,085 a year in rent, but Castro refuses to cash the checks, saying the land was stolen.
When Washington announced that the base would be used as a prison camp, Havana did not protest, and remained silent when the first detainees arrived, chained at the feet and manacled.
Castro's younger brother and designated successor, Defense Minister Raul Castro, has said Cuba would return any detainees who escaped.
Cuba allows U.S. military transport planes to use Cuban airspace to avoid accidents when wind directions change, the deputy commander of Cuba's Eastern Army, Brig. Gen. Jose Solar, said in 2002. Cuba also helped the base by spraying the perimeter against mosquitoes to prevent diseases, he said.
Latell said the cooperation indicated that Raul Castro and senior Cuban military officers may favor improved relations with the United States.
"Where Fidel's instincts would be to confront and antagonize the United States, Raul's instinct is to reduce tensions," Latell said in a telephone interview. "We don't hear Raul and the generals talking about a concentration camp in Guantanamo."