If we were to normalize relations with Cuba, Guantanamo could be just another port of call for U.S. Navy sailors on liberty, like on every other island in the Carribean. That base is just another unnecessary expense in a bloated defense budget. It is a dinosaur that has long outlived it's usefulness.

Come on! If we close the base, how would we get those retirement checks out? Seriously though, you don't give up a strategic base. Whether the base is on an island in the middle of the Pacific, on the bank of a sworn foe, or in Antarctica, once you have an inexpensive foothold you keep it. Nothing against Cuba, but it would be stupid to give-up the base before establishing a (long-overdue) friendly relationship with our neighbor.

"Cuba holds more than 200 political prisoners and fails to respect basic rights such as freedom of speech and assembly, according to rights monitors. The state considers the prisoners mercenaries working for the United States to undermine the communist system."

I suppose a south Florida newspaper is required to print this caveat, but the facts are that with few exceptions, these "politiical prisoners" were convicted with plenty of evidence that thay were on the CIA payroll.

Meanwhile, in that bastion of freedom, the USA, five cuban crime investigators are serving life sentences in the US for no comitting crime whatsoever, except working to locate anti-Cuban terrorists living in the Miami area. They were arrested when they notified the FBI of their findings. Various persons who committed terrorism like airline bombers Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carrilles live in luxury with their maimi gangster friends.

---USAn---

Let Cuba turn it into a theme park.

For a killer fiction read re Cuba & the Spanish, Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard.

azjoe.

Here, here, PJD! Couldn't have said it better.

The cons outweigh the pros for Cuba regarding normalizing relations with the USA. Cuba succeeds without normalized relations because the Cuban people rose to the challenge of self-sufficiency. Cubans reap the benefits today: Superior healthcare, education and agriculture over the USA. Cuba doesn't need normalized relations with the USA. Cuba has normal relations with the rest of the world.

"PJD January 29th, 2009 2:33 pm

"Cuba holds more than 200 political prisoners and .... ..."

I suppose a south Florida newspaper is required to print this caveat, but the facts are that with few exceptions, these "politiical prisoners" were convicted with plenty of evidence that thay were on the CIA payroll. "

LIKELY they were on the CIA payroll, and I agree with PJD's whole post, but will add the reminder that the U.S. refuses to extradite for trial and conviction real Cuban terrorists, who bombed a passenger airline from Cuba or that at least left from or was heading to Cuba; the terrorists Venezuelan Preesident Chavez has repeatedly demanded to be extradited. Similarly, the U.S. harbors other extreme criminals, allowing them all to live freely in the U.S.

Also, given that the Florida newspaper chose to pick on the Cuban govt for imprisoning 200 political prisoners either strongly suspected of having, or else having been really proven to have, acted in ways to try to bring an end to the govt or its leaders, we may as well add that this in no way indicates that these prisoners are badly or wrongly treated or abused. If they are guilty, then they were committing outright treason, and what would be the punishment in the U.S. if a U.S. citizen did this against the U.S. govt?! Far worse, surely. If the person was an ordinary citizen anyway, and like Glenn Greenwald basically explained with the following article.

"The Definition of A 'Two-Tiered Justice System'"

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/28-10

When we consider what that article tells readers we can then know that the U.S. has no fingers to wag at Cuba or any other govt; and that's while this above article is not comprehensive. Much more can be added, including the continuing genocide against North American Indians, enough of them anyway; the very serious and even, I think can be said, genocidal racism in the U.S.; and the very bad conditions and treatment in U.S. prisons, and how these have become for-profit operations; for a few examples. Oh, a seriously voluminous book might suffice, if not requiring more than only one.

The Sun-Sentinel article starts off fine and then struck me as trying to fool readers into believing that the U.S. has moral grounds upon which to preach to or about the Cuban govt; some perverted sort of apologetics, perhaps, covered or buried in journalism meant to try to deceive. Outright and major denial anyway.

Sun-Sentinel is an odd name for this newspaper, for no sun is shining upon or out of that sentinel. Dark-guardian or Guardian-of-darkness would be more fitting.

Before Castro, Cuba was a heaven for American gangsters, and the mafia, and
gambling interests along with Batista, Castro has returned the Island to the
people of Cuba. Why do we resent that so much? The CIA was never an agency for
the people of the usa, it was for private interests. Now, with all the nohow
of Bush, Rove, and Cheney Rumsfeld, tell us who killed JFK!

"Saturnalia January 29th, 2009 6:24 pm

As the war on drugs is also a form of political warfare (they can't vote for the dems if they're in jail...), one could argue that those jailed on drug charges are yankee political prisoners."

I'm not sure non-whites of the USA would consider themselves as 'yankees', perhaps preferring that that term be reserved for the racist whites; but am perhaps mistaken about this. If not mistaken, then by far most people imprisoned, despotically, in the U.S. are not whites.

It can be, however, considered political imprisonment, but I don't see why these prisoners would care to vote more for the Dem. Party if they weren't imprisoned and denied their due right to vote. That is meant with regards to this particular reason for imprisonment, for I realise that most Black Americans would vote for the Dem. Party, given the Repub. Party is worse or much worse towards blacks, while perhaps the same applies for other non-whites. The point I had and have in mind is that the two main parties are very culpable for the bogus drug war.

Maybe Obama will bring appropriate and due changes, improvements in this regard? I don't know; the medical or pharmaceutical industry provided a lot of funding to his presidential campaign, and pharma. is surely very much involved in the maintenance of the bogus drug war.

"War IS a Racket', wrote USMC Major General Smedley Butler, and I will add that this also applies to the maintenance of the bogus drug war. It [is] a racket that's going on with the drug war.

===========================

"vdb January 29th, 2009 6:22 pm

...

Gitmo would be the perfect place to lock up the bush gang."

Far more than only those criminals. To neglect the many others is to falsely paint the Bush gang as the sole people to be guilty.

============================

"hootowl January 29th, 2009 5:57 pm

"Whether the base is on an island in the middle of the Pacific, on the bank of a sworn foe, or in Antarctica, once you have an inexpensive foothold you keep it."

Assuming your goal is for America to be an empire. I am glad that one thing Raloh Nader and Pat Buchanan agree on is that the U.S. being an empire is not a noble goal."

What hootowl quoted is a sick viewpoint, and very, very ignorant.

And a fitting read for all of the posts I quoted from in this post is the following article or rather essay, which I have not yet finished reading, but of which I previously read some of and just read the section entitled, "Wealth, Jews and the Age of Colonialism", while now being nearly finished reading the immediately following section, "The Modern Age and Jews", well, this is one serious essay and very fitting to refer to for many currently grave or extreme issues, including the "empire" reference fittinly used when speaking of the U.S.A.

"The Business of War", by Wade Frazier

http://www.ahealedplanet.net/war.htm

The two sections I just gave the titles for are immediately fitting in ... quite all respects of the "war on terrorism", as well as Israel's decades of warring on Palestinians and other regional populations.

Quoting one bit of what Wade Frazier says and specifically with regards to political prisoners:

"The United States has the world's largest prison population, which is increasingly filled with political prisoners and people who did not commit what any rational person would consider a crime."

I did not recall Glenn Greenwald's article linked in my first post in this CD page referring to political prisoners in the U.S. prison system, which is the reason for the above quote from Wade Frazier's essay.

If Cuba has 200 political prisoners and for acts of treason, then how many political prisoners does the U.S. have in U.S. prisons, nationally, and for what reasons? Surely not any provable acts of treason.

With racial discrimination apparently being worse with the Repub. Party ruling and many non-whites being imprisoned prejudicially, based on not being white, all of those who are what a fair, reasonable, and sane person would say innocent actually are political prisoners. How many do they number? One million? The number is very, very high, whatever it is; making 200 seem like a haven for freedom.

Obama is establishing a law or enforcement of a law for equitable compensation, I believe another article at CD today is about. If true, then he needs to ensure equity in far more ways than only workers' compensation and treatment. Also, I hope his pay equity ruling will be not only for women and men to be treated equitably or equally, but that the same is applied thoroughly, for whites, men and women, have long been compensated and treated better or much better than non-whites. And back in the 1990s women in the high tech. industry bitched about being paid around 25% less than males doing the same work, but this turned out being white women bitching about he better reatment white men got, and the latter were getting too much for what an economy can sustain over prolonged periods, many years, really treating the industry in gold rush racket ways, while the white women were getting certainly enough. Black women got aroundd 50% and Latino women got a little better, perhaps 60%, instead of the 75% white women got, on average. I don't know about

Black and Latino men, not having read what the stats were for them. And the above stats may be off a little, for I'm only stating to the best of my recollection of what I had read. If they were different, then he above are close anyway.

To be fair, we need to determine and look at the details.

I also read that discrimination, racism, is also worst of all against North American Indians, just tha far fewer people inform about this reality.

Cuba's genociding no one, while the U.S. never tires of doing so; liberally as hell.