Somewhere in the catacombs of the Pentagon, a staff of military planners is working on a scheme to perpetuate the military primacy of the United States. The richest country on earth, the leader in military technology, with 900 military bases in 140 countries, has no military rival. The competition has faded, or been defeated in battle, or lacks the resources to compete.
The military supremacy of United States is unprecedented. The unexpended energy encompasses the entire globe seeking more worlds to conquer and militarize. Popular support is overwhelming and the money is available for virtually any weapon or adventure. American Exceptionalism, once based on the religion of the Pilgrim Fathers, is now assigned to American military forces.
We do not always win our small wars against “the barbarians” but we crush the serious competititors for world-wide hegemony making them allies or vassals. Our force of nuclear weapons is the largest (with Russia), certainly the most accurate and reliable. While nine nations have nukes, we are the only nation that has used them in battle and on human beings. All nations factor Hiroshima and Nagasaki in their attitudes about us.
For more than a decade, the United States has been negotiating with North Korea and Iran to persuade or bribe them to eliminate their programs to make nuclear weapons. With all our military power, with all of our financial assets, with all of our allies, we have not been able to persuade by blandishment or threat. Are we trying hard enough? Do their nukes somehow fit into our strategy to minimize potential competition from the only nations capable of challenging the United States?
The US is building an advanced system of missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic to counter Iran’s possible nuclear weapons. The Russians say that the system is operative against their missiles and would give the US an important advantage in a crisis or a war. Basing them so close to the Russian border, would save flight time and perhaps furnish the capacity to strike first.
The US has positioned nukes in South Korea close to the Chinese border and always has nuclear-armed ships in the South China Sea. That deployment gives the US an advantage in a nuclear war where a first strike is an overwhelming advantage.
US policy in North Korea and Iran have failed in their stated objectives to prevent nuclear deployment. But these failures leave American bases on the actual borders of China and Russia that could threaten their security. Does this situation remind the world community of the 1963 Cuban missile crisis when Soviet missiles were placed 20 miles from the US but were forced out under threat of nuclear war ?
Showing posts with label Cuba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cuba. Show all posts
Friday, February 24, 2012
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Castro Wants U.S. Out of Guantánamo
Castro Wants U.S. Out of Guantánamo
By Jerome Grossman
President Barack Obama has earned justified praise all over the world for announcing that he will close the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba within a year. This military colony has incarcerated hundreds of people seized in the U.S. - Afghan war of 2001-02 and the Iraq war that began in 2003. Because Guantánamo is outside the United States, the U.S. has argued that these so-called "unlawful combatants" are not subject to the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. They have not been tried and some have been tortured.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro praised Obama after his election as "honest" and "noble" but on January 29 he demanded that Obama return Guantánamo to Cuba "without conditions". Castro said, “Maintaining a military base in Cuba against the will of the people violates the most elemental principles of international law..... Not respecting Cuba's will is an arrogant act and an abuse of immense power against a little country.”
The United States does maintain an important naval station at Guantánamo Bay covering 28,000 acres. The site was leased to the U.S. in 1903 by a treaty that was renewed in 1934. Since 1960, the Castro government has refused to accept the token annual rent of $5,000 from the U.S. and has repeatedly pressured for the return of the base.
The U.S. helped the people of Cuba liberate themselves from the Spanish overlords in 1898. While they had the power to do so, the U.S. did not directly annex Cuba only because of its pretensions to being an anti-imperialist nation, an important political issue at that time. However, Cuba was forced to grant the U.S. special privileges to intervene in Cuban affairs at any time which we did in 1906, 1912, 1917, and 1920 by landing our Marines. The revolution led by Castro ended that arrangement.
The U.S. has more than 700 military bases in 130 countries, arrangements entered into willingly by the nations concerned. When a country asks us to leave, that request is within their right under international law. To ignore such a demand would call into question U.S. motives and raise the spectre that the bases were forced upon “little countries” by military or economic pressures. The only superpower has a basic interest in maintaining international law and could enhance its position as world hegemon by giving up Guantánamo Bay as the host country requests.
Because no superpower, ancient or modern, has ever surrendered its military and economic preeminence voluntarily, it would be unrealistic to ask the U.S. to do so. But there are ways of leading, even dominating, that lessen the resentment of those led. One method is the use of "soft power" to promote education, health care, infrastructure, etc instead of spending money and manpower on military bases that flaunt superpower occupation and offend local nationalist sentiment.
By Jerome Grossman
President Barack Obama has earned justified praise all over the world for announcing that he will close the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba within a year. This military colony has incarcerated hundreds of people seized in the U.S. - Afghan war of 2001-02 and the Iraq war that began in 2003. Because Guantánamo is outside the United States, the U.S. has argued that these so-called "unlawful combatants" are not subject to the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. They have not been tried and some have been tortured.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro praised Obama after his election as "honest" and "noble" but on January 29 he demanded that Obama return Guantánamo to Cuba "without conditions". Castro said, “Maintaining a military base in Cuba against the will of the people violates the most elemental principles of international law..... Not respecting Cuba's will is an arrogant act and an abuse of immense power against a little country.”
The United States does maintain an important naval station at Guantánamo Bay covering 28,000 acres. The site was leased to the U.S. in 1903 by a treaty that was renewed in 1934. Since 1960, the Castro government has refused to accept the token annual rent of $5,000 from the U.S. and has repeatedly pressured for the return of the base.
The U.S. helped the people of Cuba liberate themselves from the Spanish overlords in 1898. While they had the power to do so, the U.S. did not directly annex Cuba only because of its pretensions to being an anti-imperialist nation, an important political issue at that time. However, Cuba was forced to grant the U.S. special privileges to intervene in Cuban affairs at any time which we did in 1906, 1912, 1917, and 1920 by landing our Marines. The revolution led by Castro ended that arrangement.
The U.S. has more than 700 military bases in 130 countries, arrangements entered into willingly by the nations concerned. When a country asks us to leave, that request is within their right under international law. To ignore such a demand would call into question U.S. motives and raise the spectre that the bases were forced upon “little countries” by military or economic pressures. The only superpower has a basic interest in maintaining international law and could enhance its position as world hegemon by giving up Guantánamo Bay as the host country requests.
Because no superpower, ancient or modern, has ever surrendered its military and economic preeminence voluntarily, it would be unrealistic to ask the U.S. to do so. But there are ways of leading, even dominating, that lessen the resentment of those led. One method is the use of "soft power" to promote education, health care, infrastructure, etc instead of spending money and manpower on military bases that flaunt superpower occupation and offend local nationalist sentiment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
