Can someone explain something about"Gitmo"?

This is short and maybe I am an idiot but we are enemies with Cuba they hate us yet we have a holding site for terrorists in Cuba(GITMO), Am I missing something??

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is located on the shore of Guantánamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba and has been used by the United States Navy for more than a century. It is the oldest overseas U.S. Navy Base and the only one in a country with which the United States does not have diplomatic relations.[1] The United States controls the land on both sides of the southern part of Guantánamo Bay (Bahía de Guantánamo in Spanish) under a lease set up in the wake of the 1898 Spanish-American War. The lease was established in a 1903 agreement between the two governments, and its terms were modified in a 1934 treaty.[2][3] The current Cuban government considers the U.S. presence in Guantánamo to be an illegal occupation of the area, and argues that the Cuban-American Treaty, which established the lease in 1903, now violates article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.[4][5] However, Article 4 of the same document states that the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties shall not be retroactively applied to any treaties made before it.[6] The U.S. also argues that its right to the base have been reaffirmed by Cuba since the original treaty.
en.wikipedia.org...

was it a working base during the cuban missle crises?

The Guantanamo Base [US] has been in existence for decades, well before the recent establishment of the GTMO Detainment Facility.

www.globalsecurity.org...
Guantanamo Bay [GTMO] "GITMO"
U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay is the oldest U.S. base overseas and the only one in a Communist country. Located on the southeast corner of Cuba, in the Oriente Province, the base is about 400 air miles from Miami, Florida. The terrain and climate of Guantanamo Bay make it a haven for iguanas and banana rats.

In December 1903, the United States leased the 45 square miles of land and water for use as a coaling station. A treaty reaffirmed the lease in 1934 granting Cuba and her trading partners free access through the bay, payment of $2,000 in gold per year, equating to $4,085 today, and a requirement that both the U.S. and Cuba must mutually consent to terminate the lease.

It's severd many a purpose over the years with the somewhat recent establishment of the detainment facility being but one of those "purposes".

Hope this and the linked article help to clear the air and provide a better understanding of what GTMO is and has been over the years..

 

So can cuba do anything about it, or are just pissin someone else off even more, i meen its kinda like having a base in the USSR in the 80's.sort of.I wander if we have some bases in other enemy territory?

reply to post by bugs_n_recovery

...and a requirement that both the U.S. and Cuba must mutually consent to terminate the lease.

I think it's safe to say that GTMO isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

We've had and still have bases and embassies in many a country or "location" during times when the current administrations don't agree or haven't seen eye-to-eye. For the most part it would seem more a matter of politics... with "of the people, by the people" falling by the wayside due to previous "committments".

$.02

[edit on 6-7-2008 by 12m8keall2c]

Originally posted by bugs_n_recovery
So can cuba do anything about it, or are just pissin someone else off even more, i meen its kinda like having a base in the USSR in the 80's.sort of.I wander if we have some bases in other enemy territory?

It kind of depends on your definition of 'enemy territory' or of the nation that is 'hosting' the base. The US has many bases that are overseas on 'other nations' territories.

Originally posted by bugs_n_recovery
This is short and maybe I am an idiot but we are enemies with Cuba they hate us yet we have a holding site for terrorists in Cuba(GITMO), Am I missing something??

Here's a pretty good story on Gitmo, show's it's more than a temporary prison. Gives some historical background...

www.stripes.com...

I was wondering why the Cuban government doesn't try to get more propagandistic advantage internationally out of the rather obvious violation of Western standards of human rights over there. If Gitmo is not under U.S. jurisdiction, then Cuban authorities could at least try to deflect from their own human right issues by accusing the U.S. for crimes on Cuban territory. Why don't the do so? The Castro's wouldn't shrink away from such rhetoric, would they?

Originally posted by bugs_n_recovery
So can cuba do anything about it, or are just pissin someone else off even more, i meen its kinda like having a base in the USSR in the 80's.sort of.I wander if we have some bases in other enemy territory?

We have had radio monitoring stations in western China, for decades, ran by NSA / CIA to listen to Russian rocket telemetry when they perform rocket tests or launches. We share this information with Chinese officials.