South Dakota Army National Guard deploys to Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

January 5, 2022 Anna Hamelin

RAPID CITY, S.D. – The South Dakota Army National Guard’s 235th Military Police Company was honored in a deployment ceremony on January 5 prior to their deployment to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

They’re risen to more local service over the past two years, travelling across the state to provide security in various cities and at Mount Rushmore, and even to the nation’s capitol. They’re now headed to a foreign calling, Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility.

The guardsmen will essentially be serving as correctional officers in the facility.

Deployment ceremony for South Dakota Army National GuardThough these efforts are distant, they’ll still have a local impact.

“Never lose sight of the fact that what you’re doing by securing that location is you’re keeping America safe. And you’re keeping South Dakota safe, and you’re keeping your families safe here at home,” says South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.

More:
https://www.newscenter1.tv/south-dakota-army-national-guard-deploys-to-cuba/

[Gaugamela]

1. We need to close Gitmo and return it to Cuba.

It's a Republican wet dream and a national disgrace.

[madville]

2. Just close the detention facility

We should however continue to keep the Navy base itself, we’ve had that since 1903, it’s strategically important to Navy and Coast Guard operations in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and South America.

[Gaugamela]

4. We lease it from Cuba for a pittance, and they don't cash the checks. It's a valuable

natural harbor that we extorted from the Cubans at the end of the Spanish-American war. We have the whole eastern seaboard and 800 bases scattered all over the world, not to mention subs and aircraft carriers and F-35s and all the other toys. We don’t need it and the right thing to do by any measure of human decency is to give it back. Would we allow a Cuban navel base in Florida? Does any other country on the planet have hundreds of military bases all over the world?

[tirebiter]

3. Can't think of a better place to send them if Noem feels the need to deploy them somewhere.

Need to keep the chain of command intact.

[Judi Lynn]

5. How the US stole Guantanamo Bay

Autumn 2003

In the last two years the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba has regularly been seen in the news due to the imprisonment of hundreds of Muslims held there by the United States without trial.

It is well documented that the prisoners are held in terrible conditions and they have included minors. Cuba has surprisingly come under fire from some quarters for allowing this behaviour on their land. It is important to explain that Cuba has no power over this area of their own soil, as for the last 100 years it has been occupied by the United States and is separated from the rest of Cuba by one of the world’s most intense minefields.

The area known as Guantanamo Bay covers nearly 118 square kilometres of eastern Cuba, it contains 2 airfields and is home to around 3,000 permanently stationed US military personnel, whilst a further floating population of thousands arrives and departs by air and sea each month.

The annual rent for the leasing of this land is 2,000 gold coins, equal to $4,085, so around one cent per square metre of land! However, since 1959 and the triumph of the Revolution, no cheque has ever been cashed. Since March of that year Cuba has demanded that the US return the base and has regularly had resolutions passed at the Non-Aligned Movement calling for the base to be returned.

The history of Guantanamo Bay is a perfect example of US policy towards Cuba since the end of the 19th century. In 1898, just as the Cuban patriots’ independence army was about to achieve victory after 30 years of armed struggle against the Spanish Crown, the United States declared war on Spain after their warship, The Maine, was allegedly torpedoed by the Spanish. Later that year, rule of Cuba was transferred from Madrid to Washington at the Treaty of Paris, where no Cubans were present, after US President McKinley had stated “it wouldn’t be wise to recognise the independence of the Cuban Republic”.

More:
https://cuba-solidarity.org.uk/cubasi/article/27/how-the-us-stole-guantanamo-bay