Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is, by a Republican's standard, the only good thing in all of Cuba.
But, in reality it is the worst thing in that entire country.
The U.S.'s first encounter on Guantanamo Bay was during the Spanish-American war, when a Marine force camped there on June 10, 1898. The next day, two Marines were killed in the same area.
Five years later, in 1903, former President Theodore Roosevelt signed an agreement with the new Cuban government, where they would lease the Bay for 2,000 golden coins a year. But this was not something that they did voluntarily, it was something that was in the "Platt Amendment" that, more likely then not, the new government was forced to sign.
I think that they were probably forced to sign this, because it does not seem like something anyone would want. Basically, it gave the U.S. permission to interfere with Cuban affairs, and the Cuban government could not have any say in where or when they interfered.
This agreement was signed on February 16, 1903, and in the agreement, it said that "...for use as coaling or naval stations only, and no other purpose..."
Then, on July 2, 1906, another agreement was signed in Havana to re-buy Guantanamo with another property, Bahia Honda, and for both of these, they would pay $2,000.
The U.S., ever since has been dis-honoring the Platt Amendment, and it has not been for naval purposes only.
Now Guantanamo Bay is, well, Guantanamo Bay, the main torture center for America.
And, if they find someone in associated with Al-Qaeda, if they don't kill them, they'll ship them out to Guantanamo, tie their arms to the back of a board, shove water down their nose and mouths, ask 'em where Bin Laden is, they'll lie, and put them in a small room with 10 other former Al-Qaeda members.
I will never understand the use of torture.
And now, Robert Gates is saying that it might be harder then he originally expected to close Guantanamo, and John McCain has said "Apparently, we are not going to make the deadline, but we should work towards the closure of Guantanamo Bay because of the image it has on the world, of brutality, [which] harms our image very badly"
For once in my life, I can say that I agree with Senator John McCain of Arizona. That's true, completely. If you tie people's hands to a board, and shove water down your throat, it ruins your image.
And no one, unless their Hitler, deserves to die.
A special thanks to cnn.com and historyofcuba.com for additional information
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Sam
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
The Taliban Problem
Starting in 1996 until 2001, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. Who are the Taliban? An Extreme-Islamist group, who believe that Women shouldn't be educated, and should just not have a voice anywhere.
This, of course, is not accepted by the U.S. government.
The Taliban are one of the worlds worst groups, and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda probably were the ones who created the "All Muslims are Terrorists" stereotype.
If you judge all people associated with a religion just based on two groups, and even worse, if you say that all Muslims should die, to me, that's no better than Al-Qaeda.
And if you say "Oh, well they actually attacked us" then you are telling a lie.
There were about 3,000 people in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. And over the course of the Iraq war, we have killed about 10,000 civilians.
That's a difference of 7,000 people, dead.
In 2001, the Taliban lost control of Afganistan, and lost thousands of supporters.
After 3 years, the Taliban leaders had enough supporters to re-start the group.
And ever since 2004, the Taliban have been terrorising Afghanistan and it's leaders.
The movement is getting out of control, and right now, the Taliban are bombing innocent children in schools because they are educating girls, they are bombing to scare the school board. What the Taliban is obviously trying to is to get the government to stop educating girls so that the Taliban will stop bombing.
But the school board is not buying in, they have taken 5 years of this now, and they haven't bought in, yet.
People all across the world are calling out, telling them not to buy in, and other people are calling out to buy in.
What do I think? I think that although people will die in the process, the government should not buy in. If the Taliban gets it's way, then they will do more things, and if they keep on buying in, the government might as well be a Taliban government.
A special thanks to nytimes.com for additional information
Post questions and comments as comments
Sam
This, of course, is not accepted by the U.S. government.
The Taliban are one of the worlds worst groups, and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda probably were the ones who created the "All Muslims are Terrorists" stereotype.
If you judge all people associated with a religion just based on two groups, and even worse, if you say that all Muslims should die, to me, that's no better than Al-Qaeda.
And if you say "Oh, well they actually attacked us" then you are telling a lie.
There were about 3,000 people in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. And over the course of the Iraq war, we have killed about 10,000 civilians.
That's a difference of 7,000 people, dead.
In 2001, the Taliban lost control of Afganistan, and lost thousands of supporters.
After 3 years, the Taliban leaders had enough supporters to re-start the group.
And ever since 2004, the Taliban have been terrorising Afghanistan and it's leaders.
The movement is getting out of control, and right now, the Taliban are bombing innocent children in schools because they are educating girls, they are bombing to scare the school board. What the Taliban is obviously trying to is to get the government to stop educating girls so that the Taliban will stop bombing.
But the school board is not buying in, they have taken 5 years of this now, and they haven't bought in, yet.
People all across the world are calling out, telling them not to buy in, and other people are calling out to buy in.
What do I think? I think that although people will die in the process, the government should not buy in. If the Taliban gets it's way, then they will do more things, and if they keep on buying in, the government might as well be a Taliban government.
A special thanks to nytimes.com for additional information
Post questions and comments as comments
Sam
Monday, September 14, 2009
Iraqi Road
In my last post, I talked about 9/11, which is what triggered the Iraq war. After 9/11, the U.S. realized that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were more powerful then we thought.
And at that time, George Bush thought that Osama Bin Laden was hiding somewhere in Iraq. This, of course, was absolutely irrational and untrue.
There were no Nuclear weapons in Iraq, and you couldn't even say that there was no way of telling weather or not there was Osama Bin Laden, and/or Nuclear Weapons in Iraq, because there was no legitimate proof of there being any of that in Iraq. In the speech that Colon Powell gave to the United Nations, it showed blurry pictures of where there "might be" Nuclear Weapons, and proof that there were no people or weapons associated with Al-Qaeda was that they checked, every space that looked like the ones Colon Powell showed.
Were there Nuclear Weapons? No.
Were there Terrorists? No.
And you would think that at this point, they would abort the mission.
But they simply couldn't.
1st, They had caused so much international news, that it couldn't just be over after a few months.
And 2nd, they had already taken over Iraq, and they couldn't get out of it.
And after another year or two, the mind set had come back, and then it came back, stronger than ever.
Then, George Bush sent more and more troops in, costing about 10 billion dollars a month, and we got in bigger and bigger debt.
And in the middle of it all, the leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was executed, because the U.S. thought that he had ties to Al-Qaeda.
Saddam Hussein had his share of problems, he murdered and tortured tens of thousands of people in his own country, but had no ties what so ever to Al-Qaeda.
And there is no reason for the Death Penalty, no one deserves to die and people are very easily concealed in a prison.
The Iraq war is one of the worst wars in the history of America.
Post questions and comments as comments
Sam
And at that time, George Bush thought that Osama Bin Laden was hiding somewhere in Iraq. This, of course, was absolutely irrational and untrue.
There were no Nuclear weapons in Iraq, and you couldn't even say that there was no way of telling weather or not there was Osama Bin Laden, and/or Nuclear Weapons in Iraq, because there was no legitimate proof of there being any of that in Iraq. In the speech that Colon Powell gave to the United Nations, it showed blurry pictures of where there "might be" Nuclear Weapons, and proof that there were no people or weapons associated with Al-Qaeda was that they checked, every space that looked like the ones Colon Powell showed.
Were there Nuclear Weapons? No.
Were there Terrorists? No.
And you would think that at this point, they would abort the mission.
But they simply couldn't.
1st, They had caused so much international news, that it couldn't just be over after a few months.
And 2nd, they had already taken over Iraq, and they couldn't get out of it.
And after another year or two, the mind set had come back, and then it came back, stronger than ever.
Then, George Bush sent more and more troops in, costing about 10 billion dollars a month, and we got in bigger and bigger debt.
And in the middle of it all, the leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was executed, because the U.S. thought that he had ties to Al-Qaeda.
Saddam Hussein had his share of problems, he murdered and tortured tens of thousands of people in his own country, but had no ties what so ever to Al-Qaeda.
And there is no reason for the Death Penalty, no one deserves to die and people are very easily concealed in a prison.
The Iraq war is one of the worst wars in the history of America.
Post questions and comments as comments
Sam
Friday, September 11, 2009
8 years, we remember.
Eight years ago today, two airplanes hit the World Trade Center, which were some of the tallest building in the world, and the tallest buildings in New York. Where were these airplanes from? After the government (meaning the Senate and the CIA, since the President was sitting in a classroom reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", which according to him is his favorite book. Hey, it's probably the closest thing to "Ulysses" he's ever read) found that it was members of Al-Qaeda who hi-jacked the planes, and ran them into the World Trade Center.
This killed almost everyone in the towers, with only a few dozen survivors. And the people who did survive are now scarred for life.
A lot of people don't know that beyond the towers, another two planes were hi-jacked. One hit the Pentagon, and although there were no deaths, a lot of people got seriously injured. And one was going to hit the White House, but failed the mission.
This was the iconic moment in the"all Muslims are terrorists" stereotype.
Before this, we knew about terrorists, but didn't really care, then 9/11 came along, and the U.S. suddenly took action, as they had to. Once the Al-Qaeda group had gone into the U.S., and took lives, that's when you half to take action.
But then, they went into Iraq, and there was no reason to go to Iraq.
The decision to go into Iraq was made by the U.S. government, and a speech was given in a U.N. convention by Colon Powell.
Colon Powell was, more likely then not, the most reasonable person in the history of the Bush Administration, but he could have very easily said "No. I will not give a speech to almost every country in the world saying that a completely corrupted war is actually needed."
But, he did, and the speech basically said "There might be weapons, so we are gonna check, and spend 10 billion dollars a month on something that isn't real."
And that somehow persuaded a bunch of countries to help pay for this war.
I don't know.
Post questions and comments as comments.
Sam
This killed almost everyone in the towers, with only a few dozen survivors. And the people who did survive are now scarred for life.
A lot of people don't know that beyond the towers, another two planes were hi-jacked. One hit the Pentagon, and although there were no deaths, a lot of people got seriously injured. And one was going to hit the White House, but failed the mission.
This was the iconic moment in the"all Muslims are terrorists" stereotype.
Before this, we knew about terrorists, but didn't really care, then 9/11 came along, and the U.S. suddenly took action, as they had to. Once the Al-Qaeda group had gone into the U.S., and took lives, that's when you half to take action.
But then, they went into Iraq, and there was no reason to go to Iraq.
The decision to go into Iraq was made by the U.S. government, and a speech was given in a U.N. convention by Colon Powell.
Colon Powell was, more likely then not, the most reasonable person in the history of the Bush Administration, but he could have very easily said "No. I will not give a speech to almost every country in the world saying that a completely corrupted war is actually needed."
But, he did, and the speech basically said "There might be weapons, so we are gonna check, and spend 10 billion dollars a month on something that isn't real."
And that somehow persuaded a bunch of countries to help pay for this war.
I don't know.
Post questions and comments as comments.
Sam
Monday, September 7, 2009
Exhaling is bad for the Environment?
CO2, Carbon Dioxide, is both good and bad for you. There are two types of CO2, one is Natural, and one is Artificial. Natural is what you exhale, and is absorbed by Plants and Oceans, and Artificial is more difficultly absorbed by plants and oceans, and in large amounts, nature can absorb almost no CO2.
Over time, (say, 30 years) a whole is created in the atmosphere, which rises the worldwide temperature, which makes the plants and oceans go crazy, in fact, they say when global warming hits its full effect, Antarctica and the North Pole will melt, which will turn the ice into water, rising ocean levels worldwide, which will sink all of the coastal cities in the world, like New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Seoul, and many more. We are talking hundreds of millions of people here, and if we don't get our CO2 level back down to 350, it is not going to be good.
There was a guest on Colbert (who by the way I challenge to a blog-off, and I am doing that because he doesn't even have a blog, so I challenge you, Stephen Colbert) a few days ago, and he was from 350.org.
And being the good person that I am, I went on this website. And it defines what I am talking about in this article.
It says on it has on it's home page the first part of a whole article (most of which they talked about on Colbert) and, although I can not quote everything on the front page, based on simple copyright laws, I can say certain themes.
And what it said was this:
(written as though it the average activist to the average person in the world), most people in the world are aware of global warming, and that all of the people in the world know that what ever it is, it needs to be stopped. But then it ends with a hopeful message, saying that it can be achieved.
I couldn't read beyond the sample that was given on the homepage, because the link didn't open, but I think that that pretty much summed it up.
The climate crisis is one of the biggest troubles in the world today, and I appreciate the efforts of 350.org.
My opinion, along with everyone in the world, (accept the Bush-Cheney administration) is that global warming is bad.
Post questions and comments as comments
Sam
Over time, (say, 30 years) a whole is created in the atmosphere, which rises the worldwide temperature, which makes the plants and oceans go crazy, in fact, they say when global warming hits its full effect, Antarctica and the North Pole will melt, which will turn the ice into water, rising ocean levels worldwide, which will sink all of the coastal cities in the world, like New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Seoul, and many more. We are talking hundreds of millions of people here, and if we don't get our CO2 level back down to 350, it is not going to be good.
There was a guest on Colbert (who by the way I challenge to a blog-off, and I am doing that because he doesn't even have a blog, so I challenge you, Stephen Colbert) a few days ago, and he was from 350.org.
And being the good person that I am, I went on this website. And it defines what I am talking about in this article.
It says on it has on it's home page the first part of a whole article (most of which they talked about on Colbert) and, although I can not quote everything on the front page, based on simple copyright laws, I can say certain themes.
And what it said was this:
(written as though it the average activist to the average person in the world), most people in the world are aware of global warming, and that all of the people in the world know that what ever it is, it needs to be stopped. But then it ends with a hopeful message, saying that it can be achieved.
I couldn't read beyond the sample that was given on the homepage, because the link didn't open, but I think that that pretty much summed it up.
The climate crisis is one of the biggest troubles in the world today, and I appreciate the efforts of 350.org.
My opinion, along with everyone in the world, (accept the Bush-Cheney administration) is that global warming is bad.
Post questions and comments as comments
Sam
Saturday, September 5, 2009
If the president's speaking, I want my kid out.
On Tuesday, September 8, 2009, the President will give a speech to late Elementary, Middle, and High school students, about how you should stay in school.
And of course, since it is the president, and not say Rush Limbaugh, it is going to be about the return of the Nazi-Socialists. Obviously.
Seriously, do these people ever give it a rest? I mean if George Bush could stop filming "Barney's Christmas Special", and go on national T.V. (right after he did something about Iraq) and say "Hey kids, don't do drugs" and basically walked off, would there be people keeping their kids out of school? No.
And even better, since it is completely going to be, "Drugs are something that were invented by Republicans and those Republicans have destroyed the world."
Right?
And, y'know we don't want to hear a racist speak to our children to manipulate our children and hypnotize them.
Can we ever change some people?
Post questions and comments as comments
Sam
And of course, since it is the president, and not say Rush Limbaugh, it is going to be about the return of the Nazi-Socialists. Obviously.
Seriously, do these people ever give it a rest? I mean if George Bush could stop filming "Barney's Christmas Special", and go on national T.V. (right after he did something about Iraq) and say "Hey kids, don't do drugs" and basically walked off, would there be people keeping their kids out of school? No.
And even better, since it is completely going to be, "Drugs are something that were invented by Republicans and those Republicans have destroyed the world."
Right?
And, y'know we don't want to hear a racist speak to our children to manipulate our children and hypnotize them.
Can we ever change some people?
Post questions and comments as comments
Sam
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