Tag Archives: Cuba

Jul 17 2013

If North Korea and Cuba have been trading arms…

North Korean Missiles aboard the DPRK Ship Chong Chon Gang. (Courtesy of Yahoo)

North Korean Missiles aboard the DPRK Ship Chong Chon Gang. (Courtesy of Yahoo)

…could this lead to a new Cuban Missile Crisis?

Panama found a North Korean vessel with several missiles (stated to be “outdated”) in its hold bound from Cuba back to the Juche-state that is banned from importing almost any type of weapon by sanction.

The Cuban government, in a televised statement, stated they were headed to North Korea for “repair” and return back to the communist state.

Let’s leave the “repair” aspect of this alone — and assume for a moment, that that’s true.  This means that North Korea and Cuba could very  well have been doing this for awhile, freely — with nobody’s knowledge.

Imagine another Cuban Missile Crisis, with arms once again aimed at the United States by a nation less than 100 miles away from the US Coastline.  Except this time, the arms and the figurative “button” are now in the hands of authoritarian North Korea — and a government hell-bent on proving a point to it’s people that it can, indeed “rain holy fire” down on the nation that the Juche and Songun state has made out to be it’s blood-enemy.

chong-chon-gang

DPRK Ship Chong Chon Gang

Could this be a flue warning sign of something that could come in the future?  Could this have also blown open a cover of how North Korea’s been getting stuff?

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Apr 16 2013

Guantanamo Bay Prison — The 21st Century Manzanar?

ImageThe more and more I give thought to it — the more and more I wonder if history will look back on our generation, and judge the indefinite imprisonment of those at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as our version of Manzanar.

Japanese Issei, Nisei or Sansei were often the most targeted group for forced relocation during World War II — relocated almost strictly due to their lineage, family ties, or just because they even looked Japanese.  Other groups were forced to relocate as well, but Japanese Issei and Nisei were the groups targeted the most.

Thankfully, none of the prisoners at Guantanamo are children or family members; but many similarities exist: they are not afforded a civil trial, as the prisoners have been designated as “unlawful military combatants,” in that while they are not a member of a recognized, uniformed military service, they either conduct, have been trained to conduct, or otherwise engage in or support militarized warfare.  However, interestingly enough, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Human Rights Watch maintain that the United States has not held the Article 5 tribunals required by the Geneva Conventions. The International Committee of the Red Cross has stated that, “Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, [or] a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law.”

I do give the United States Intelligence Community credit when I say that they are privy to information about these people that we, as civilians, do not know.  It’s quite possible these people are as dangerous as the US Government says they are — why otherwise hold them?  But…  why is there a[n apparent] lack of jurisprudence for these people?  Do those who fall between the cracks of the law just sit there, and wait for a trial that may never come?  Will history look back on Guantanamo Bay Detention as a necessary evil, and something that kept the United States safe?

Or…

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…will it be a stain of blood on our hands that even time can’t wash away?

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