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is a bit shortsighted. It's more like a strategy--and it certainly seems to be working. This particular film has fans from left to center to right. It's a political boundary-crosser. And the insurance companies? They can go ahead and make their own documentary if they want. Go on, ya putzes, roll out the barrels on it!! Remember, the right pulled that same "Anti-MM" tactic with F-911...that worked a treat, not! Gitmo is a US military base that we lease. We won't be giving it back any time soon. Castro refuses to cash our checks, but that doesn't change the fact that the lease was negotiated and a sovereign government agreed to it. Everything you wanted to know about Gitmo/Cuba: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay.htmIn 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.
Diplomatic relations with Cuba were cut in 1961 by President Dwight Eisenhower. At this time, many Cubans sought refuge on the base. U.S. Marines and Cuban militiamen began patrolling opposite sides of the base's 17.4 mile fenceline. Today, U.S. Marines and Cuba's "Frontier Brigade" still man fenceline posts 24 hours a day.... The base is divided into two distinct areas by the 2 1/2 mile-wide Guantanamo Bay. The airfield is located on the Leeward side and the main base is on the Windward side. Ferry service provides transportation across the bay. The primary mission of Guantanamo Bay is to serve as a strategic logistics base for the Navy’s Atlantic Fleet and to support counter drug operations in the Caribbean. ... After 52 years of service, Guantanamo's Fleet Training Group relocated to Mayport, Florida, in July 1995. One month later, the naval base lost another major tenant command when the base's Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity disestablished after 92 years of service.
On 13 June 2003 Brown & Root Services, a division of Kellogg Brown & Root, Arlington, Va., was awarded a $12,495,601 modification to Task Order 0038 at under a cost-reimbursement, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity construction contract for various facilities, Radio Range, U.S. Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay. The work to be performed includes new facilities for traffic control checkpoints (main and secondary checkpoints), troop bed-down facility, troop dining facility and destructive weather improvements to detention facility structures. The project will also include site work, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, plumbing and electrical work, as required for the various facilities. Work will be performed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and is expected to be completed by June 2004. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The basic contract was competitively procured with 44 proposals solicited, three offers received and award made on June 29, 2000. The total contract amount is not to exceed $300,000,000, which includes the base period and four option years. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Atlantic Division, Norfolk, Va., is the contracting activity (N62470-00-D-0005).
The Naval Base includes, as separate commands, a Naval Hospital and Branch Dental Clinic, detachments of the Personnel Support Activity, Naval Atlantic Meteorologic and Oceanographic Command, Naval Media Center, Naval Communications Station, Department of Defense Dependent Schools and a Navy Brig. Directly supporting the base as departments of Naval Station are Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Resident Officer in Charge of Construction, Human Resources Office, Family Support and Service Center, Red Cross, Security and Navy Exchange/Commissary.
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