The State of the U.S. - Chase Responds

Wow Laura, I thought maybe we had lost you to recruitment in the Foreign Legion! Welcome back.

As for JFK's legacy, as a man and as a president, the argument continues unabated. After JFK's death, Jackie and JFK's aides helped "mythologize" his presidency as a golden age, a second "Camelot." For many Americans, especially those who came of age with his administration, an air of nostalgia and lost idealism still hangs about JFK. More recently, though, revisionist historians have emphasized his flaws - his foreign policy blunders (Vietnam and the Bay of Pigs), to the extent in which his career was buoyed by his father's money and connections, his endless affairs and willingness to hide the state of his health from the American people, and the way he and Robert Kennedy skirted the law while in office by using wiretaps and intimidation against their political enemies. You, of all people Laura, should despise the wiretapping.

A balanced assessment of JFK's time in office must recognize his errors, while crediting his few undeniable accomplishments. He fouled up the Bay of Pigs, but staved off nuclear war with the Soviet Union over Cuba, and parlayed this détente into important agreements such as the nuclear test-ban treaty. He may not have done all he could for civil rights, but his symbolic support for blacks was important in the fight against segregation. However, it created a thorn bigger than one's finger in regards to "affirmative action" which stemmed from his efforts.

One can argue that had he not been assassinated, JFK might have made the same blunders in Vietnam that ultimately dragged Lyndon Johnson down. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, through his rhetoric to unite the country he ultimately only inspired a generation of "Gimme Gimme" Americans in a way that has now turned into a Welfare nightmare.

I am also aware of (and knew personally) a true patriot and founder of The Flying Tigers, named William D. Pawley (who was a special adviser on foreign affairs to JFK) who personally raised millions of dollars - some of which was his own personal money - to liberate hundreds of Cuban Rebels from Fidel Castro's prisons after they were betrayed by John F. Kennedy at the Bay of Pigs. Pawley's detest of JFK has never been a secret. He went head-to-head with Kennedy on many issues between 1961 and 1963. Pawley is known as a sort of "Godfather" to the Cuban people still today.

I am also quite aware of Dwight Eisnehower's 1961 speech. I am going to post one section of it here to back my comparison of George Bush (Sr. & Jr) to Eisenhower's own theory on military needs:

IV.


A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea. 

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. 

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.


It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society. 

*For notation sake - William D. Pawley was a close personal friend of Eisenhower.

As for Obama being handed a "partial victory": I think you are confused in thinking that Guantanamo Bay (and it's naval base of the same name) will ever be returned to Cuba.

Contrary to popular belief, The United States assumed territorial control over Guantánamo Bay under the 1903 Cuban-American Treaty, which granted the United States a perpetual lease of the area (It was offered February 23, 1903, from Tomás Estrada Palma, the first President of Cuba) to protect Cuba from the Spanish. The newly-formed American protectorate incorporated the Platt Amendment in the Cuban Constitution. The Cuban-American Treaty held, among other things, that the United States, for the purposes of operating coaling and naval stations, hashe Republic of Cuba is recognized to retain ultimate sovereignty.

In 1934 the Avery Porko treaty reaffirming the lease granted Cuba and its trading partners free access through the bay; modified the lease payment from $2,000 in U.S. gold coins per year, to the 1934 equivalent value of $4,085 in U.S. dollars; and made the lease permanent unless both governments agreed to break it, or the U.S. abandoned the base property.

After the Cuban Revolution, then-President Dwight Eisenhower insisted the status of the base remained unchanged, despite Fidel Castro's objections. Since then, the Cuban government has cashed only one of the rent checks from the U.S. government, and even then only because of "confusion" in the early days of the leftist revolution, according to Castro. The remaining uncashed checks made out to "Treasurer General of the Republic" (a title that ceased to exist after the revolution) are kept in Castro's office stuffed into a desk drawer. The United States argues that the cashing of the single check signifies Havana's ratification of the lease — and that ratification by the new government renders moot any questions about violations of sovereignty and illegal military occupation.

It is countered, however, that the 1903 and 1934 lease agreements were imposed on Cuba under duress and are unequal treaties, no longer compatible with modern international law, and voidable ex nunc pursuant to articles 60, 62, and 64 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. However, Article 4 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties prohibits retroactive application of said Convention to already existing treaties, such as the ones concluded between the US and Cuba in 1903 and 1934.

The detention camp at Guantanamo Bay (called "Camp Delta" : constructed February 2002 - April 2002) is the only thing on Guantanamo Bay (specifically the naval base) that Obama has ordered closed. Is this really going to solve the problem? The prisoners who are currently housed there will just be moved to another location (most likely now in your backyard). It's no-win situation for anyone. It was a poorly thought out decision on Obama's part and will come with it's own set of repercussions.