Tropical Island Resort Property Available Soon

President Obama has announced his intention to finally, definitely, this time for sure, close down America’s offshore concentration camp at sunny Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The current tenants (most of whom have never been indicted or convicted of anything, but were simply denounced by score-settling neighbors and traded to the US for $5,000 cash bounties) are eager to relocate.

The US needs to liquidate this sunny surplus property now, while the demand for Cuban real estate is high, and provide the returns to the U.S. Treasury, which has spent $6 billion on Gitmo since G.W. Bush established it in 2002. And who knows, maybe American resort developers will be the successful bidders. Is it too early to make reservations for the Trump Tropical Gitmo Palace?

Psychology Association: Okay, We’ll Stop Helping Torturers

“The American Psychological Association voted Friday in favor of a resolution that would bar its members from participating in national security interrogations.

The resolution by the country’s largest professional organization of psychologists passed overwhelmingly. The only dissenting vote came from Col. Larry James, a former Army intelligence psychologist at Guantanamo.”

— “Psychology Group Votes To Ban Members From Taking Part In Interrogations,” Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News

“The association’s ethics director, Stephen Behnke, coordinated the group’s public policy statements on interrogations with a top military psychologist … and then received a Pentagon contract to help train interrogators while he was working at the association, without the knowledge of the association’s board. Mr. Behnke did not respond to a request for comment.”

— “Outside Psychologists Shielded U.S. Torture Program, Report Finds,” James Risen, New York Times

Related:

“Larry James,” Center for Torture Accountability

“US torture report: psychologists should no longer aid military, group says,” Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian

Tropical Island Resort Property Available Soon

A long-anticipated real estate deal is about to put eight prime parcels of tropical paradise on the market. White House press secretary Josh Earnest blabbed that the Obama Administration is finally ready to close down the Guantánamo Bay concentration camps detention centers on the sunny island of Cuba.

The canny Mr. Obama teased the deal back in 2009, but waited for the Cuban real estate market to take off, and it’s muy caliente after US normalization of relations with the island nation. There are already deals in the works for a dozen new luxury golf courses, and tourists from as far away as China are waiting for tee times.

The “Gitmo” detention centers now hold 116 inmates guests at a cost of more than $100 million (possibly $454 million) a year, so it’s plainly time to cash out and recoup costs during Cuba’s current resort development boom. The deal would look better without sitting tenants and since 106 of those 116 guests have never been charged or convicted of anything, it’s time to find them other accommodations. And why host the remaining 10 guests at an annual cost of at least $10 million each when the Government Accountability Office has found many alternatives?

Resort Property May Be Available Soon

Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to look for alternative USA housing for the uncharged inmates our government has been holding for over a decade at Guantanamo Bay. The GAO found 104 sites, 98 Justice Department and 6 military prisons suitable for holding terrorism convicts. Mind you, those guys haven’t been convicted of anything, but you get the idea.