[Rhodes22-list] Fw: Poetic Justice

[John Tonjes]

   John Tonjes
   [1]johntonjes at earthlink.net
   Why Wait? Move to EarthLink.



   Yankee Go Home?  No, WAIT!!!

    Puerto Rico, Germany, & France: Be careful what you wish for, it
   might come true!!!-----
   Maybe there finally is some common sense out There in Washington!   Oh
   yes!  How sweet it is!  It warms my heart to see America starting to
   act with some degree of common sense...
   Another lesson learned the hard way!  One of the many headaches that
   George W. Bush inherited from his predecessor was the Puerto Rican
   Island of Vieques.  In the waning years of the Clinton administration,
   protesters demanded that the U.S. Navy abandon bombing and naval gun
   fire exercises that had taken place on the largely uninhabited island
   for nearly seventy years. It became a leftist cause.  Liberal icons
   bumped into one another to fly to Puerto Rico, boat over to the
   island, trespass (but never on a day that there was an exercise
   scheduled) and get arrested for the benefit of the New York Times or
   Newsweek.  They included the Reverend Al Sharpton, Mrs. Jesse Jackson,
   Joan Baez, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Edward Olomos, Michael Moore and
   Ramsey Clark, to name a few.

     Hillary Clinton, then running for the U.S. Senate in New York,
   chastised the U.S. Navy for not bowing to the "will of the citizens of
   Puerto Rico", until her husband, a week before the election, issued an
   executive order to phase out the facility by 2003, despite
   recommendations to the contrary by his own Secretary of Defense and
   the Chief of Naval Operations.
    In 2002, the bombing exercises were transferred to an Air Force
   bombing range in central Florida, not far from the Jacksonville and
   Pensacola Naval Air Stations.  In January, many of the protesters were
   back in Puerto Rico, celebrating the final bombing exercise on Vieques
   and waved Puerto Rican flags and placards that read "U.S. Navy, get
   out of Puerto
   Rico."
    On February 21, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that
   the U.S. Navy will in fact close the Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station
   in Puerto Rico in 2004, eliminating 1200 civilian jobs as well as 700
   military positions.   This naval facility is estimated to have put
   nearly $300 million annually into the local economy. The next day a
   stunned Governor Sila Calderon,
    held a news conference in San Juan, protesting the base closure as a
   serious blow to Commonwealth's fragile economy.  The governor stated
   that "The people of Puerto Rico don't now or never did have an
   interest in closing the Vieques bombing
    range or the Roosevelt Roads naval base.  My government is interested
   in both staying in Puerto Rico."

   When asked, Admiral Robert J. Natter, Commander-on Chief, Western
   Atlantic Command, said, "Without Vieques, I see no
   further need for the facility at Roosevelt Roads.   None."

    So, Yanqui go home?   Fine.   But we'll take our dollars with us.
   Hasta la vista  . . . baby!
   On February 21, the Secretary of Defense also announced that starting
   this year, the U.S. European Command would begin moving most if not
   all of its active combat and support units from bases in Germany to
   others being established in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and
   Turkey to "better position them for rapid deployment to likely hot
   spots in those parts of the world."
   Immediately the business and government leaders in the German states
   of Hesse, Rhineland and Wurttemburg, protested the loss of nearly $6
   billion in revenue each year from the bases and manpower to be
   displaced.
    A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry speculated that the move may be
   "what the Americans call 'payback' for the actions of this government
   in opposing military action in Iraq."
    Whatever.
   Does anyone know the German translation for "Hasta la vista baby?"
   N E X T ?

   ---

References

   1. mailto:johntonjes at earthlink.net