Detainees' future may hinge on Cuba lease  Is Guantanamo Bay US
property or not? The answer could affect the handling of Taliban
prisoners.  By , Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
At the height of the cold war, US forces maintained a hair-
trigger alert along a 17-mile fence line to defend the soil of
this military base against communist encroachment.  Now, at the
height of a different kind of war, US government lawyers are
arguing that Guantanamo isn't American at all, that it really
belongs to Cuba.  It is more than just an esoteric debate about
an open-ended 1903 lease agreement with Cuba establishing
Guantanamo as a US coaling station. Rather, it goes to the heart
of the Bush administration's effort to convert a portion of this
dusty naval base into a terrorist penal colony beyond the reach
of US laws and constitutional protections.  Recommended: Could
you pass a US citizenship test?  Simply put, the issue is
whether the naval base is sovereign US territory or a mere piece
of rental property w