In Breakthrough, US and Cuba To Resume Diplomatic Relations 435
HughPickens.com writes: Peter Baker reports at the NYT that in a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, the United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century. In addition, the United States will ease restrictions on remittances, travel and banking relations, and Cuba will release 53 Cuban prisoners identified as political prisoners by the United States government. Although the decades-old American embargo on Cuba will remain in place for now, the administration signaled that it would welcome a move by Congress to ease or lift it should lawmakers choose to. "We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. It does not serve America's interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse. We know from hard-learned experience that it is better to encourage and support reform than to impose policies that will render a country a failed state," said the White House in a written statement. "The United States is taking historic steps to chart a new course in our relations with Cuba and to further engage and empower the Cuban people."
About Fucking Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Long overdue. Time for cigars and mojitos all around!
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt the US administration "realized" anything.
Very likely a conglomerate of US companies sees business opportunities and is pulling strings behind the scene.
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt the US administration "realized" anything.
Very likely a conglomerate of US companies sees business opportunities and is pulling strings behind the scene.
Pretty much every business in the US has wanted to reopen trade with Cuba since the day after the US Closed it. They've been tugging on those strings for a long time with no luck.
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Insightful)
For years, the only thing this served was to try to get votes in Florida. And even then, I do not know how much good that did.
Either Obama has written off the Cuban vote in Miami or he has decided to concede FLA to the GOP. Either way, Obama has finally done something right.
Opening up relations with Cuba makes too much financial sense for pride or antiquated ideas of anticommunism to get in the way.
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Might as well play to the base and show America what happens if both parties start appeasing their base.
The vast majority of Americans that aren't partisan asshats get whacked in the head every 2/4/6 years as pendulum swings back and forth?
Hooray for Gerrymandering and first past the post!
Re: (Score:2)
here you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
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You will note in the 2012 presidential election, the majority of Cuban Americans in South Florida voted for Obama; and he carried Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties with huge margins:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida,_2012
The GOP's hold on South Florida is broken; it was primarily among older Cuban who came over during the revolution. This issue has been less polarizing for their children and grandchildren. Indeed, 3rd and 4th generation Cuban-Americans have r
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Stuff like this happens with most wars. Cuban revolution is no different in that regard. Citizens who flea into the arms of the enemy very often lose a lot of sympathy from back home. Perhaps there are still some people in England patiently waiting to regain the land that was taken away from their ancestors by those upstart American yahoos.
Funny how it's always different when it's the US who does the "liberation".
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Insightful)
And, at this point, with two years left in his term as a lame duck, he cares about the votes he'll get because .... why?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Insightful)
FInally?
Everything is better by any measure.
To quote Chris Rock:
Only President Obama could get gas to $2.50, end 2 wars, get bin Laden, bring unemployment below 8%, then be told he's failing as president.
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Only President Obama could get gas to $2.50
Gas is that low despite him, not because of him. Get your basic facts straight.
end 2 wars
Which two was that? There's more war in Iraq than there was when he took command, and the war in Afghanistan that he said was the important one is still going on. There's also some new NEW war going on in Syria, where he's now got our forces involved, and we have some lead being slung around in places like Ukraine. "End" two wars? Which ones?
get bin Laden
You mean, be in office when the people who were already working on the task before he
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Insightful)
If gas was this low under a Republican president I could guarantee you that the party faithful would be giving the president full credit.
The general rules of thumb are:
good things happen while our guy is on watch: it's due to his hard work and leadership
bad things happen while our guy is on watch: caused by previous administration's policies
good things happen while the other guy is on watch: caused by an earlier administration's policies
bad things happen while the other guy is on watch: worst president of all time!
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Don't give credit to the President for anything good that happens in the U.S. (Lower Gas Prices, the end of the War in Iraq and Afganistan, killing Bin Laden, unemployment below 8%)
If he were actually responsible for any of those things, we could talk about it. Actually he can't be responsible for ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, because those are still raging on, and our troops are still there. And he can't be responsible for unemployment below 8% because it's not below 8%. And lower gas prices? Explain what he's done to make that happen. Let me guess - you're going to mention something about more drilling in the US, right? Nope. He's only clamped down on that, in areas wher
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Only President Obama could get gas to $2.50
Really? Really? Please explain how this happened. First of all, the current cheap gas has all to do with OPEC and NOTHING to do with Obama [google.com]. Seems to me that between the Keystone Pipeline / recent EPA rulings / ethanol mandates, Obama has been trying to make gasoline MORE expensive, not cheaper!
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:4, Insightful)
A couple of airstrikes in Libya counts as a war now?
The 60s also notably lacked a crushing recession; you're comparing a time of economic prosperity to a time of recession recovery.
And oh yay. More jobs numbers nonsense. But hey, since were comparing economic apples to oranges, lets note that in the 60s the "real" unemployment rate was >40%, since most families weren't dual income and as a result overall labor participiation was far lower, and those wives "would have been working if they werent at home raising babies". That totally proves my point about how your point is nonsense...right? Or maybe we should just stick to the existing definitions of unemployment, which means accepting that the rate is below 8% (actually much lower), but has the drawback of you dont get to bash the POTUS with made up numbers drawn from thin air that include "people who would be working if they werent in college".
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A couple of airstrikes in Libya counts as a war now?
Yes. Dropping bombs on a sovereign nation is considered an Act of War under any definition of the phrase. Bonus points for not being bothered to get Congressional approval for the measure.
But hey, since were comparing economic apples to oranges, lets note that in the 60s the "real" unemployment rate was >40%, since most families weren't dual income and as a result overall labor participiation was far lower
There are a multitude of different "real" unemployment rates that one can quote; I've never heard of one that includes people who willingly decline to participate in the workforce (i.e., students and homemakers) The traditional definition includes people who desire work but whom have abandoned all hope of finding it.
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-- If it were not war, and anyone gets killed, then it would be *murder*
You mean like drone strikes?
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Insightful)
While starting [wikipedia.org] completely [wikipedia.org] new ones. Hooray!
Indeed, Hooray! (I'm glad you get it - so few kneejerk anti-American morons do.) The US is at its best when it is saving innocent people, like Libyans and Yhazdis, from genocide. It returns us to what is best about this country.
*cough* bullshit [thehill.com] *cough*
Yes indeed! Your quote IS bullshit! I'm glad you noticed! You can't claim a policy failed by arbitrarily changing the yardstick. We've never measured by U6. No time to start now.
Hooray though, we added 300,000 jobs in the last quarter. The economy did that in most years of the 1960s, when the population of the United States was significantly less than today. Success!
Yet again, you are completely correct! This is an amazing Success! The economy in the 1960s was aided by the fact that most of the rest of the world was still recovering from WW2, and half of it was under the ideological sway of Communist regimes fundamentally opposed to economic reality. Further, the U.S. had many more controls in place in those days to reduce economic inequality, since people still had a long memory of what Republicans did to cause the Great Depression. Tax rates on corporations in the 1960s reached as high as 90%, with fewer loopholes. This allowed many states to give a free college education to anyone who had the grades to get accepted, no matter what their economic background. All which provided massive demand for U.S. employment.
Alas, we ended all that. Self-defeating "trickle-down" is now more or less a religion (except Jesus and his miracles can't be actually disproven, like all these bullshit Republican economic theories have), so now we're stuck with people voting in Republicans on grandiose promises that this-time-it'll-work-for-sure, the inevitable economic crash, Democrats voted in to fix it, and then Republicans again to punish the Democrats for fixing the Republican mess, because this-time-it'll-work-for-sure.
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Liberals going about saving innocent people while totally forgetting about all that innocent oil that needs saving too!
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While Obama isn't perfect by any means, I do find it hilarious when people claim he's the worst president of all time. He got the Nobel Prize before he did anything, which was stupid, but before he did anything he was also called worst president of all time by several pundits. So it seems actions don't really matter for public opinion. That's sort of the point of Chris Rock's comment.
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For years, the only thing this served was to try to get votes in Florida. And even then, I do not know how much good that did.
Either Obama has written off the Cuban vote in Miami or he has decided to concede FLA to the GOP. Either way, Obama has finally done something right.
Opening up relations with Cuba makes too much financial sense for pride or antiquated ideas of anticommunism to get in the way.
Well, considering that the vote in Florida decided the 2000 US presidential election and could have been a major factor in the other elections since then, pandering to the voters did have some value. I heard rumblings that Bill Clinton wanted to resume normal relations with Cuba towards the end of his presidency, but he feared that doing so would throw the state to the Republican candidate and might decide the election. At the time, the majority of Cubans voted Republican but some did vote Democrat. The
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For years, the only thing this served was to try to get votes in Florida. And even then, I do not know how much good that did.
Either Obama has written off the Cuban vote in Miami or he has decided to concede FLA to the GOP.
I think that in reality, the people who want us to invade Cuba - the ExPats, are pretty old, and growing smaller all the time. A lot of the present day Cubans in Miami and environs probably could not care less. Might like to go visit the relatives without having to travel through other countries.
Regarding the politics of this, I suspect O'Bama has not only pissed off the remaining ExPats, but I suspect that the Republicans, given the ExPat's waning influence and numbers, might have been planning a surpris
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:4, Interesting)
(Real) Cuban leaf is good. IMHO, Sumatra is better. Cuban cigars are desired primarily because they are illegal, and the forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest. I have never had real Cuban rum, so I will not opine.
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Informative)
Cuban cigars are desired because they're good.
I used to smoke cigars, and I live in a country where you can readily buy Cuban ones. They're not illegal for me, but they were damned fine cigars ... much much better than some of the other countries.
And, real Cuban rum ... also tasty stuff, and something they're quite good at making. In Cuba, it's affectionately called "Vitamin R".
Maybe to Americans they're better because they're illegal. But to the rest of the world they're better because they're better.
Cuba has pretty much an awesome climate for growing both tobacco and sugar cane.
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> Cuban cigars are desired because they're good.
[citation needed]. Outside of the 'neat' factor of buying a cuban cigar, there are equally good makers in other countries.
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Insightful)
> Cuban cigars are desired because they're good.
[citation needed]. Outside of the 'neat' factor of buying a cuban cigar, there are equally good makers in other countries.
How about the fact that the primary magazine dedicated to cigars has an entire wing of their site dedicated to Cuba?
http://www.cigaraficionado.com... [cigaraficionado.com]
Go check out their reviews...Most of the top reviewed were either made in Cuba, or by Cubans in exile in the US. Clearly they're doing something right.
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...the "mostly by Cubans in exile" is the important part.
As someone who occasionally orders Cuban cigars from the Swiss, I can tell you that they're simply not any better than the same cigar from the same company from their Dominican or Nicaraguan plants. ...especially since the same seeds grew the tobacco. Cigar Aficionado likes to perpetuate the mystique. They benefit from it.
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if you are into Rum you should treat it like a Whiskey and try the small (less known) distilleries like from Grenada and other small islands.
I have none in mind right now, but can ask a friend who is kinda an expert.
Re: About Fucking Time (Score:2)
Rum comes in all qualities. This one: http://m.tesco.com/h5/grocerie... [tesco.com] is mass produced, though that didn't stop an American I met last summer buying everyone at the bar a drink of something "illegal".
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. On the one hand I'm surprised it took over 50 years to figure out the embargo wasn't going to work. Even more surprising is that it's over 20 years since the fall of the Soviet empire. But hey, when have politicians every been quick learners?
Sure, all of the Cuban refugees will be really pissed off for a while. But in the long term, I think this will be a good thing for both countries.
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Doesn't the revocation of the embargo require an act of Congress?
I don't think that's a problem as of last month.
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just another scheme to put pressure on Cuba's traditional friend - Russia. US is hitting just about everyone friendly to Russia nowdays: Siria, Ukraine, ... Cuba. It's all about isolating/weakening Russia with goal of securing Russia's wealth of natural resources for greedy US corporations. Make no mistake, this is about nothing less than money and power, and has nothing to do with the fact that it may be long overdue.
Re:About Fucking Time (Score:5, Interesting)
Only reason it took this long is that the last few times castro caused diplomatic incidents.
Such are the legends of communism (Score:2)
"Oh oh, our cigars suck. Ummmmm...hide!"
I wonder if... (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if it's any accident that this happened AFTER the mid-term elections, but well before the 2016 presidential election season really gets underway...
(You think Christmas comes early? Hah!)
Cuban exiles are a big voting block in a big battleground state, but obviously somebody decided to risk kicking this hornets' nest now in the hopes that the furor will die down by 2016.
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Re:I wonder if... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cuban exiles are a big voting block in a big battleground state, , but obviously somebody decided to risk kicking this hornets' nest ...
The Cuban Exiles have never voted Democrat / Liberal, and have always been rabid right-wingers politically. I lived in Miami for a few years and learned that although certainly not a majority on the area, they are very vocal locally.
These people would never vote Democrat anyway, so they are not Obama's audience.
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But a big part of politics is not just persuading people to vote for you, but getting those people to actually go to the polls. Obama may have just improved the voter turnout of straight Republic ticket voting Cuban exiles by a good chunk.
Re:I wonder if... (Score:4, Insightful)
The abortion is a distraction cause.
Most people have a feeling one way or another on it. Which is good because it means you can keep a good part of the population who otherwise would vote for the other party on your side.
Many of the evangelical religious groups would actually support the democratic party if it weren't for the abortion issue.
A lot of women's groups would vote republican if it weren't for the abortion issue.
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The 'older' exiled Cubans in America were never going to 'authorize' this. That Obama did, was, aside from the true purpose of stopping the absurdity that has been in place, a play to the youner generation of Cuban exiles that are in Florida and elsewhere that are of voting age. They're the ones this will affect in the coming generation, and not the ones who will die off in the next decade.
Politically, anyone who is damning this decision is an isolationist shill who prefers punishment, rather than progress.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Hey thanks for not making a huge deal out of castros death
I think I'm missing part of this joke, because Castro isn't dead...
Re:a riveting diplomatic exchange no doubt.. (Score:4, Informative)
oh geeze, strike that. I suck.
Re:a riveting diplomatic exchange no doubt.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, he got succeeded by his brother. Wonder what is it about Commie countries nowadays? They started off by overthrowing monarchies wherever they could find them - Russia, Egypt, Libya, and so on. Nowadays, every surviving Communist country has de facto dynasties - North Korea, Cuba, Syria. If only the Romanovs had known and maneuvered to take over the Communist party, they may have saved themselves from getting massacred.
George H. W. Bush, George Bush, and now Jeb Bush trying for the job. No de facto dynasty there :-)
Visit to Havana (Score:4, Insightful)
Great! I've always wanted to visit Cuba. My parents honeymooned there back in 1955. A trip to Havana has been on my bucket list since I was a boy, but the US government has always made it difficult and only questionably legal since I was born.
I actually agree with this decision; but (Score:2)
"We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. It does not serve America's interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse. We know from hard-learned experience that it is better to encourage and support reform than to impose policies that will render a country a failed state," said the White House in a written statement.
So would the same people that support this move also say we should have continued with "constructive engagement" vis a vis South Africa during apart
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So would the same people that support this move also say we should have continued with "constructive engagement" vis a vis South Africa during apartheid rather than imposing the punitive sanctions that were demanded by many left-of-center folks?
Maybe, if after 50 years no demonstrable progress had been made.
The message has been clear (Score:3)
We've proven to the world that we are willing to significantly impact the economy of a small island nation for over 50 years because they cooperated with our enemies.
Despite Cuba having an excellent education system, most people there live in poverty. Is that the Cuban government's fault, or because the door to the largest marketplace was slammed shut on them?
It's not all rainbows and unicorns, most Cuban immigrants over the years expressed serious dissatisfaction with Castro's government. Maybe the people
Re:I actually agree with this decision; but (Score:5, Interesting)
When the whole rest of the world wants sanctions, as with South Africa, they may be useful. When the whole rest of the world trades with Cuba and we don't, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot. Also, the South African government was far more malleable because it was elected by white citizens who suffered from sanctions -- the Cuban government is not elected by anyone who can be hurt by sanctions.
about time (Score:2)
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I'm just wondering what the catch is.
What? No! (Score:2)
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My bet is the cigar prices will increase while the supply catches up to the demand, and then decrease to current prices and sustains the increased demand.
It's just capitalism moving slower than usual (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's just capitalism moving slower than usual (Score:4, Interesting)
Crap (Score:5, Insightful)
The curse is that a small few are about to make huge profits on land and state enterprises. I don't care how the laws will be worded, any time you have a major economic shift like this, opportunists will take incredible advantage of the situation.
The other curse is that Western 'culture' - McDonald's, Burger King, Coke and Pepsi will invade. They will do tremendous harm to the health of the average Cuban.
Lastly, the wonderful beaches and hotels will be overrun. Cuba is so close to the U.S. that development will explode and tourism will skyrocket. The 'pristine' aspect of Cuba will quickly disappear in a morass of tawdry tourist traps.
Adios Cuba viejo y bienvenido al futuro.
More doctors (Score:2)
Re:Failed state policies (Score:5, Interesting)
The Cuban people survived 55 years of near total trade embargo, with universal healthcare intact, and no one starving in the streets.
A definite failure if I ever heard of one.
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near total trade embargo
To be fair, it's only a unilateral embargo...
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Since 1996, the US has a law which penalizes foreign companies that do business in Cuba by preventing them from doing business in the U.S.
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Lots of Canadian companies trade with or actually operate in Cuba, and none of them are facing any sort of issues in the US. I realize that the Helms-Burton act does enable the US to sanction such companies, but it seems that in practice the sanctions are not applied.
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Perhaps that is one of the many reasons that all south americans hate you?
Anyway, was that law ever executed or "enforced" ... I can buy plenty of goods from Cuba in Germany, never noticed any restrictions the last 40 years.
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The Cuban people survived 55 years of near total trade embargo, with universal healthcare intact, and no one starving in the streets.
Cuba survived by getting huge payments from the USSR, then from Venezuela. I hope 'no one starving in the streets' isn't how you measure success these days.
As for me, the economics are irrelevant. I'd rather live in an impoverished country with the right to insult my president and point out problems, than live in a rich dictatorship without those rights.
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The Cuban people survived 55 years of near total trade embargo, with universal healthcare intact, and no one starving in the streets.
Cuba survived by getting huge payments from the USSR, then from Venezuela. I hope 'no one starving in the streets' isn't how you measure success these days.
No, success for a small country under US hostilities is not having having thousands upon thousands of civilian deaths [wikipedia.org] while under US occupation/protection to establish democratic government. I think Cuba qualifies.
Re:Failed state policies (Score:4, Insightful)
> I hope 'no one starving in the streets' isn't how you measure success these days.
Actually it's a pretty good thing compared to 'people starving in the streets'.
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A total trade embargo from the USA only, not from the rest of the world.
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You must be American.
I'm Canadian. I have traveled to Cuba for vacation a couple of times.
It is (or was) an absolutely beautiful place. Pity that will end with the arrival of Americans.
Last time we were there we stayed in a 5 star resort. (Cuba's 5 star is not the same as a North American's 5 star.)
My son cut his foot on a broken tile in the pool. The pool attendant patched it up best he could, with what he had.
I went to the 'International Clinic' down the road for bandages. It was close enough for me
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A definite failure if I ever heard of one.
It's not that Cuba is a failed state; it's that the U.S. policy was intended to push Cuba to fail. But after 50+ years, we are finally acknowledging that it is the policy itself which failed, not Cuba ;-)
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I didn't say that. I said their system had the resiliency to survive severe sanctions and externally imposed economic isolation. For example, ships that dock in Cuban ports are not permitted to dock at US ports.
Honestly the US embargo is the dumbest policy conceivable. If it hadn't been in place, chances are high that the people in Cuba, immersed in the world economy and saturated by mainstream western "culture", would have made substantial changes to their government policies by now.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
They probably would have been bankrupted by the bankster cabal like everyone else. They may actually have been better off with the embargo.
This Orwell Quote Seems Contextual And Appropriate (Score:2)
When Comrade Fidel gets a cold, the doctors that treat him are flown in from Spain via charter jet.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Re:Failed state policies (Score:5, Informative)
Here are some other facts that actually count:
CIA World Factbook Infant mortality rates [wikipedia.org]:
Cuba: 4.76 / 1000 live births
USA: 5.2 / 1000 live births
CIA being a well-known source of Michael Moore types.
How about life expectancy?
Life expectancy at birth (years), UN World Population Prospects 2010 [wikipedia.org]:
Cuba: 78.50 (rank 37)
USA: 77.97 (rank 40)
World Health Organization has USA ranked 34 and Cuba 36, FWIW. Close in any case.
Re:Failed state policies (Score:5, Informative)
In addition, American doctors toured the Cuban health care system and published their results in the New England Journal of Medicine. Cuba has one of the best medical schools in Latin America. The Swedes helped them set it up. As a result they have a major modern biotechnology industry that discovered and manufactures some vaccines that are used worldwide.
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And if you value freedom and liberty and good public health care you can move to Canada (that's what I did).
Re: (Score:3)
1) Fidel Castro leaving the country for treatment actually happened, which is very obviously an option not available to the vast majority of Cubans, hence my quote from Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."
Actually, you would be surprised about that. When treatment is not available in Cuba, patients are often sent to other countries [havanatimes.org]. This is in no way limited to elites. Unfortunately, budget restrictions are very real. I wanted to share another link about that, but I could not find it. (Also, I have no idea re: Fidel Castro leaving the country for treatment)
2) They could have the best healthcare system in the World and I still wouldn't want to live there.
Indeed.
Nor would most people who value freedom and liberty...
Try "prosperity". I would say that most Cuban migrants leave because of the economy. Yes, there may be a causal relationship between the lack of li
Re:Failed state policies (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and that infant mortality statistic is complete B.S. In Cuba, they just let the premature babies die and it never counts as a live birth to mess up the statistics. In the U.S. they bend over backwards to save babies but since they aren't always successful, the statistics get skewed.
Proof: http://www.nationalreview.com/... [nationalreview.com]
Nothing in that article says that Cuba measures its infant mortality differently than the WHO standard, or even mentions Cuba.
So the fact remains that the Cuban infant mortality rate is lower than the U.S., by any standard measurement.
The main reason for that is the lack of access to health care, and health care doesn't do much good without access to nutrition, housing and basic living standards, which the poor don't have in the U.S. That's why we have so many premature infants. True, it's not just Cuba's health care system, it's also their nutrition programs. I concede that the poor in the U.S. have worse nutrition too, which contributes to their higher infant mortality.
Every honest doctor who follows international health statistics knows this, in contrast to guys like Scott Atlas who cherry-picks his statistics and publishes them in the National Review.
Let me know when you find something in a peer-reviewed journal that says Cuba's infant mortality statistics use definitions that distort them to make them better. I'm not holding my breath. There was an exchange of letters about this in Science, and the anti-Castro people couldn't come up with anything, so I don't think you will.
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then explain Europe.
I'll wait.
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Too bad they didn't get that choice. It was either the American dominance with a corrupt puppet regime, or Castro's revolution. Anyone who thinks they could have had a grass roots counter revolution at any time is engaging in a lot of wishful thinking.
Re:Failed state policies (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's the Platt Amendment (the one which allows Guantanamo) and the American embargo which has made Cuba a failed state.
You seem to know nothing at all about Cuba.
America has been fucking with Cuba for over 100 years, and seldom to the benefit of the Cubans.
Re:Failed state policies (Score:5, Insightful)
The property which was seized was mostly owned by foreign countries, and benefited the existing dictatorship of Bautista -- who was a brutal bastard, but friendly to the US so America was fine with it. America only objects to dictators who dislike them.
When Baustista was in power, the average Cuban worker was pretty much a serf, and all of the economy benefited only a few.
You're a drooling idiot.
I'm not an American, and I have no idea of what the DNCs talking points are on this. But your childish little hamster brain apparently needs to make this a Republican v Democrat issue, so you're only capable of seeing thatg.
I've been to Cuba a bunch of times. I've read books my Castro and Che, as well as the history of how the Platt Amendment came to be foisted on Cuba despite their not wanting it. I've also read about the history from non-Cuban sources so try to see the whole picture.
The vast majority of Americans really have no clue about Cuban history. They boil it down to about a 10 year period, and then haven't bothered to learn anything which happened before or since. Cuba and Casto are just the bogeymen to get yourselves worked up about.
So, it's tragic you're so ill informed and are tied to whatever idiotic talking points you're repeating.
Because clearly don't know a damned thing about it you haven't been spoon fed.
Re: (Score:3)
It is not true that all the cars in Cuba were built during the Batista administration. It is true that all of the American cars predate the embargo.
But the Russian, Chinese and Korean cars which are all over the place? Not so much.
Again, do you know anything about Cuba?
As a matter o
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Yeah, we have them on the ropes! Another 55 years should do the trick for sure!
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Um, because it's clearly not working? The whole "towards collapse" is simply a face-saving measure.
We deal with worse governments (in terms of "communism" or totalitarianism) every day, and they're our (nominal) allies. The whole Cuba thing is just a 50 year long pout. Nobody cares anymore. There's not some super-villian running Cuba that will destroy the American Way of Life if we join the rest of the world in trading with them.
We are pushing Russia because we disagree with their tactics in the Ukraine. Fr
Re:Why not push toward collapse? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, Iraq was pushed to collapse. That did not go so well. Syria was pushed to collapse. Not ideal either.
Burma/Myanmar was not pushed to collapse, and instead relations were softened. That is going fairly well.
I am not sure the push-to-collapse strategy has any successes to its name. Well possibly Germany 1945.
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What do you mean? The country was then conquered within months by us. Saddam Hussein himself was then captured, tried publicly, and executed deservingly.
Seeing that happen, Muamar Qaddafi relented too — without costing us another dollar or a drop of blood.
That the current Administration managed to destroy those successes by pulling from Iraq too soon and hunting down Qaddafi on made-up pretexts is a shame, but that does not mean, the origina
Re:Why not push toward collapse? (Score:5, Insightful)
My god, are you that delusional?
You toppled a government, but you sure as hell didn't "conquer" them.
You barely got out of there with your asses intact, and every single justification for going in there in the first place was provably false before anybody got sent in. Oh, and your inept fumbling about led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians -- far far more than were killed in 9/11.
The entire reason for being in Iraq the second time was a colossal lie perpetuated by a chimpanzee of a president trying to finish what daddy started.
You were in the wrong fucking country, because Iraq had nothing at all to do with 9/11. And now you've left a giant power vacuum which has destabilized the entire region.
Being in Iraq was such an epic failure that only people who can call it a success were the private companies who made huge profits, and the lying bastards who got you in there in the first place.
If you think that's a template for how to fix the worlds problems ... the world doesn't want any more of your "help".
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Not true at all. Iraq was moving in the right direction, its various groups learning to talk to rather than fight rivals.
Withdrawal was grossly premature [slate.com]. That it was done not as an honest mistake, but for cynical political considerations ("See? I did not close Guantanamo, but I did get us out of Iraq"), makes it all the more disgusting...
That article seems to undercut your own argument.
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Bush conquered the entire country, replaced its government, captured its previous leader and handed him over to the new government to be hung by the neck. If that is still "losing", I don't know, what "winning" is...
Winning, as von Clausowitz said, is accomplishing policy. One of the stated purposes of the war was to replace Saddam Hussain with a leader that was more agreeable to us, while converting Iraq into a free market economy (according to what I read on the Wall Street Journal editorial page). Douglas Feith said, it would be like installing a new chip on your motherboard.
Instead, under Bush, they dismissed the army, were unable to create a new one capable of maintaining security and safety, and were unable to ma
Re:Why not push toward collapse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pushing Germany to collapse after WW1 was an incredible success! We need more successes like that!
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If Russia were to actually collapse, it would be an extremely bad thing for the west. It would mean wars and it would mean big increases in terrorism exported from the region, and not just from Chechnya.
Iraq collapsed. How's that working out for US interests?
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Why would Chechnya "export" terrorism?
Sorry, seems you have not much clue. Chechnya is a nation that tries to separate from Russia.
During WW II the chechnic "terror attacks" would have been called "commando attacks", sure getting civilians as hostages in a theatre is a bit over the edge, but the germans, the spanish and the italian _REGULAR TROOPS_ did the exact same during WW II and the Spanish Revolution wars.
Re:Why not push toward collapse? (Score:5, Informative)
Let's look at an "evil government" index to determine the "evilness" of Cuba among authoritarian regimes. A good one is the Democracy Index put out by the Conservative economics journal "The Economist".
Cuba ranks at 124, which puts it in the top 20% of authoritarian regimes, so 80% of them are "more evil". We certainly don't do any business with those 80% do we? Near the bottom of that list is our old friend Saudi Arabia, a regime we absolutely should not support right? Others in the "evil 80%" are Nigeria, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Tunisia, China, Qatar, Oman, Vietnam, and the UAE. No way we do we have diplomatic relations, do any business, or offer any support to any of those guys!
Of course six of these Evil Nations have oil, which makes everything good, correct? Well, it turns out that Cuba has useful offshore oil as well, so geology automatically promotes them to Tolerable Oil Nation, even if their much higher democracy ranking does not.
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I'm sorry, but increasingly it's hard not to see the US as evil.
Because they've decided it's their right to spy on everyone else on the planet, bomb civilians as collateral damage, and engage in some pretty nasty crap. America has become the enemy of the freedom and rights of everyone else on the planet, but you keep acting like you're the fucking saviors of man kind, and the Champions of Liberty
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WTF are you tlaking about? What 'evil'? What 'therapy'?
Clearly you know NOTING about Cuba, so stop saying idiotic things.
The Goal we have for Russia is different then the one we have for Cuba, you simpleton.
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Against Hillary? Nope.... she won't be the nominee.
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