Obama, Cuba, and Us (1 Viewer)

[Ntharotep]

So. Just to follow this thread correctly and the seeming popular opinion inherent in it.
It is OK for the President to lie and to be hypocritical, to not protect human rights, as long as it is a nonthreatening entity like Cuba?

 

[ProJoe]

The Tampa Bay Rays have just arrived in Cuba to play the Cuban National Team. This is a great day. Actual International Baseball. maybe the Cuban team will eventually enter MLB and there will be a TRUE World Series. I love the Rays. Some have predicted that they will win the A.L. East this year. Cuba will be tough. Glad it is an exhibition game. GO RAYS!!!!!!
Joe

 

[Mr Person]

[FONT=&]Obama trip to Cuba is a sell out to the Castroit tyrannical regime. A year ago Obama said that he would visit Cuba if the human rights “significantly improve”, and meetings with the dissidents were part of the agenda. The regime has not made any progress on human rights, civil liberties and access to the internet. Obama is treating the dissident in Cuba in the same way he treated the dissident in Iran, with contempt and disrespect. This rapprochement with the Castroit regime form part of his legacy, like the Iran deal, regardless of the consequences. He make enemies of our friends and tries to make friends with our enemies. [/FONT]

Well, he may have flip-flopped, but here's the bottom line:

1. Our foreign relations is almost never based on human rights considerations. We are buddy buddy with Saudi Arabia, we ignore the genocidal civil war in Sudan, previously messes in Zimbabwe, etc.

2. The embargo was a Cold War policy designed to damage Cuba economically to the point where popular revolutions, likely to be aided by us (but see epic failure in the "Bay of Pigs" affair), would get rid of the regime. That never happened. Instead we merely helped the regime keep the common people suppressed.

3. The Cold War is over.


All in all, it seems that undoing the embargo, preferably in a way that aims the most US dollars at the more privatized of Cuban businesses, might be a new tack to try. We don't need to fight communism so much as we might still like to see a bad regime go. Starving the people didn't do that. So maybe letting them see what US business does for them might lead them to revolt.

Or maybe nothing changes. Either way, there's no point in continuing failed policies, unless one puts ideology over practical reality.

 

[Sandokan]

Well, he may have flip-flopped, but here's the bottom line:

1. Our foreign relations is almost never based on human rights considerations. We are buddy buddy with Saudi Arabia, we ignore the genocidal civil war in Sudan, previously messes in Zimbabwe, etc.

2. The embargo was a Cold War policy designed to damage Cuba economically to the point where popular revolutions, likely to be aided by us (but see epic failure in the "Bay of Pigs" affair), would get rid of the regime. That never happened. Instead we merely helped the regime keep the common people suppressed.

3. The Cold War is over.


All in all, it seems that undoing the embargo, preferably in a way that aims the most US dollars at the more privatized of Cuban businesses, might be a new tack to try. We don't need to fight communism so much as we might still like to see a bad regime go. Starving the people didn't do that. So maybe letting them see what US business does for them might lead them to revolt.

Or maybe nothing changes. Either way, there's no point in continuing failed policies, unless one puts ideology over practical reality.

Marco Rubio is right when he says that Obama “knows exactly what he is doing. Barack Obama in doing that is undertaking a systematic effort to change this country.” He listed some of the ways Obama achieved in doing that: the $800 billion stimulus, the financial reform bill and the nuclear deal with Iran. And now of course, the bailout of the Castroit regime when it is in the ropes

 

[Sandokan]

Obama administration’s policy on Cuba, compared to the previous administrations policy, has been a failure. The human rights situation in the island has worsened with the number of politically-motivated arrest exponentially increasing, reaching 8,616 in 2015. The trade between the U.S. and Cuba is at the lowest level since 2002, going from 711.5 million on 2008 to 180.3 million in 2015. Since the normalize diplomatic relations with the Castroit regime in December 2014 a constant increase in the escape of rafters, reaching so far 2,420 trying to reach the U.S. since October 2015. The Cubans exodus to Europe and Latin America continuous unabated, with thousands of refugees stranded in Central America. Near 41,000 Cuban have arrived at the Mexican and Canadian borders, and U.S. international airport between Oct. 1, 2014 and Sept. 30, 2015, the larger number arriving in the United States in one year over the last 10 years.

 

[JoeTrumps]

It is great that President Obama is going to Cuba and hopefully re-opening positive relations with Cuba. It is about time.
Joe

right, and when President Trump unilaterally changes America's relations with bloody dictatorships without Senate approval, I'm sure you will feel the same way and back him 100%. and yes I'm kidding. and yes I think you are a hypocrite.

 

[NoLeftNoRight]

If liberal "deals" with our known enemies in the past is ANY indication of future results, I fully expect to see the US taxpayer foot the bill to modernize Cuba, hand over TONS of US technology......

then I expect to see Cuba offer China AND Russia full military bases there....nukes and all, with China and Russia having to pay little or nothing for complete modern facilities....compliments of the US taxpayer. Place your bets....

Everything Obama has done benefits our enemies at our cost....why would you think this will be any different?

 

[Somerville]

If liberal "deals" with our known enemies in the past is ANY indication of future results, I fully expect to see the US taxpayer foot the bill to modernize Cuba, hand over TONS of US technology......

then I expect to see Cuba offer China AND Russia full military bases there....nukes and all, with China and Russia having to pay little or nothing for complete modern facilities....compliments of the US taxpayer. Place your bets....

Everything Obama has done benefits our enemies at our cost....why would you think this will be any different?

Oh yeah, it's not like other Presidents have ever visited nations which were once enemies

November, 2006

George Bush struggled today to escape the shadows of wars past and present in Vietnam and Iraq, holding up his presence in Hanoi as proof of the possibilities of reconciliation.



The White House is promoting Mr Bush's visit to Hanoi for an Asian summit as a chance to advance a relationship with an emerging economic power; Vietnam's growth rate is the second fastest in the region after China.

 

[Somerville]

Ok, so that 'loser' GW Bush did something stupid, nobody else has been that dense - have they?



Photo taken in Feb 1989 in Tiananmen Square. June 1989 hundreds of Chinese were killed in the same place by the same government, GHW Bush had so recently visited

 

[Somerville]

Alright, so the Bushes weren't the brightest guys ever to occupy the Oval Office.

Then there was the time Ronaldus Magnus spoke to the Russian people, May 1988

 

[poweRob]

Commerce, trade, and tourism does not "reward" the regime - rather, it helps the Cuban PEOPLE, and demonstrates to them: hey, commerce and trade and tourism are BETTER for us Cubans than this socialist crap our government is selling us!

And it's good for us Americans, too.

Side note: I long for the day I can sail my boat to Cuba. I hear it's a gorgeous place!

WEll I hope you get there before walmart and Family dollar get there.

 

[beefheart]

I love some faux anger with a side of hypocrisy.

 

[Sandokan]

Obama Green-Lights Deal With Cuban Arms Traffickers
Capitol Hill Cubans: Obama Green-Lights Deal With Cuban Arms Traffickers

at 9:48 AM Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Last month, a Singapore court ruled against a shipping company,Chinpo Shipping, for its role in smuggling 240 tons of weapons from Cuba to North Korea in mid-2013, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Both the United States and United Nations have further sanctioned three North Korean entities — Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB),Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID) and Korea Tangun Trading Corporation — for their role in this incident.

To date, the only entity that has not been sanctioned for the largest weapons cache ever intercepted to North Korea, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, was its central player -- a shadow company of the Cuban military, Almacenes Universales S.A.

To make matters worse, the Cuban military even refused to cooperate or provide any information to the U.N. Panel of Experts that was tasked with investigating this blatant sanctions violation.
Click link above for full article.

North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un still has the Castroit regime, as a friend and ally. In March 2015, North Korea’s foreign minister visited Havana and reminded Cubans that the two peoples “share a history of struggle together in the same trench against U.S. imperialism, which continues exerting economic pressure on our countries to this day.” In September 2015, the regime Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel visited Pyongyang, and discussed the two countries’ close relations and mutual cooperation. The Castroit regime continues to support the outcast North Korean dictatorship.

Obama continues building his foreign policy legacy. He approves business deal with arms trafficking firm owned by the Castroit tyrannical regime.

 

[katzgar]

If liberal "deals" with our known enemies in the past is ANY indication of future results, I fully expect to see the US taxpayer foot the bill to modernize Cuba, hand over TONS of US technology......

then I expect to see Cuba offer China AND Russia full military bases there....nukes and all, with China and Russia having to pay little or nothing for complete modern facilities....compliments of the US taxpayer. Place your bets....

Everything Obama has done benefits our enemies at our cost....why would you think this will be any different?

you are not even close to being honest

 

[Medusa]

[FONT=&]Obama trip to Cuba is a sell out to the Castroit tyrannical regime. A year ago Obama said that he would visit Cuba if the human rights “significantly improve”, and meetings with the dissidents were part of the agenda. The regime has not made any progress on human rights, civil liberties and access to the internet. Obama is treating the dissident in Cuba in the same way he treated the dissident in Iran, with contempt and disrespect. This rapprochement with the Castroit regime form part of his legacy, like the Iran deal, regardless of the consequences. He make enemies of our friends and tries to make friends with our enemies. [/FONT]

you care about human rights ? if so tell him to stop supporting moderate islamist regimes in the ME........

 

[Sandokan]

Obama Green-Lights Deal With Cuban Arms Traffickers
Capitol Hill Cubans: Obama Green-Lights Deal With Cuban Arms Traffickers

at 9:48 AM Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Last month, a Singapore court ruled against a shipping company,Chinpo Shipping, for its role in smuggling 240 tons of weapons from Cuba to North Korea in mid-2013, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Both the United States and United Nations have further sanctioned three North Korean entities — Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB),Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID) and Korea Tangun Trading Corporation — for their role in this incident.

To date, the only entity that has not been sanctioned for the largest weapons cache ever intercepted to North Korea, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, was its central player -- a shadow company of the Cuban military, Almacenes Universales S.A.

To make matters worse, the Cuban military even refused to cooperate or provide any information to the U.N. Panel of Experts that was tasked with investigating this blatant sanctions violation.

Yet, last week, the Obama Administration instead chose to reward this shadow company of the Cuban military,Almacenes Universales S.A., with a $5-10 million investment from a U.S.-based tractor company, Cleber LLC (that has never manufactured a tractor) to build a factory at its Port of Mariel facility.
Click link above for full article.

North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un still has the Castroit regime as a friend and ally. In March 2015, North Korea’s foreign minister visited Havana and reminded Cubans that the two peoples “share a history of struggle together in the same trench against U.S. imperialism, which continues exerting economic pressure on our countries to this day.” In September 2015, the regime Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel visited Pyongyang, and discussed the two countries’ close relations and mutual cooperation. The Castroit regime continues to support the outcast North Korean dictatorship.

Obama continues building his foreign policy legacy. He approves business deal with an arms trafficking firm owned by the Castroit tyrannical regime.

 

[Sandokan]

Havana Hides its Beggars
Havana Hides its Beggers / 14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada | Translating Cuba

Mayeta Labrada
March 18, 2016

For several days, brigades from the Ministry of Public Health are interning the city’s beggars in health facilities to get them off the street. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, Havana, 17 March 2016 – Fixing up the Latin American Stadium and repairing the streets where Barack Obama’s motorcade will travel are just a part of the preparations before the coming of the president of the United States to Havana this Sunday.

Nancy Navarro, a nurse at the January 1st Teaching Polyclinic in the Playa district, told 14ymedio that there was a meeting at her workplace to prepare a census of the people wandering around the city. The process also included an assessment by professionals specializing in mental health, who in the company of other technicians are responsible for picking up the beggars, “on the street or even in their homes.”

A doctor from the Fifth Canaria Health Center in the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, said that “seniors roaming the streets of Havana’s various municipalities will be interned” there. The employee acknowledged that she expected an influx of a little more than 200 elderly, “although this is a very high figure for the facility because it does have ideal conditions for sheltering them.”
Click link above for full article.

In advance of Obama's visit, the repression has been extended to the most defenseless and vulnerable. The Castroit regime police is rounding up beggars and forcefully intern them in facilities such as La Colonia, to keep them out of the view of journalists and others visiting Cuba during Obama’s visit.

 

[Sandokan]

Obviously, the forced internment of these defenseless and completely vulnerable people is a gross violation of human rights by the Castroit regime that care mainly about its own political image.

 

[Sandokan]

Castros welcome Obama to Cuba with a slap in the face
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=obama's+visit+to+cuba

By Marc A. Thiessen March 21, 2016

President Obama went sightseeing in Old Havana, savoring the adulation of pro-regime crowds welcoming him on streets that had been whitewashed for his visit. But a few hours before his arrival, the true nature of the dictatorship he is embracing reared its ugly head, as hundreds of uniformed security personnel attacked and arrested peaceful protesters leaving Palm Sunday Mass.

A group of dissidents known as the Ladies in White was met outside Havana’s Santa Rita church by an organized crowd of Castro loyalists shouting insults and revolutionary slogans. Then, The Post reports, Castro’s secret police pounced on the women and “half-dragged, half-carried them to waiting buses,” while men marching with the women “were chased, thrown to the curb and handcuffed.” As they were arrested, the crowd chanted “This is Fidel’s street!”

Marc Thiessen writes a weekly column for The Post on foreign and domestic policy and contributes to the PostPartisan blog. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush. View Archive
Click link above for full article.

There is a big difference between a policy of rapprochement and giving away the store during negotiation. It is very frustrating because the Obama administration conceded a lot during the negotiation and the Castroit regime practically concede nothing.

 

[Sandokan]

In Cuba, Prosperity is a Crime
In Cuba, Prosperity is a Crime | World Affairs Journal

Michael J. Totten
22 March 2016

So Barack Obama went to Havana, the first time in almost ninety years that a sitting American president visited Cuba, and the first time in more than fifty that the Cuban government would even allow it.

On Monday, his first full day down there, he said he spoke “frankly” to President Raul Castro about human rights behind closed doors. Most likely he did. But then the two men emerged for a chummy joint press conference. It looked a little unseemly, as if Obama was willing to whitewash the Cuban dictatorship in front of the cameras.

It matters, and it matters a lot. If Cuban dissidents think the United States government doesn’t care about them, that it only cares about diplomatic relations and business deals with the dictatorship, they’re more likely to lose hope and give up. It’s a lot harder to overthrow or reform a regime that’s backed by the United States that one that is not.
Click link above for full article.

The Castroit regime has asked for everything and obtain most of them, but the Obama administration so far has not been able to get any concession from the regime. If the U.S. would lift the embargo, mainly the regime ruling elite will greatly benefit from it, since it control all means of production, and the regular Cuban population will benefit very little from it.

 

[Sandokan]

The average wage under the Castroit regime is only $25 a month. It is practically impossible to become successful with your life with this meager salary. Cannot be prosperity when prosperity is a crime under the Castroit regime.

 

[Sandokan]

Obama Equates American and Cuban Revolutions
Obama Equates American and Cuban Revolutions - Humberto Fontova

Humberto Fontova | Mar 25, 2016

“Here’s my message to the Cuban government and the Cuban people: The ideals that are the starting point for every revolution, America’s revolution, Cuba’s revolution, the liberation movements around the world, these ideals find their truest expression, I believe, in democracy.” (President Obama, Havana Cuba, March 22, 2016)

In fact, from the mid-fifties on, both Obama’s recent host (Raul Castro) and his recent mural idol (Che Guevara) were Soviet agents committed to creating a Stalinist Cuba—a vassal to the Communist motherland.

Oh, I know…I know, the media, your professors, The History Channel, Francis Ford Coppola, etc. etc. all claim the Cuban revolutionaries were noble “nationalists” who were pushed –kicking and screaming-- into the arms of Mother Russia by blockheaded Yankee “bullying.”
Pure and perfect baloney—like practically everything that the above sources claim about the Cuban Revolution.
Click link above for full article.

The message is clear, Obama thinks revolution is a worthy end in itself, if it leads to Socialism. It doesn’t matter the many torture, killed and slaved Cuban people by the Castroit communist regime.

 

[katzgar]

[FONT=&]Obama trip to Cuba is a sell out to the Castroit tyrannical regime. A year ago Obama said that he would visit Cuba if the human rights “significantly improve”, and meetings with the dissidents were part of the agenda. The regime has not made any progress on human rights, civil liberties and access to the internet. Obama is treating the dissident in Cuba in the same way he treated the dissident in Iran, with contempt and disrespect. This rapprochement with the Castroit regime form part of his legacy, like the Iran deal, regardless of the consequences. He make enemies of our friends and tries to make friends with our enemies. [/FONT]

more ignorant of history foolishness.

 

[Sandokan]

What’s Good, Bad, And Ugly About Obama’s Cuba Trip
What’s Good, Bad, And Ugly About Obama’s Cuba Trip

Dissident leader Antonio Rodiles, himself beaten and detained on Monday along with his wife, told me President Obama’s Cuba visit had occasioned ‘a festival of repression.’

By Mike Gonzalez
March 23, 2016

Any truly comprehensive analysis of President Obama’s trip to Cuba must include the good, the bad, and the ugly. Only this time, because we’re
dealing with the Castros, a new category should be added to the Eastwood trope: “the pure evil.”

Cuba Visit: The Good

Even strong critics of President Obama’s visit, like me, readily admit it was good for him to say—in a speech televised to the Cuban people, with dictator Raul Castro in attendance—that all people, even the wretched souls who live under communism, have rights.

“Every person should be equal under the law,” Obama said. “Citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear — to organize, and to criticize their government, and to protest peacefully, and that the rule of law should not include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights. I believe that every person should have the freedom to practice their faith peacefully and publicly. And, yes, I believe voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections.”
Click link above for full article.

Paradise Island that is the reason that thousands of Cubans had risked their lives to scape to other countries and continuous doing it now more than ever.

 

[BitterPill]

I agree that the communist/socialist government of Cuba is a tyrannical dictatorship with little or zero respect for human life and dignity.

However, closing down borders and banning movement of people, goods, services, and tourism does nothing to change their government. All it does is: 1) punishes Cuban people, 2) hurts American businessmen and tourists, and 3) gives ammunition to Cuban dictators to "prove" that the U.S. is an imperialist bully.

A far better approach would be to follow the George Washington approach of "peace and honest commerce with all nations, entangling alliances with none." And be a good example: demonstrate how much better things are when trade, commerce, and travel with your next-door neighbor is welcomed.

After all, we traded with the Soviets.