President Obama announced that he would establish diplomatic relations with the oppressive communist regime in Cuba. As a part of the “normalization” process, the United States will re-open its “embassy in Havana and significantly ease restrictions on travel and commerce within the next several weeks and months.” The Washington Post,
Although Obama has the power to establish diplomatic relations, the move was the latest in a series of steps he has taken to use executive powers to circumvent legislative [laws].
While those laws remain standing, the administration made clear that the measures announced Wednesday are designed to undermine them as much as possible…
Normalization fulfills a goal set by the President early in his administration, which officials only saw as possible during his last two years in office, following November’s midterm elections.
But Cuban-American lawmakers were quick to denounce the move. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said Obama’s actions “will invite further belligerence toward Cuba’s opposition movement and the hardening of the government’s dictatorial hold on its people.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) called the announcement “just the latest in a long line of failed attempts by President Obama to appease rogue regimes at all cost.”
So, what’s your alternative policy? Continue to reinforce our decades of utter failure? Continue to give Castro the cachet he derives from standing alone against the mighty United States? Continue to deny Americans and Cubans the benefits of trade and visitation because the descendants of the losing side in the Cuban civil war of the 1950’s still lack the character to admit their ancestors lost? (Under that logic, we should never have diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom.)
Our decades-old Cuban policy is a miserable failure on its own terms. Either come up with a better one, or contribute to the success of our new policy.
Lying Barry is grasping at straws. Trying something, anything, that he can call his legacy, so he can give the top spot on the list of worst presidents in history back to Jimmy Carter. As usual, another swing and a miss.
So, what’s your alternative policy? Continue to reinforce our decades of utter failure?
Yep. Wait for the beard to die. It won’t take much longer if he’s still alive anyway. Raul will assume the fetal position and suck his thumb, the government will collapse, THEN we can start to mend relationships. Raul has said US sanctions have caused immense economic damage, it’s on them to normalize things. To a Capitol Hill liberal, that’s an utter failure. What a fool.
Raul has said US sanctions have caused immense economic damage,
Yes, I already mentioned how our policy has “[c]ontinue[d] to deny Americans and Cubans the benefits of trade and visitation…”; no one disputes the damage done to both our countries’ economies by our policy.
It won’t take much longer if he’s still alive anyway,
For how long has our policy been in place? How many more years — sorry, decades — of complete and utter failure must we endure before our policy magically succeeds? Have you a number on how long “much longer” might be?
Twenty-five years ago, the Communist governments of central Europe fell, one after the other, once they started letting their citizens visit us in the West. That’s the proven way to end Communist tyranny. Making people suffer for no gain makes no sense, and I’m proud of President Obama for finally understanding that.
(Don’t worry; you can continue to personally boycott Cuban rum and other products. The rest of us Americans will appreciate you not driving up the prices.)
The embargo has had very little affect on the US economy. Why haven’t the Castro’s done anything to make us want to change our policy? Like any good liberal apologist, everything’s always our fault. I we would just offer to hug the western hemisphere’s last Stalinist dictator, everything would be keen.
Again, for a person that hold’s this site in such low esteem, you’re EVERYWHERE. Why is that?
The embargo has had very little affect [sic] on the US economy.
If it has cost us so much as a single dollar over the course of fifty years, that was too high a price to pay for failure.
Why haven’t the Castro’s done anything to make us want to change our policy?
Are you kidding? Castro LOVES our failed policy! As already mentioned, he gets to present himself on the world stage as the macho tough guy who stands up to the mighty American bully. He gets to blame our failed policy, not his regime’s economic incompetence, for the sorry state of modern Cuba. He gets to rally Cubans against the hurtful Yanquis, and thus avoid admitting to his own failures. (Also, if he’s like every other Communist Party Boss ever, he has a personal supply of hard-to-get American luxury goods, which he can dole out to corrupt cronies to buy favors and silence.) Fidel Castro has done very, very well from our failed policy; ordinary Cuban citizens, not so much. He has *no* reason to want any change, and every reason to fear the enlightened changes President Obama is making. If denying him the advantages given above does not end his regime, Cubans’ desires for better lives and liberty will, just like it was for the central Europeans in 1989. We should do everything we can to encourage Cubans to re-acquaint themselves with the real United States, and that most definitely includes having more American tourists in Cuba.
Again, you are completely free to continue our failed policy yourself; the rest of us will be enjoying fine local rum on Cuba’s Caribbean beaches.
“Castro LOVES our failed policy! As already mentioned, he gets to present himself on the world stage as the macho tough guy who stands up to the mighty American bully”.
So we should cave in to him and make him stronger? Loony liberal loser.
“the rest of us will be enjoying fine local rum on Cuba’s Caribbean beaches”.
Cuba doesn’t have anything that lots of other Caribbean nations also have. The only difference is a Stalinist dictator, but you’re OK with that, You’re OK with human rights violations, political prisoners rotting in jail because of their dissent, assassinations. Got it. Be careful what you say while enjoying the fine local rum.
“contribute to the success of our new policy”
What “our new policy”? Just because it spewed out of Lying Barry’s piehole doesn’t make it “our new policy” There is no “our new policy” unless you agree with Executive Orders, governing by decree. Who needs Congress? Those mean Republicans don’t agree with the Bamster so he just has to go it on his own, making up “our new policy” as he goes along
So we should cave in to him and make him stronger?
The Cuban Communists know they have nothing to celebrate from our new policy:
Coverage of the momentous announcement in Cuba’s Communist Party media was limited to the reestablishment of diplomatic relations and the release of three Cuban spies imprisoned in the United States.
Meanwhile, the island will be flooded with American tourist dollars, and the Communist Party will lose control of first the economy, then everything else. Time to party like it’s 1989!
Cuba doesn’t have anything that lots of other Caribbean nations also have.
Again, no one will force you to visit Cuban beaches, drink Cuban rum, or trade in Cuban cigars. You’re free to continue your great policy, which — if only we’d given it **another** fifty years! — would have seen the end of Castro ruling Cuba. (Just keep repeating that until you’re sure.)
There is no “our new policy” until congress says there is. You and Lying Barry should both visit the island. You might end up in Castro’s Gulag.
You’re OK with human rights violations, political prisoners rotting in jail because of their dissent, assassinations.
Since our policy over the past fifty years did absolutely nothing to change any of that, the question is, why are you OK with it? I ask you again: how many more decades was our failed policy to continue before it magically succeded?
There is no “our new policy” until congress says there is.
That new Republican majority in Congress will really, really enjoy explaining how their loyalty to the losers of the Cuban civil war in Eisenhower’s day is more important than us now lifting our embargo. I wish them luck with that.
You might end up in Castro’s Gulag.
Better that than W’s Gitmo. At least my tax dollars didn’t pay for Castro’s torture regime in Cuba.
Better that than W’s Gitmo. At least my tax dollars didn’t pay for Castro’s torture regime in Cuba.
Your tax dollars will be paying for it under “our new policy” and how did Guantanamo Bay become Bush’s fault? I was there in the ’70s. That Bush guy really is an evil genius, knowing he’d need somewhere to torture people someday, gets the US military to open the perfect base to use 40 years in the future. I also remember Lying Barry saying he was going to close it as soon as he was in office, but shockingly enough he didn’t tell the truth.
That new Republican majority in Congress will really, really enjoy explaining how their loyalty to the losers of the Cuban civil war in Eisenhower’s day is more important than us now lifting our embargo.
Yeah, sure. That’s the real reason for the embargo. It couldn’t have anything to do with Castro being a brutal, Stalinist dictator. It’s all Republicans fault. Loony liberal loser
If you don’t know — or won’t admit — that W and Rumsfeld set up a torture regime at Gitmo, then no one else need care about anything you say about torture in Cuba.
I also remember Lying Barry saying he was going to close it as soon as he was in office,
One of his biggest policy failures, yes. Too bad you won’t blame W for opening it in the first place.
That’s the real reason for the embargo.
Since they didn’t object to W’s torture regime on Cuba, no one will believe they care about Castro’s human-rights violations, either. Therefore, they can give three reasons:
(a) they don’t recognize a failed policy when it’s staring them in the face for fifty years;
(b) they don’t care about the innocent Cubans hurt by our failed policy;
(c) they’re enslaved to a tiny minority of losers;
Since, impressively, (c) is their least humiliating explanation for opposing our new policy, they would be wise to use it.
“If it has cost us so much as a single dollar over the course of fifty years, that was too high a price to pay for failure”
But you’re down with overwhelming failure of the 50 year old “war on poverty”? Nah, you’re all for it, it’s got (D) written all over it. I guarantee the economic cost of the Cuban embargo is an infinitesimally small percentage of the trillions spent on the “war on poverty”. What about the “war on drugs”? Would you also say that has been a stellar success? Get off your high horse, you’re just covering for your messiah.
If shiftwa.org does a post on national anti-poverty programs, then we can look at the numbers (which you haven’t cited) and decide what value we obtained for money spent. This will be much more difficult than determining whether our anti-Castro policy worked, since that policy — you know, the actual topic of this post — has clearly and totally failed.
His math is getting better though, we only traded 3 for 1 this time, but like last time I’m sure the amount of money we ponied up will be leaked soon.
Only the first payment will get out. The ongoing ones will be buried in spending bills
It’s actually three for two, but we understand you guys face incredible difficulty when attempting to count that high:
In addition to Gross, who the Obama administration said was freed on humanitarian grounds after five years, the United States exchanged the three Cubans for an unnamed U.S. intelligence asset said to have been held in Cuba for two decades.
Of course, closing out our failed policy incurred some final cost:
… the amount of money we ponied up will be leaked soon.
That’s ok; I have it on good authority that our failed policy hasn’t cost us much, and what it has cost us isn’t worth counting: “The embargo has had very little affect [sic] on the US economy.”
Among the many great benefits of ending our failed policy, it will no longer be creating prisoners for ransom.