Cuba Getting Internet Upstream Via Venezuela

An anonymous reader writes "Seems like Cuba is working around the US internet embargo by teaming up with Venezuela: A confidential contract released yesterday on Wikileaks reveals Cuba's plan to receive internet upstream via an undersea cable to Venezuela, thus circumventing the enduring embargo of the US, denying Cuba access to nearby American undersea cables and overcoming the current limits of satellite-only connectivity. The connection, to be delivered by CVG Telecom of Venezuela, is to be completed by 2010 and will provide data, video as well as voice service for both the public and governmental services."

Comments

Surprised?

[chill]

I figured they arranged for something like this years ago.

Re:Surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. It is only a couple hundred miles of submarine cable. The only reason that I can think that it wasn't done sooner might be because Cuba's credit is so bad (due to refusal to pay contracts) that nobody was willing to do the job without cash upfront.

Re:Surprised?

[DaedalusHKX]

What amazes me is WHY would the USA government have been involved in such socialistic crap such as embargoes, rather than letting the citizenry sample the good and bad of all and choose for themselves. Unless of course, one notes that a citizen is another term for a "loyal subject"... an "oath of citizenship" is the same thing as the "oath of fealty" once was.

Amusing, yes, very amusing. Too bad it takes all of us so long to learn all this.

Re:Surprised?

[baldass_newbie]

the USA government have been involved in such socialistic crap such as embargoes, rather than letting the citizenry sample the good and bad of all and choose for themselves

I don't think the USA gets a choice in what the good people of Cuba see or don't see. I think the Cuban government does and jails those who try to shine the light.

Re:Surprised?

[tomhudson]

Well, considering the Bay of Pigs, the attempts to assassinate Castro, and all the other plots, maybe it's time for the US to formally renounce such stupid behaviour.

Then again, I don't think pigs are going to fly any time soon, either ...

Re:Surprised?

[DaedalusHKX]

You probably haven't noticed all the restrictions in place to travel to Cuba, have you? USA nationals/citizens are denied a LOT of the freedom they are proclaimed to have. Technically if our government was OUR government then it wouldnt' distrust us to make up our own minds about "good" or "evil", would they?

Re:Surprised?

[Frosty Piss]

I figured they arranged for something like this years ago.

They didn't need it until recently because until recently very few people were allowed to even have Internet (or cell phones or many types of things that allow people to communicate with the outside world).

Remember this is Cuba we're talking about, not some free Socialist utopia...

Re:Surprised?

[gnick]

tomhudson

I think you misspelled Jimmy Carter.

But I agree - The embargo is idiotic. We (the U.S.) screwed up the same way in Iran. The people liked us shortly after the revolution and blue jeans and MTV could have really made for a good relationship, in my arm-chair general opinion. (Disclaimer - the notion that the general populace liked the U.S. comes from a single native Iranian who was teaching a Programming Patterns course that I attended, and I chose to believe him. Fell free to correct me.)

Cuba is similar - Give 'em YouTube, uncensored Google, porn, Wikipedia, streaming reality TV and show 'em the stuff that a lot of people in the world enjoy (for whatever reasons). It'll do a lot more good than what we've tried so far...

On a side note, if you're willing to drag a floaty toy to the beach and paddle your ass to Florida, I say we turn our heads and let you stay - You're obviously more dedicated to being an American than most of the folks that were born here.

Re:Surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was in response to the seizure of US companies in Cuba. The original plan was to lift the embargo when those companies were compensated for their losses. Eventually it was maintained due to human rights issues and Cuba's alliance with the Soviet Union. Carter lifted it during his Presidency, but Reagan reinstated it stating that no progress had been made and that Cuba had no intention of changing itself. It would have probably have been lifted during Clinton's second term if Cuba hadn't shot down the Hermanos al Rescate planes. After that incident, the Cuban vote in Florida solidified in support of the embargo.

Re:Surprised?

[Curtman]

it wouldnt' distrust us to make up our own minds about "good" or "evil", would they?

That's what is great about GWB.. He'll just come right out and tell you who the evildoers are. You don't have to worry about whether they are evildoers. He's got it all figured out. The plan is well into action, and everything will be rectified, justice will be served real soon now.

Re:Surprised?

[Darkness404]

Hmmm... Lets see... Which is the better way to get rid of a dictatorship A) don't allow any material into the country that tells of a better life or B) Flood Cuba's shores with artists, with musicians, give them Google, and the Wikis, give them /., blogs, The Pirate Bay, give them an uncensored internet and things start working themselves out. Think of it this way, if after we nuked Japan, we didn't help rebuild, and still called it evil, Japan would have most likely rebuilt a dictator-style empire. But we didn't do that, we gave them animation which turned into Anime, we gave them our technology which was taken and now Japan is a leader in technology. We could have done the same with Cuba, but instead we preferred to call names and run and hide.

Re:Surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fell free to correct me.

*Feel

Re:Surprised?

[techno-vampire]

Cuba is similar - Give 'em YouTube, uncensored Google, porn, Wikipedia...

Exactly. give them what Jerry Pournelle calls "weapons of cultural mass destruction" and let those weapons do their job. Within a few years, either the Cuban government will lighten up, or the people will throw them out when they realize how much better their lives could be. People are only willing to put up with repressive regimes if they don't know there's anything better out there, which is why countries like Cuba, Iran and North Korea limit the amount of information about the rest of the world that their people can get their hands on.

Re:Surprised?

[Darkness404]

They didn't need it until recently because until recently very few people were allowed to even have Internet (or cell phones or many types of things that allow people to communicate with the outside world). Remember this is Cuba we're talking about, not some free Socialist utopia...

But honestly, if you are going to control people, the internet would be an excellent tool to have. Think about it, educate people in public schools that you go to *insert government controlled website here* to search for everything. Use that to give people propaganda, and replace popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo with Cuba-controlled ones that look like Google and act like Google but only searches the government sites. For just about anything else, just put a generic error such as a "time out error". The best way to control the public isn't to make it look like they have such a horrible life, but that they believe they have the best life out there so there is no use trying to find a better life.

Re:Surprised?

[gnick]

Thank you... That may be the most ironic (flag the def. of irony nazis) typo I've had. Especially since my post started with "I think you misspelled..."...

Damn you spell-checker that only knows the proper spelling of dictionary words and not what I meant to say!!!

Re:Surprised?

[gnick]

Within a few years, either the Cuban government will lighten up, or the people will throw them out when they realize how much better their lives could be. People are only willing to put up with repressive regimes if they don't know there's anything better out there, which is why countries like Cuba, Iran and North Korea limit the amount of information about the rest of the world that their people can get their hands on.

Actually, according to a Mr. Moore documentary that I saw not too long ago, it's the U.S. government that's limiting our access to know how good life is in Cuba. If I understood his statements correctly, part of the reason that the U.S. is cutting Cuba off is to keep the U.S. populace from learning how socialized health care turns Cuba into such a paradise and keeps us from demanding it.

Not trying to weigh in on socialized heath care, just trying to troll based on a complete BS Moore line implying that the US is trying to prevent it's citizens from learning about the beautiful life Cubans enjoy thanks to socialized health care. Cheers.

Re:Surprised?

[Gideon Fubar]

I'm not trying to endorse either the Cuban lifestyle or Michael Moore here, but that is actually partially true. The Cuban healthcare system runs far more efficiently than the one in the US, at least as far as the numbers are concerned.

For example, the average life expectancy of a Cuban (77.23 years) is roughly on par with the average life expectancy of an American (78.1 years), but the Cuban government spends ~US$5/year/person on healthcare. In comparison, the amount spent in the US on healthcare (by individuals, government, businesses, etc..) is ~US$7200/year/person.

Given that they have embargoes on American medical technology, doctors, etc.. they must be doing something right.

Disclaimer: I'm from a country which has a nationally supported healthcare system alongside a private system, and they seem to work equally well together. I also don't understand why so many Americans hate Cuba so much..

Re:Surprised?

[spisska]

But honestly, if you are going to control people, the internet would be an excellent tool to have. Think about it, educate people in public schools that you go to *insert government controlled website here* to search for everything. Use that to give people propaganda, and replace popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo with Cuba-controlled ones that look like Google and act like Google but only searches the government sites.

Yeah. That might work. Just because Cubans are clever enough to set up and run samizdat thumb drive networks doesn't mean that they'll find out about the onion net.

And cesnsorship and state control of media worked pretty much flawlessly in the old Soviet bloc. I mean everybody there was pretty well convinced that Soviet communism was the greatest thing ever, Moscow was the center of the universe, and that they had absolutely the highest living standard on earth. That's why it was such a shock to everyone in 1989 when Reagan singlehandedly punched through Berlin Wall and gave everyone a case of Coke and a two-year subscription to Playboy.

We all know how solid China's great firewall is. No way around that puppy, you'd better believe it.

And of course the real goal of the US isn't to prevent companies from doing business in Cuba in contravention of the law (however stupid you think that law may be), but to actually prevent Cubans from getting any information at all. That's probably why there are honking big transmitters in Florida broadcasting news 24-7 towards Cuba.

Castro's done a great job of blocking all that information. Nobody in Cuba has ever heard of El Duque, for example, or Alexei Ramirez. Both of their families still believe the official explanation that they accidentally drowned themselves while shaving.

Indeed we all know that controlling information is much like building a dam: It's very cheap and easy to do, it takes hardly any effort to maintain, and it's virtually indestructible. And the best way to control the flow of water through a dam, much like controlling the flow of information, is to drill a very small hole and use a finger to carefully control how much gets through. Information, like water, tends to stay put and hates to travel.

I cannot possibly see any problems with your plans for CubaNet. Sure, the richest and most ruthless software company on the planet has spent 10 years and billions of dollars trying and utterly failing to come up with something "that look[s] like Google and act[s] like Google". But with a decent project manager Cuba should have the whole thing up and running within about six weeks or so. That'll show those yanqui bastards what's what.

Re:Surprised?

[gnick]

I'm not trying to endorse either the Cuban lifestyle or Michael Moore here, but that is actually partially true. The Cuban healthcare system runs far more efficiently than the one in the US, at least as far as the numbers are concerned.

For example, the average life expectancy of a Cuban (77.23 years) is roughly on par with the average life expectancy of an American (78.1 years), but the Cuban government spends ~US$5/year/person on healthcare. In comparison, the amount spent in the US on healthcare (by individuals, government, businesses, etc..) is ~US$7200/year/person.

Given that they have embargoes on American medical technology, doctors, etc.. they must be doing something right.

Disclaimer: I'm from a country which has a nationally supported healthcare system alongside a private system, and they seem to work equally well together. I also don't understand why so many Americans hate Cuba so much..

Neither do I support the embargo. It was a bad idea that has demonstrated itself as a failure. And I'm not sure that (educated & intelligent) Americans really have a problem with Cuba (they're cool by me) - That doesn't necessarily include our legislators. But, my life expectancy would go up if I could afford neither steak nor beer. Instead, I'm sitting here well-fed, half-drunk, and on an uncensored internet connection (at least as uncensored as most of the world - and I have no objection to most of what people are being arrested for).

I'd still rather pay less for my medical insurance - Especially since the patents I'm paying for are being ignored on both my Canadian and Mexican borders. But socialism and capitalism are both nice ideas in theory. I just think that the US & Cuba are bad examples on either side. I'd love to find a country that's figured out how they should be balanced and needs a MSEE grad with PM experience that can look past a late-night semi-inebriated /. post...

Re:Surprised?

[niktemadur]

Considering the Bay of Pigs, the attempts to assassinate Castro, and all the other plots, maybe it's time for the US to formally renounce such stupid behaviour.

You got that right.

Whenever I hear or read about the Cuba embargo, I am instantly reminded of a story Pierre Salinger (Press Secretary to John F Kennedy) used to tell:

One day, Salinger is summoned to the Oval Office, where JFK tells him "Pierre, I want you to go out and buy as many Petite Upmanns as you can" - "Yes, Mr President".

Next day, Salinger goes back into the Oval Office. "Well, Pierre?" JFK asked. "We rounded up (several hundred, can't remember the exact number) through our contacts all over the country, Mr President".
JFK let out a reluctant sigh, opened the top drawer of his desk, pulled out the Cuban embargo document, and signed it right there and then.

That's the executive branch in action for you, hoarding the last legal stash before making it a crime to buy it. And that's how much they believe in the laws they enact in our name.
My guess is that the embargo still exists if only to politically pacify the noisy Batista Cubans that make up a large chunk of the Florida electorate. Remember the Elian Gonzalez incident? I'm pretty damn sure that incident cost Gore the election, made the margin narrow enough to allow Jeb Bush to steal the election. We've all heard about thousands of African-Americans purged from the voting lists. How many Cuban-Americans were? I'd guess the number is disproportionately low.

As for the effectiveness of the embargo where cigars are concerned, I live in Mexico, where tourists from north of the border puff away at heart's content. Then buy them to take home, change the paper rings and boxes, and presto!, a Cuban Cohiba has been transformed into a Mexican Te Amo.

There's a cartoon that made the rounds a few years ago, with Bush Jr jumping up and down in the tip of Florida, yelling "I'm going to bury you, Fidel!" Meanwhile, Fidel quietly stands on Cuban ground, beside a blackboard with a bunch of crossed out names: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr and Clinton.

Inter-generational, institutionalized stupidity is what I call it.

Re:Surprised?

[jcr]

Cuba's credit is so bad (due to refusal to pay contracts

Is it refusal to pay, or simply lack of funds? Cuba's economy has been a basket case since the Soviets collapsed and quit propping them up.

-jcr

Re:Surprised?

[i_liek_turtles]

So, if we help Cuba, we get weird tentacle porn, only with Spanish subtitles?

Re:Surprised?

[compro01]

46 years ago. Just 20 years before that, you were in a little shooting & bombing war with a little place called Japan.

Fast-forward to today and how much of the tech sold in the US was developed in that country?

FFS, you're now friendlier with the country that was controlling those missiles than you are with Cuba!

Re:Surprised?

[praksys]

The people liked us shortly after the revolution and blue jeans and MTV could have really made for a good relationship, in my arm-chair general opinion.
That's probably true. There were many different groups behind the revolutions in Iran and Cuba. The Fundamentalists and Communists respectively were in the minority for a while afterwards. But then they started killing and torturing the people who held different views. In both cases lots died, more fled into exile, and pretty soon the Fundamentalists and the Communists had complete control.

So the idea that the US unnecessarily soured its relationships with both countries is simply wrong. The groups that murdered their way into power hated the US with a passion and, short of invading to crush those particular groups, there is nothing the US could have done to maintain good relations.

What the general populations in Iran and Cuba thought of the US simply didn't figure. Anyone who continued to voice positive views of the US soon got a bullet in the head.

Re:Surprised?

[Max Littlemore]

Exactly. give them what Jerry Pournelle calls "weapons of cultural mass destruction" and let those weapons do their job. Within a few years, either the Cuban government will lighten up, or the people will throw them out when they realize how much better their lives could be.

If that's true, how come Bush got a second term?

Re:Surprised?

[niktemadur]

You probably haven't noticed all the restrictions in place to travel to Cuba, have you?

There's a bit of wisdom that's been passed around, all over Latin America, for the last thirty years: Visit Cuba before the North Americans can get back in, 'cause they're gonna drag along McDonald's, Hard Rock Hotel & Casinos, Starbucks and shopping malls.

Can you imagine a fucking Cinnabon in Havana? You have no idea just how many people, non-US citizens by and large, consider that image to represent a Faustian Pact, because it represents Washington's economic doctrine of neo-liberalism that's screwed over every other country in the continent, as well as Africa, over the last several decades.

You can pontificate about how Cuba's living standards are lower than so-and-so, but just compare to El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay, etc, all of whom toed the Washington (which is to say, Exxon and DuPont) line, and whose dictators were mostly alumni of the US-sponsored School Of The Americas.

Furthermore, if Cuba had not been embargoed, it would be quite prosperous today. Within the limited means that the embargo created, the Cuban population is managing better than most countries victimized by Washington's neo-liberalism.

So yes, visit Cuba before it's too late, while the population is still relatively innocent, crime levels are extraordinarily low, and an extended vacation can be had for a song (or two).

No offense intended, just food for thought about an absurd situation: Curious that the only people restricted from traveling to Cuba are the citizens of The Land Of The Free. So how Free (as in speech, not beer) are you, really? Think about it, I believe it's really an important question.

Re:Surprised?

[sumdumass]

Some of them were land owners. Some were regular peasants. When Castro took control, he did so violently. He wasn't a freely elected president who decided to stay over.

Also, there was/is a lot of persecution on the people who saw the free market system as a good system. These people were locked up in jails and when Reagan was in office, many of them as well as their families were thrown into make shift rafts at gun point and told what direction to go if they wanted a chance to live. There have been some other things too. Like in the 90's (94-95) when Clinton upped the embargo when cuba had another mass exodus.

The thing is, the people of Cuba are old enough to remember living in a free and democratic Cuba or have heard first hand stories about it. Cuba was a very prosperous country back in the day. When presented with an opportunity to leave, quite a few of them jumped on inner tubes or whatever and left. They held on to what little American money there was in hopes of being free again. It wasn't until recently that Cuba outlaws it's use in the country.

Re:Surprised?

[Adult film producer]

You can't indict the u.s. health care system for lower life expectancy among americans. Its not the fault of the system that americans stuff their faces with double whoppers meals, super-sized coca-colas and serving sizes at restaurants that could feed a horse. No matter what medicine or treatment is available those people will die a lot sooner than a cuban.

Re:Surprised?

[aproposofwhat]

the people of Cuba are old enough to remember living in a free and democratic Cuba or have heard first hand stories about it.

Free and democratic?

Under Batista?

GTFO, moron - Cuba was neither free nor a democracy before the revolution, and the major factor in delaying democracy in Cuba has been the US embargo and the failure of successive US regimes to engage the Cubans diplomatically.

Re:Surprised?

[Antique Geekmeister]

And living in gorgeous, wonderful Cuban weather probably has nothing to do with longevity, either. Clean Atlantic ocean air, gentle tropical island weather, fabulous beaches that Florida residents _wish_ they had nearby, etc. probably have no effect on aging joints and keeping fit in old age.

When I get as old as the ex-Cuban cancer surgeon I met visiting an ill friend a decade ago, I want to retire to the house he grew up in, where he could fish in the ocean by walking 100 yards and watch the girls on the beach. The doctor had pictures, on the walls of his office, too. For 40 year old pictures, those were really, really stunning women. I can see why Castro refuses to retire, much less die, as long as he has that kind of scenery to live for.

Re:Surprised?

[rapiddescent]

maybe for your country - but for the rest of us Cuba is a rather popular tourist destination with as many tourists leaving the UK for cuba as, say, dominican republic.

The westernised cuban resorts are fairly well organised and tourists can expect a little more of the "off the beaten trail" feel without the risk.

Re:Surprised?

[mjwx]

The US didn't give Japan animation, they've been able to draw pictures for centuries before the US even existed. Films and photography were made in Japan prior to world war 2. The US didn't give a lot of technology to Japan, Japan reversed engineered a lot of it and even recreated some technologies from observation. Saying that the US gave modern technology is an insult to Japanese engineers and scientists who laboured to create modern Japan, especially since the Japanese planes and warships fielded in WWII were technologically superior to those fielded by the United States (the US had superior numbers, resources and on occasion, training).

Re:Surprised?

[Gideon Fubar]

I'm sure you'll be welcome here in Australia, tho i hear that welfare and healthcare are even better in some EU countries.

I also think that a balance is probably a better approach.. taking the good aspects of Capitalism and Socialism and working them together.. So businesses are free to trade, medical care is catered for, and people who can't get work don't starve to death.

It's a pretty weak simile, but i see a country as roughly like a person. If they want to stay active they have to stay healthy.. expecting them to take care of it themselves is like expecting your cells to organize themselves so you have Olympic-level fitness on demand. Pretty much the same goes for education..

Re:Surprised?

[nacturation]

There's a bit of wisdom that's been passed around, all over Latin America, for the last thirty years: Visit Cuba before the North Americans can get back in...

Americans, not North Americans. Canadians and Mexicans have the freedom to visit Cuba.
 

Re:Surprised?

[sumdumass]

The people of Cuba already knew what a free Cuba was like or had first hand accountings from relatives. This is why there is/was a mass exodus when Castro allowed anyone who wanted to- to leave by the port of Mariel.

We have also been broadcasting radio and TV signals to Cuba since the late 50's

Re:Surprised?

[Augusto]

In Cuba, there is basically no real freedom of expression or any respectable level of political organization that doesn't toe the government line.

The "visit Cuba" thing is kind of sad, foreigners love to vacation in Cuba and often forget (or don't even care) that these places are can not be enjoyed by the locals.

http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/

Re:Surprised?

[orzetto]

I'd love to find a country that's figured out how they should be balanced and needs a MSEE grad with PM experience that can look past a late-night semi-inebriated /. post...

Norway. It's also the most peaceful place in the world. I lived there until March, I moved since I got a one-of-a-kind job elsewhere. That's still a place I would recommend, though. The health care system is universal, tax levels are supposed to be the highest in the world, but that's not true: they are high for the rich bastards, I never paid more than 29.5% of my income and my last salary was about $7500 a month before taxes.

And, yes, they are desperate to find people there. With the current oil prices their economy is on the way up, but you cannot improvise engineers in a few months, so chances are you can find a job there fairly easily. They also have movies/TV in original language (mostly English) and most people speak decent English too, so you are not completely lost in a foreign country until you learn Norwegian. Norwegians are also efficient as Germans, but without the rudeness; pretty nice people to work with.

Re:Surprised?

[Maxmin]

one advantage of socialized medicine is that the government gets to decide when further treatment doesn't make "economic sense"

Oh really? Have you got anything to back that statement up?

You believe that doctors in countries with state-run medicine can say to patients and their families, "Look, this is getting expensive, and it looks like s/he is going to die in a few weeks anyway. Checkout is on down the hall on the left" ... etc.?

I can't imagine where you're getting your ideas from. Personal experience: my ex is a doctor from a country with "socialized medicine" ... from what I saw and heard during my time there (Germany), it doesn't work like that at all. End-of-life was one of the biggest issues she dealt with, because -get this- they saw patients through to the end. Preventative care and perhaps the much lower obesity rates probably have a little *something* to do with their lower per-capita medical costs..

Re:Surprised?

[dontmakemethink]

I'd still rather pay less for my medical insurance - Especially since the patents I'm paying for are being ignored on both my Canadian and Mexican borders.

Woah. We pay through the ass for pharmaceuticals in Canada. We don't even get a free ride on pharms or medical procedures developed here. It either comes out of our taxes or our wallets.

Meanwhile, at least 20% of our medical graduates take jobs in the US or abroad. And we're facing a health care crisis ourselves.

I know there are a lot of industrialized countries that do not enforce medical patents, but Canada isn't anywhere near that list.

Re:Surprised?

[kamikaez]

I'd still rather pay less for my medical insurance - Especially since the patents I'm paying for are being ignored on both my Canadian and Mexican borders. But socialism and capitalism are both nice ideas in theory. I just think that the US & Cuba are bad examples on either side. I'd love to find a country that's figured out how they should be balanced and needs a MSEE grad with PM experience that can look past a late-night semi-inebriated /. post...

Sitting in a Social Democratic nation in the north of Europe, I can say this: Cuba is going in the right direction at the moment, mostly thanks to Raul it seems. US on the other hands is standing still, it has distanced it self from it allies after selecting conservatives** a few years back. Even though the economic race in Kina and India has made us (Europe) less dependent on US economy, it still has a large impact on our lives and culture, and thats why we like to have an opinion on what you select for government.

Some of the flaws in US government, from an outside perspective:

* The patent system (Select someone for office that is less conservative and cooperate founded and a change might happen..)

* The health care system (Again, select someone a tad more social, and they'll do something about it long term)

* The war on everyone, to either "crush" taliban or more preferably invade and give Iraqi oil to one of my friends oil companies (Select someone less aggressive towards the world around you, and the world will most likely be less aggressive back)

* Intelligent design (Select someone that doesn't mix religion with politics that much, and you might get out of the dark ages too(again)..)

* Environment cowards (Select someone that doesn't found scientist to come up with objections to global warming to keep their corporate friends safe from having to do something about their unfiltered pollution)

** this is a bit ironic with all the public spending (war), budget deficit problems and restriction on peoples freedom.

Re:Surprised?

[vidarh]

You really need to go back and read some history. Castro, for example, had no major problem with the US, despite US support for Batista. What he did have a problem with what major US companies having been given control over large part of the Cuban economy through deals with Batista. Castro turned to the Soviet union largely as a result of the US reaction when he seized property from US companies.

Time and time again we've seen this happen. Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam was a nationalist. He refashioned his politics in terms favored the only backers available to him and became "communist" when it was clear the US would continue supporting it's puppets in the south, for example.

A large part of the rebel movements that started spouting communist slogans etc. over the last few decades did so first when that was how they got support because the Soviet Union and others saw it as an opportunity. Many of them would have preferred or were open to support from the West, but were ignored or branded terrorists because the dictators they went up against were supported by the West, and turned to whomever were willing to fund them or provide weapons.

Re:Surprised?

[vidarh]

There's a vast difference between not wanting to be a puppet state controlled by a US supported dictator who hands property over to US corporations whenever he felt like it, and not wanting Americans.

If you can't understand that difference you'll have a big problem understanding Cuba.

Castro was fiercely nationalistic, not unlike a lot of US politicians, and had a lot against US influence on that basis. His opposition to the US and to Americans only strengthened as a result of the US response after he took power and started taking back what had been stolen from the Cuban people by Batista, a lot of which had been handed over to US companies.

Re:Surprised?

[Saffaya]

So ... Turkey can harbor US nuke missiles pointed to Moscow, but Cuba can't have a few pointed to the US ?

The winner of the Cuban missiles crisis was the USSR who negociated the removal of the plethora of US missiles in Turkey, in exchange of the few missiles in Cuba.

Re:Surprised?

[vidarh]

Batista was elected in '40, yes. But he lost the '44 election, and then took power again in '52 through a coup. He was then overthrown in '58. So Cuba was "free and democratic" under Batista for 4 years, and a dictatorship for 6.

If you are trying to imply the '54 election when he ran unopposed was free and fair, then the other reply you got comparing him to Mugabe was quite fitting.

Re:Surprised?

[Stooshie]

I can't remember the quote exactly, but Tariq Ali, talking about Iraq, said something like:

... If we give each and every family a new house, car and job, it would be far more effective and would cost a lot less ...

Re:Surprised?

[mrogers]

> The groups that murdered their way into power hated the US with a passion

Ever wondered why? In both cases, the groups were fighting to overthrow dictatorships supported by the US:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista#The_Second_Coup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax

I'm no fan of Khomeini or Castro, I certainly don't support their repressive governments, but the US-backed governments they overthrew weren't necessarily any better.

Re:Surprised?

[mastropiero]

United Statians, not Americans. Americans as in Ecuadorians, Colombians, Venezuelans, Brazilians, etc have the freedom to visit Cuba.

Re:Surprised?

[oliderid]

They had the luck to discover oil and the wisdom to carefully manage the revenues ... I heard Norwegian institutional funds are ones of the biggest investors in European stock markets such as Euronext Paris.

30% of income taxes(?), (almost?) free healthcare, no state budget deficit, effcient pensions funds and capitalism...I'm all for that form of communism any day.

Re:Surprised?

[SimonGhent]

Cuba is similar - Give 'em YouTube, uncensored Google, porn, Wikipedia...

Exactly. give them what Jerry Pournelle calls "weapons of cultural mass destruction" and let those weapons do their job. Within a few years, either the Cuban government will lighten up, or the people will throw them out when they realize how much better their lives could be.

I note you left "streaming reality TV" off your quoted list.

I imagine most people would prefer a repressive communist regime to streaming reality TV.

Re:Surprised?

[aplusjimages]

I also don't understand why so many Americans hate Cuba so much..

I thought we were hating the Mexicans and Iraqi/Anyone-Who-Looks-Middle-Eastern. Damn my hate agenda is getting to full now I have to squeeze in Cubans.
But seriously, I'm not sure I agree that "Americans" hate Cuba, more like the "American Government" hates Cuba.

Re:Surprised?

[xaxa]

You can't indict the u.s. health care system for lower life expectancy among americans. Its not the fault of the system that americans stuff their faces with double whoppers meals, super-sized coca-colas and serving sizes at restaurants that could feed a horse. No matter what medicine or treatment is available those people will die a lot sooner than a cuban.

Because most healthcare is paid for by taxes in the UK, techniques to prevent people getting ill are used. For instance, free vaccinations, monitoring of babies/children's health, screening for cancers, STI checks, diet advice, stop-smoking stuff, etc.

Also, if you have to pay to see a doctor, you're less likely to go, and any problem you have might get worse. If you don't get free advice during pregnancy your child might be less healthy (infant mortality is quite high in the USA).

Re:Surprised?

[elkto]

Meanwhile in the news, officials from both Venezuela and Cuba indicated they are seeking Chinese firewall and human rights technology. Not to be undone, the Obama campaign has offered propaganda technology that calls for change.

Re:Surprised?

[0xdeadbeef]

In Cuba, there is basically no real freedom of expression or any respectable level of political organization that doesn't toe the government line.

So, it's just like China and Saudi Arabia, countries on which we are so dependent our economy would fail if we ever decided to embargo them.

Re:Surprised?

[Shakrai]

We (the U.S.) screwed up the same way in Iran.

We did the same in Vietnam. There was a study done in the 50s after the Vietnamese had managed to drive the French out of the country. It suggested that we could pull Ho Chi Minn into our orbit if we had been inclined to engage him instead of isolating him. We opted to let our paranoia rule the day (remember the Reds are coming...) and look what happened -- we wound up fighting a decades long war with a movement that quoted our own Declaration of Independence (while trying to free themselves from French colonial rule) and which had actually been on our side against the Japanese in WW2.

I love my country dearly but it's amazing how many decisions we've allowed ourselves to make out of fear. Fear of Communism. Fear of Socialism. Fear of Terrorism. How did we go from "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" to being afraid of "isms"? I can at least understand it in the context of the 50s and early 60s -- when it appeared the that Soviet Union was beating us in science and space exploration and the memory of Pearl Harbor was still fresh. What the hell is our excuse now?

Re:Surprised?

[hey!]

Back in the late 60s, when I was a kid, I went with my friend to visit his uncle, who was a WW2 combat vet. He was dirt poor, living in a filthy one room apartment, because he couldn't hold down a job. He was a nice guy, but you could see why he couldn't keep a job. Underneath the niceness, there was this layer of craziness that was continually bubbling. It wasn't a scary kind of crazy, it was sad, and haunted. Employers tried to help him out, but he was unreliable.

It was like he had one eye focused in the present, and one twenty five years in the past. What he was looking at were war atrocities, which would have been bad enough, but they were atrocities committed by soldiers on our side. When they happened, he couldn't accept what his eyes were telling him, and he continued seeing and not accepting those things every day of his life. He was proud American, and nothing could ever shake that, which was what made the shame inescapable.

This is what history is made up of: Details that inevitably don't fit into the big picture, even if that were the truest possible big picture. It was the Germans who committed atrocities, so an atrocity committed by Americans doesn't fit. When we hear of something that doesn't fit, we set out to disprove it, or failing that justify it. If you can't disprove or justify it, you just have to accept it. If you can't accept it, you become a little crazy.

Still, that doesn't mean the big story about the greatest generation going to war to save civilization isn't true, or at the least the truest way of fitting everything together in a nutshell. There will alway be details that don't fit. Some of them will be horrific or tragic, some ironic, and some just inexplicably perverse.

It's hard to say which was the bigger 20th C story, the fight against fascism or the struggle to hold the line against Soviet style communist totalitarianism. But the cold war was a much longer, generational story and so is messier. I'd say that on the whole the saving the world from Communism story is true, but there are enough contradictory incidents to turn that view on its head if you want to. The radicalization of Iran by undermining its secular democracy, for example. Vietnam, for example. Cuba is a rich source of paradoxes.

A lot of what we did in the Cold War looks now like mistakes, although we'll never know for sure on all of them because there's alway those bits that don't fit. Certainly some of the things we did were at least grossly unfair to some of the people involved.

Accepting this doesn't make the big story untrue, it just means that we should learn from them and try to do things better next time. What's the point of history, otherwise?

Re:Surprised?

[elrous0]

Trying to shine the light? You mean like this guy?

Considering the behavior of Cuban dissidents in the past (multiple attempts to overthrow the government or assassinate Castro, terrorist attacks targetting civilians, etc.) I would throw their asses in jail too. Do you think if a group from outside the U.S. kept coming in and trying to overthrow the government, bomb markets, and kill the President that we'd just let them run around free?

Fuck that trash down in Miami. Just contrast their behavior with that of actual Cubans during the Elian Gonzalez scandal for a good look at who the real scumbags are in THAT fight.

Re:Surprised?

[Shakrai]

* The patent system (Select someone for office that is less conservative and cooperate founded and a change might happen..)

Agreed.

* The health care system (Again, select someone a tad more social, and they'll do something about it long term)

This is a tough one. Our health care system as it stands stinks for a lot of people but we are still the World leader in pharmaceuticals and we still have the best doctors in the World -- there's a reason why so many foreign leaders/rich businessmen come here for their operations. Personally I think we could improve our health care system far more if we worked to make it less expensive -- and this could be accomplished without nationalizing the system (tort reform and patent reform both come to mind)

* The war on everyone, to either "crush" taliban or more preferably invade and give Iraqi oil to one of my friends oil companies (Select someone less aggressive towards the world around you, and the world will most likely be less aggressive back)

Don't give us grief for the war in Afghanistan. Lest we forget, the Taliban did harbor the man who murdered 3,000 Americans (and others -- people from over 50 countries died that day) and refused to hand him over to face justice. We have a legitimate chance at building a better nation there and the mission in that country is supported by the UN and our NATO allies.

I won't argue with you on Iraq but we are where we are -- so what do you want to do about it? I'd love to see our troops brought home -- but I also don't want to see that country turn into the next failed-state (the next Afghanistan) if it collapses when we leave. Again it would seem that we actually have a chance at building a better nation here -- we owe the Iraqi people something after we knocked off their Government and turned their country into a whirlpool of violence and murder.

* Intelligent design (Select someone that doesn't mix religion with politics that much, and you might get out of the dark ages too(again)..)

This isn't fair. It seems to me that you are only receiving news that portrays us in a bad light. If you looked a little bit beyond GWB or the few heavily Conservative states (Georgia and Kansas come to mind) I think you'd find that most Americans see right through ID for what it really is -- creationism with a fancier name. There's no "debate" about evolution here in the Northeast. There's no debate about it on the West coast. There isn't even a debate about it in most of the Conservative-leaning states (they never tried to teach creationism to me in North Carolina). Please don't judge us by our hicks -- even if one of them managed to become President.

Re:Surprised?

[elrous0]

Correction. Americans don't hate Cuba. Only bitter old Republicans and bitter old Kennedy Democrats hate Cuba. They hate it because Castro dared overthrow their corrupt puppet Batista, then refused to play ball with them and let their big businesses keep exploiting the Cuban people for cheap labor. They hate it because Castro had the audacity to refuse to die when they tried multiple times to kill him or overthrow him. They hate it because the Republican Party chose to get into bed with a bunch of Cuban exile trash down in Miami just to win some elections. And, most of all, they hate Cuba because Castro DARED to stand up to the money and might of the great U.S. empire and the Cuban people DARED to support him in that stand.

Most Americans have absolutely nothing against Cuba at all. If the embargo were ended tomorrow, the island would almost certainly enjoy a brisk tourist trade from U.S. citizens.

Re:Surprised?

[gfxguy]

More or less true story (some minor details may get muddled): American couple visits a couple in USSR that they'd become friends with on a previous visit. Russian couple welcomes them into their meager home, and works very hard to accommodate the American couple. They insist on sleeping on the couch so their guests can have their bed.

On their last full day together, the Russian wife wants to make a spectacular dinner for the American couple. They all go out shopping to get ingredients... they go to the butcher, but the butcher has a very limited range of things to offer; mostly scraps and unpopular cuts of meat, but they buy the best they can and move on. The bakery is similar. Most of the shelves are empty; they look around and find the best they can and move on. It continues like this until they get everything they can to make a decent meal.

Several years after the "fall," the Russian couple visit the American couple, it's their first time out of their native country. Instead of a meager apartment, the American couple have a nice house with a large guest suite. You'd think they were "special" rich Americans, but it turns out most people live in pretty nice houses; their house in particular wasn't anything special, this is just how many people live. The American wife decides, like the Russian one did, to make a special dinner. She takes the Russian wife to a farmer's market. There, under one roof, is a butcher with everything you could possibly want, a huge seafood section, a bakery.. the shelves are completely packed with anything you could possibly need.

The Russian wife stood there and cried.

I swear to you I am not making this up. People in these countries simply don't know how good "western" style living is; we'd been demonized by their governments for so long, they just couldn't believe the reality. Another lesson is that a lot of us don't realize how good we have it.

Re:Surprised?

[demachina]

I think Cuba had a massive dose of American "culture" in the '50's. It came in the form of a U.S. friendly, repressive dictator named Fulgencio Batista, the U.S. based Mafia that turned Havana in to the 1950's version of Las Vegas but worse, and large numbers of obnoxious Americans that flocked there to indulge all their vices, mainly gambling and prostitution. At the time Americans, being the puritanical prudes they tend to be, outlawed all these vices at home, so all their "weapons of cultural mass destruction" were focused like a laser beam on Cuba in the 50's. A lot of Cubans considered Castro and socialism an improvement at the time. Its not like Castro overthrew Batista single handed, he had a lot of support from the Cuban people.

Part of the problem with American cultural dissemination in the past is it was targeted at keeping America and American corporations on fat street so life was good in the U.S. In much of the rest of the world it was propping up brutal dictators as long as they were willing to be a bulwark against Socialism and Communism and were friendly to American multinationals which translated in to the American companies pillaging all the countries cheap labor and resources to fatten their bottom line while they left most of their host countries in abject poverty.

I certainly have no interest in living in Cuba. I hate governments who can't resist telling people how to live, or throwing their citizens in jail without cause, but that seems to happen in the U.S. now too. The U.S., especially under Bush has acquired some pretty scary Fascist tendencies and has been throwing people in secret prisons without trial and torturing them too.

If you can stay clear of the Cuban thought police I imagine life in Cuba isn't all that bad especially compared to what they had in the 50's. At least they do have really good health care and education for EVERYONE, not just the people rich enough to pay for it like the U.S. Its amazing they do as well as they do considering the strangling noose America's embargo has had around them for over 40 years. The U.S. kind of forces them in to a lot of their repression. They've have to be on constant guard against U.S. schemes to destabilize and overthrow their government for the last 40 plus years, which tends to lead to an excessive security apparatus, kind of like the one the U.S. created using 9/11 as an excuse.

I think my bottom line is both the U.S. and Cuba are deeply, deeply flawed so its a bit comical to watch them and the people in them try to contend one is god's gift and the other is Satan incarnate when they both suck about equally though in somewhat different ways.

Re:Surprised?

[MrSteveSD]

But I agree - The embargo is idiotic.

The embargo has been condemned by the UN General Assembly for the last 15 years or so. It's not just the US conducting the embargo though. The US government has bullied international companies and banks to join in. Recently banks in the UK have told customers they will have to stop trading with Cuba or find another bank.

The embargo has nothing to do with Cuba not being a democracy of course. Even if Cuba was a democracy, it would no doubt be the "wrong" kind of democracy and would be subject to a US-backed coup as was the case in Venezuela in 2002 (although it failed). It's not just a case of economic embargoes either. The US waged a campaign of terror against Cuba known as Operation Mongoose. At one point a Cuban airliner was blown up, and it is believed to have been carried out by a CIA agent called Luis Posada Carriles. The US has been harbouring this man for some time and refuses to extradite him to Venezuela in case he is tortured (or at least that is the excuse). They must fear something worse than waterboarding since that apparently is ok now.

The people liked us shortly after the revolution and blue jeans and MTV could have really made for a good relationship

Well liking US culture is very different from liking the US government. This is why anti-American is such a stupid and propagandistic word. People who complain about US government actions are often called anti-American, which conjures up the notion that they hate US culture and American citizens in general. The US government wrecked the democracy the Iranians had in 1953, installed a dictator, then trained a brutal secret police called the SAVAK to keep him in power. The CIA-trained SAVAK tortured and murdered thousands.

Re:Surprised?

[TheSync]

I'm not trying to endorse either the Cuban lifestyle or Michael Moore here, but that is actually partially true. The Cuban healthcare system runs far more efficiently than the one in the US, at least as far as the numbers are concerned.

Yes, when you pay doctors less it is amazing how efficient medical care can be! US doctors make about twice the OECD average, for example. Or you can look at how Wal-Mart medical clinics are using cheaper nurses to triage patients and treat simple problems without bringing in an expensive doctor, but of course the AMA is opposing these kinds of clinics.

On the other hand, US Medicare just blocked reducing payments to doctors, so you can imagine that "US Socialized Healthcare" will be more expensive than anyone else's with poor results, just like our socialized education system...

The US also isn't willing to engage in malpractice tort reform which could save nearly 50% of costs due to decreases in "defensive medicine"

Could someone tell my why we have the embargo?

[WhoIsThePumaman]

Are those sneaky Reds still trying to use their communism-infused cigars to persuade people to become socialists? Are we still angry over the failed Bay of Pigs invasion? Or do we just have a raging hard on for the nostalgic cold war?

Re:Could someone tell my why we have the embargo?

[Mobkey]

So the rest of the world has somewhere to vacation without running into Americans?

Re:Could someone tell my why we have the embargo?

[elefantstn]

Warm weather, no Americans, armed thugs to keep the actual poor people at a safe distance, and you still get to come home with an undeserved smug sense of solidarity. Basically, it's heaven for Europeans.

Re:Could someone tell my why we have the embargo?

[jonwil]

The embargo exists because if the embargo was lifted, there are a lot of Cuban ex pats in Florida and elsewhere that would vote the other way as a result. And because the system in the US is so screwed, those votes are enough to change the outcome of elections.

Re:Could someone tell my why we have the embargo?

[dbIII]

There's also the sugar situation. Lift the embargo and there will be pressure to buy cheap sugar from Cuba instead of using expensive corn syrup - so it would upset the sugar and corn lobbies.

The whole continuing embargo thing is childish spite that hurts both countries and still doesn't stop some imports. A Cuban cigar even turned up in an unexpected place in the White House a few years ago.

Re:Could someone tell my why we have the embargo?

[mpe]

The embargo exists because if the embargo was lifted, there are a lot of Cuban ex pats in Florida and elsewhere that would vote the other way as a result. And because the system in the US is so screwed, those votes are enough to change the outcome of elections.

Kind of a bit like US policy towards Israel. Not that there is that much real diversity in the the US Political system in the first place. So even if the "other lizard" got in it probably wouldn't make much difference to the average American anyway.

Re:Could someone tell my why we have the embargo?

[jonwil]

In the ideal system, everyones vote would be treated equally (and everyone would be required to vote) and government would do what the majority wants instead of listening to minorities like sugar farmers, Cuban ex pats, Conservatives who think that Janet Jackson should be locked up for what happened on the Super-Bowl or whoever else.

No more "I am in a marginal seat/district/area so the politicians are more likely to care about what I want" vs "I am in a safe seat/district/area so the politicians are less likely to care about what I want". No more "Because decided to support , I am going to get a bunch of people who dont normally give a rats ass about politics to vote for the other guy" type action groups (the compulsory voting would make one-issue-voting-groups a lot less effective)

really?

[rastoboy29]

...is to be completed by 2010 and will provide pornography for governmental family members.

There, fixed that for you :-)

Cold War left-overs

[shimmyshimpson]

The US embargo is stupid anyway. It's got more to do with keeping the Florida ex-cuban population happily voting Republican than anything else.

Seems like Micheal Moore got it right.

Re:Cold War left-overs

[longacre]

Let me get this straight: an embargo that was begun by a Democratic White House and continued through several more Democrats presidents, and even expanded by yet another Democrat less than a decade ago (Clinton closed some loopholes in 1999) is a Republican conspiracy?

Uphold the Embargo!!!

[germansausage]

We must uphold the embargo. Its the only way small impoverished Communist nations like Cuba can be brought to heel. We must never allow trade with communist countries, or buy their goods. Except China.

Re:Uphold the Embargo!!!

[DamienRBlack]

We (the US) have some grand proclamation (I forget the name) that states "There will be no communists in our hemisphere. Stupid yuppies, get of our lawn and take your damn governmental ideas with you." That's a direct quote, I think.

Re:Uphold the Embargo!!!

[servognome]

We (the US) have some grand proclamation (I forget the name) that states "There will be no communists in our hemisphere. Stupid yuppies, get of our lawn and take your damn governmental ideas with you." That's a direct quote, I think.

No they (the Cuban exile population) is rabidly against Castro and the communist government of Cuba.
We (the rest of the US) think, "Meh."

Who do you think the politicians will listen to?

Heh...

[theM_xl]

Looks like one of our favorite sayings is evolving. The internet recognizes a problem and routes around it. Now also available in undersea cables rather than just software packets. Admittedly, that places US policy as the problem...

Re:not just cuba

[djcapelis]

> Can anyone tell me why we still have an embargo
> with Cuba?

From what I understand the only people who care about this issue are the former cubans living in South Florida.

Polls show them all strongly in favor of the embargo... since this is a vital voting demographic for most politicians... very few people mess with the embargo.

Did I mention that the main people who break the embargo are those very same former cubans?

Funny, that.

Can you smell what the rock is cooking?

[gandhi_2]

I'm sure there will be some accidental ship-anchor-cable-cutting to be completed in 2011.

You know...

[RudeIota]

While the U.S has reasons for the enduring trade embargo, providing them access to such information could very well have positive effects for the U.S., not to mention the cuban public.

And yeah, it is kind of idealist, but making information readily available (potentially) gives the Cuban public a powerful tool to guide their own country... I could see how that would benefit both America AND the Cuban people. "The pen is mightier than the sword"

What we've been doing so far has just been punishment for being non-democratic, but what could be far more useful and helpful would be only offering Cuba the tools of undoing their very own dictatorship, such as access to the Internet and other forms of communication. This is also fits nicely with Cuba's new found freedoms under Raul, including access to some new technologies (cell phones, in particular).

Re:You know...

[Reality Master 201]

What we've been doing so far has just been punishment for being non-democratic

Horseshit.

What the US has been doing so far is largely punishment for nationalizing property during the revolution, somewhat overlapping with the ongoing pander to the Cuban exiles in South Florida; there's a bit of legacy anti-communist paranoia there, too. Anyone who thinks that the US maintains the embargo against the Cubans is because they're undemocratic is ignorant or deluded.

Re:You know...

[Kristoph]

What we've been doing so far has just been punishment for being non-democratic

No, that has absolutely NOTHING to do with it.

Consider that some of our best friends in the Middle East (such as Saudi Arabia) are not democratic and we not only not embargo them but we sell them weapons wholeheartedly.
 

Re:You know...

[belmolis]

Exactly. It's not like the US embargoes other countries that are just as undemocratic or worse. How about Saudi Arabia: no religious freedom, no democracy whatever, nothing resembling a real legal system, no freedom of speech, and no rights for women at all, not to mention the massive export of bigotry and funding for terrorism? How about Equatorial Guinea, whose dictatorship would be funny if it weren't so pathetic? Funny how the US didn't boycott Chile under Pinochet, or Greece under the colonels or Haiti under Duvalier. Of all the countries with undemocratic political systems, can anybody seriously believe that Cuba is in the same league as North Korea?

Re:You know...

[belmolis]

Precisely. The US helped overthrow the democratic Allende government and set up the Pinochet dictatorship. Not very consistent with boycotting Cuba because it isn't democratic.

Does this mean...

[DaveAtFraud]

Does this mean I'm going to start getting e-mails from someone who purports to be in Cuba and has thousands of cigars that they can export for a huge profit if only I front them the money to bribe some official and they'll split the take with me?

Hmm. I was afraid of that.

Cheers,
Dave

This whole situation with Cuba is tiresome

[93 Escort Wagon]

If Florida weren't such a politically important state and the Floridians that held positions of privilege under Batista weren't so vocal, the US would have normalized its relations with Cuba long ago (and don't blame Bush for this one - both parties are equally to blame). Castro was a tin-pot dictator; but you can't convincingly argue that the situation for the average Cuban is somehow worse now than it was under Batista.

I realize there was concern about the Soviet Union using Cuba as a springboard to threaten the mainland US (and yeah, I know about the Cuban Missile Crisis); but that connection died about 20 years ago. The world has changed. Fidel is gone, and Raul has even undertaken some small reforms.

If we (the US) really want to rid the world of this small, tiny bastion of communism, we should engage them rather than embargo the island. Stop giving the Cuban rulers an enemy to unite the people against, and let the free market show them why they should dump their tired old system.

Re:This whole situation with Cuba is tiresome

[servognome]

Stop giving the Cuban rulers an enemy to unite the people against, and let the free market show them why they should dump their tired old system.

Exactly! Put a McDonald's in Havana and let nature take its course, just like what we did to the Soviet Union.

At the very least the overweight people will start to bankrupt their government run health care system.

My experience in Cuba

[RobinH]

My wife and I went to a resort in Cuba back in 2003. They did have (albeit slow) internet at the resort.

Some things about Cuba - the locals we met were some of the nicest people we've met anywhere in the world. Everyone in the country gets (at the time) the equivalent of $13 US per *month* to live, and that's it. Still, nobody ever asked anything from us (unlike Jamaica) and they would bend over backwards to do anything to help you. It was more likely for them to give *us* things, like on our first day there, one gentleman was making a grass hopper out of palm leaves on his break, and when his break was over he gave it to my wife and was offended when I reached for my wallet (I was used to the people who approach you in other places, like Peru, France, Mexico, even on our visit to New Orleans in '02, and I suppose in most major cities, doing some kind of performance to try and get some money out of you).

One of the most poignant moments was a long discussion we had with one woman who worked on the resort. She was asking us about some of the places we'd been able to travel (mostly Europe at the time), and she was telling us about her eventual goal to travel the world. It's not particularly easy for Cubans to travel. They have to get a travel permit from the government. It's quite expensive, and I believe it has to be for an officially sanctioned reason. Still she was determined to go, and I hope she eventually gets her wish.

But we were struck by how tragic it was that all these amazing people are practically being held hostage in their own country, cut off from the rest of the world. As far as I'm concerned, the more we can engage the common people in Cuba, through the internet, travel, trade, etc., the less time it will take for their country to reform, and for them to catch up with the rest of the western world. I really think the US embargo is completely counter-productive.

Re:My experience in Cuba

[bugs2squash]

I was struck by how the children in Cuba were attending school, not selling "chiclets" on the buses like they are in almost every other S. American country.

How relaxed people were in the streets of small towns. It makes many parts of America look impoverished and paranoid by comparison.

Cuba has to be careful not to get truly shafted when the Embargo is lifted and the property market is liberalized - it won't be the regular Joe who does well out of it.

The rest of the Caribbean is bracing to be shafted when the Embargo is lifted. Who will want to visit lovely Trinidad and Tobago when there's Cuba!!!!! to roil in.

It will be interesting to see if the Cuban government can stand up to Organized crime. In comparison to that, the US Embargo is a nit.

Re:not just cuba

[daemonburrito]

That's an extremely simplistic view. Cuban-Americans are about as far from monolithic as you can get, as are their opinions about the embargo, and their actions in light of it.

Did I mention that the main people who break the embargo are those very same former cubans?

Giving you the benefit of the doubt, that statement is ill-informed.

This embargo doesn't make sense

[Barbarian]

Wouldn't a great way to spread democracy in Cuba, be to try to get the fastest, highest speed internet to their citizens, so they can hear about all the terrible deeds of their government?

Re:This embargo doesn't make sense

[servognome]

Wouldn't a great way to spread democracy in Cuba, be to try to get the fastest, highest speed internet to their citizens, so they can hear about all the terrible deeds of their government?

Who says it will reach the citizens?

Re:This embargo doesn't make sense

[Darkness404]

Or, as I stated in a previous post, it would make it a whole lot easier to control people. Think of it this way, educate in all the schools that you search the web with *insert government controlled website here*, that only searches government-approved sites. Now, some person is bound to know about other search engines such as Google, so you take Google, and rather then having a Google search, you use the same search as the government-controlled website one, only it looks like Google, repeat for all other search engines. Now, block all websites you don't want people to access, however rather then "This page has been blocked by Cuba" you add in a complex error message that the average citizen will think that the site is down or something like that. A person is much more likely to try to get around a block than to deal with an error message.

Re:This embargo doesn't make sense

[Grey Ninja]

Look how well that's worked for Americans. =P

Upstream today, downstream tomorrow.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

I could see these arrangements changing in the not too distant future. Cuba is old news, and it's widely believed that as soon as Castro is gone, Cuba is going to be flung wide open to American tourism, trade, etc. Meanwhile, our buddy Hugo Chavez is working really really hard to get the United States to hate Venezuela as much as possible (he'd be the real monkey boy if Ballmer didn't do that trick so much better).

So what could happen in a few years is that the Internet embargo for Cuba will be lifted, but a new one will be placed on Venezuela ... and that big undersea cable will find its primary use in the other direction.

Until

[Archangel Michael]

... someone accidentally drags an anchor.

Re:not just cuba

[daemonburrito]

Okay. Depending on who you ask, there were at least 4 distinct waves of migration. Each of these waves was a different generation or a different class.

The article is in pretty sad shape, but here's a wikipedia article.

The generation/class with the greatest support of the embargo is the first, the middle and upper classes (also white, mainly). Understandably so, as this was the generation who had their power and belongings taken from them and had the most to lose.

Later migrations, like the Marielitos, balseros and "dusty feet", came from different classes and generations and have different opinions.

The generation that constituted the first wave is slowly dying off, and opinion in favor of the embargo is eroding in relation to the change.

Disclaimer: I'm anglo. Apologies to any cubanos if I screwed something up.

Mod Parent Up, Please.

[Bieeanda]

Sure you've got some old cold war hawks still raging against the international threat of communism, but by and large it's to keep a large, cohesive voting bloc in a politically strategic location happy. It's hardly affecting other Americans, so there's little reason to ease up on the embargo.

Re:Mod Parent Up, Please.

[gregbot9000]

Hardly affects other Americans my ass. Sugar prices are much higher in the states then they would be if free trade were allowed with Cuba. It's partially because of this ban that we get high fructose corn syrup in our drinks. And what about people like me who like to eat my sugar with a little coffee in the morning?

Yes and both sides are happy with that

[SmallFurryCreature]

The reps get the reputation of being though and so can use it to keep their backers happy. The dems get the rep that they are really against it and would change it if only they could and so keep their backers happy.

US politics has no left and right anymore as far as the major political events are concerned. The entire trick is to keep your own backers happy enough NOT to go voting for a 3rd party or stay home while taking as much of the center as possible.

Look at the current campaign. What is really going to be changed by either side? Nothing.

You cannot have a two party democratic system because it will by the nature of popularity contests (which is what western style democracy really is) always tend to have both parties come together in the middle because that is where the votes are.

The US is not alone to suffer from this. In france they recently had an election with the slogan. "Elect the crook, not the fascist". The voter could only choose between a known corrupt politician and an openly fascist one. Long live big parties, the best way to kill democracy.

Help, not hinder

[tenyearsgone]

Seems like helping the Cubans get internet access might help further U.S. goals better than the embargo does.

Applies to ALL embargoes

[mi]

Technically if our government was OUR government then it wouldnt' distrust us to make up our own minds about "good" or "evil", would they?

This is an argument against all embargoes and other economic sanctions. There is no difference — in principle — between banning you from going there yourself (propping up the regime with your tourism money), banning you from selling them shoes, and banning you from selling them advanced military technology. A free citizen — it can be argued along your lines — ought to be free to make their own decision. And free shareholders of a bank ought to decide, whether or not freeze a particular account. Etcaetera.

So, are you against all embargoes?

Or only against those, which target regimes you sympathize with (admit it, you own a Che Guevarra T-shirt)?

Re:Applies to ALL embargoes

[wellingj]

Maybe you are asking the wrong question. The idea that the US has to prevent any nation from attacking any other nation or the idea that the US should make the world a better place is a totalitarian idea and doomed to failure. The US should mind it's own business, and not be afraid to let it's citizens have the right of free association on a global scale.

This has been coming for a while, it's well-known!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in cuba about 3 months ago - see http://havana.360cities.net - The fact that the world discovers this now from Wikileaks is pretty funny, considering this was "known on the street" as a matter of fact in Cuba many months ago.

And yes, computers were banned until recently, but they have been widespread for a long time. It's just been illegal to own a computer. But when you consider that everything in Cuba is illegal, what difference does it make.

Same with an internet connection. You buy a dialup connection and use an SSH tunnel. Your local whizkid can help sort you out with this. Don't worry, there are computer whizkids in Cuba too :-)

Wanted to Launch? No.

[Chrisq]

I am sure that nobody actually wanted to launch them. The fact that the USSR had submarine-launched nukes slightly after that and never gave any indication that it wanted to unilaterally strike the USA proves that.

In fact for a long time the USSR had a "no first nuclear strike" policy when NATO did not.

I think it was the psychological bargaining power of having missiles so close to the USA that they wanted.

Re:Wanted to Launch? No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not forget the US had it's own missiles in Turkey, right on the border with the USSR. Cuba wanted some security after Bay of Pigs and the USSR saw a way to get parity with the US by having missiles located equally as close. I can't blame them for that, can you?

It's no secret now that the US dismantled it's missiles in Turkey as part of the agreement to end the crisis, so the USSR at least got something they wanted.

Re:Wanted to Launch? No.

[Savage-Rabbit]

You are of course ignoring the fact that Cuba wanted to launch missiles tipped with nuclear warheads at the U.S. during Kennedy's presidency.

Maybe the U.S. has had good reason to act the way it has.

I am sure that nobody actually wanted to launch them. The fact that the USSR had submarine-launched nukes slightly after that and never gave any indication that it wanted to unilaterally strike the USA proves that.

In fact for a long time the USSR had a "no first nuclear strike" policy when NATO did not.

I think it was the psychological bargaining power of having missiles so close to the USA that they wanted.

One of the things that seems to have plaid a key role in causing Khrushchev to decide to go ahead with the deployment of missiles to Cuba was a visit to the Black Sea where a Soviet general pointed out to just how close to the Soviet border the USA had stationed it's nuclear missiles in Turkey. It must have seemed to him that if the USA felt able to put nuclear missiles into the USSR's back yard then surely the US would react fairly calmly to the USSR doing the exact same thing. After all it would have been in the best traditions of the MAD arrangement to keep the capability balance in tact. I don't think that Khrushchev fully appreciated the force of the reaction he was going to get. I watched a documentary on the Cuban missile crisis recently and I found it interesting was that one of the American ex-government types they interviewed very candidly admitted that the USA has an incredible inability to realize just how provocative it's actions can potentially be to the opposition. You don't get that kind of an admission very often from politicians. The USA felt terribly provoked by missiles in Cuba and Americans remember that provocation to this day. But that begs the question exactly what was the USA thinking when they deployed those missiles to Turkey so close to the Soviet border? Did they really think the Soviets wouldn't react? A similar thing is currently happening on a smaller scale with GWB's missile shield program. The Bush regime either seem to be oblivious to what effect this missile shield is having in Moscow or they just plain don't care if it sets off another nuclear arms race. Similarly some of the US tactics during the Cuban blockade were also incredibly incautious. Take the low level overflights the Americans did over Cuba. To the Americans they may have been just recce flights born out of an honest need to obtain hard reconnaissance. Nobody seemed to consider how low level flights over Soviet nuclear sites by RF-8 recce aircraft which were essentially indistinguishable from F-8 fighter bombers would look to the Russians and the Cubans. Did Soviet tactical recon aircraft regularly buzz American nuclear weapons installations in Turkey at ultra low level? No they didn't. What would the Americans have done if they had? To this day some of the Cuban and Soviet personnel stationed on Cuba at the time are convinced that those low level flights were a deliberate attempt to provoke a war. That of course wasn't the American's intention but unfortunately real intentions matter a lot less than perceived intentions do in a tense situation like the Cuba crisis was.

Just my two cents...

Canada and drug prices

[lusiphur69]

Especially since the patents I'm paying for are being ignored on both my Canadian and Mexican borders

Actually, you're quite wrong. Canadians respect WIPO patents - what they don't do, is let individual HMO's or people deal directly with drug companies who can then charge maximum rates. Instead, in a sort of collective bargaining arrangement, we buy our drugs in bulk then distribute to hospitals, etc.

In other words the government negotiates with Big Pharma - you want to do business here (and they do), you don't charge out the nose, although there are still exceptions to this. I cannot quite understand why Amercians do not demand this from their government as well - its almost like the politicans want you to pay more.

But that could'nt be, could it?

Re:Free Speech?

[BPPG]

I'm not an united states citizen, and based purely on old cold-war documentaries and movies, it seems as though americans were afraid of cultural influence coming from a communist country.

But fortunately, their military, as posted above, has developed powerful weapons such as MTV, patriotic country music, and computer-generated action movies. We don't stand a chance.