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Cuba Calculates Cost of 54yr US Embargo At $1.1 Trillion
First time accepted submitter ltorvalds11 writes Cuba says its economy is suffering a "systematic worsening" due to a US embargo, the consequences of which Havana places at $1.1 trillion since Washington imposed the sanctions in 1960, taking into account the depreciation of the dollar against gold. "There is not, and there has not been in the world, such a terrorizing and vile violation of human rights of an entire people than the blockade that the US government has been leading against Cuba for 55 years," Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno told reporters. He also blamed the embargo for the difficulties in accessing internet on the island, saying that the United States creates an obstacle for companies providing broadband services in Cuba. Additionally, he said that the area is one of the "most sensitive" to the embargo, with economic losses estimated at $34.2 million. It is also the sector that has fallen "victim of all kinds of attacks" by the US, as violations of the Cuban radio or electronic space "promote destabilization" of Cuban society, the report notes. The damage to Cuban foreign trade between April 2013 and June 2014 amounted to $3.9 billion, the report said. Without the embargo, Cuba could have earned $205.8 million selling products such as rum and cigars to US consumers. Barack Obama last week signed the one-year extension of the embargo on Cuba, based on the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, created to restrict trade with countries hostile to the U.S..
RT is directly controlled by the Russian govern.. well, Putin. I would say that makes Fox News slightly more trustworthy.
Oh Jesus, here we go with the Communist boogieman. No junior, you were lied to, yes there were excesses in some places at certain times. Which surprise, surprise also describes the same time period in the West rather well. So no, no great Satan in evidence here, just an alternative social order with both good points and bad.
Source: Born there, came to Canada when I was in my teens. There is less difference than most people in the west think.
Well I was born there as welll and I got quite the opposite picture.
Possibly your parents were communist activists.
What I remember are long lines for toilet paper, shampoo and shoes.
People imprisoned and killed on the streets. My Mom earning $3 per month.
Well the US acted in 1960 to place the embargo, we're still waiting for them to actually think it through. It's funny that Cuba actually has a better medical system then the US, and it's state funded, probably what the embargo was about in the first place.
Scapegoating? That would imply the US's hands are clean, which it seems they probably are not, as the US supported the military coup against a democratically-elected leader, something South & Central America does not take too lightly, given the US's track record of destroying democracy in those regions.
Gross was a saboteur, trying to overthrow the Cuban government. His wife finally admitted as much, as I wrote above.
He was getting money under the Helms-Burton Act. The purpose of the Helms-Burton act was to overthrow the Cuban government. They were paying him to try the unworkable idea of setting up an alternate Internet, to help the Cuban Jews overthrow the Castro government. The Cuban Jews actually got along very well with Raul Castro.
The Cubans want to exchange Gross for 3 Cuban intelligence agents who are in prison right now. They came to the U.S. as undercover agents to monitor the Miami Cubans who were committing acts of terrorism against Cuba, such as blowing up a Cuban plane, and bombing tourist spots.
The U.S. has refused the exchange. The anti-Cuban hard-liners would rather leave Gross in prison than improve relations.
No-one was condemned to an insane asylum in the US or condemned to prison with all their belongings confiscated by the government for merely daring to oppose the ruling party, so no, it's not like the Patriot act.
No-one was sent to Guantanamo for peaceful opposition of the ruling party in the US either, so no, it's not like Guantanamo either.
So, that makes the sniveling coward voluntarily wrong, yet again.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Please. Fascism is NOT a form of socialism. It's incompatible with marxist doctrine, through and through. Rather it's the fabled "third way" that is neither free-market nor communism. People who conflate fascism with socialism are just as wrong as those who conflate it with capitalism.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Did I get that totally wrong from this side of the Atlantic?
Kind of. The embargo started two years before the missile crisis, so unless there was some time travel involved, the missile crisis did not cause the embargo. (Of course, it also didn't make it better.) It started also before the failed Bay of Pigs invasion that forced Cuba to fully ally with the Soviet Union, which paved the way to the missile crisis.
The embargo was retaliation for the nationalization of american properties in 1960, which, to my recollection (but I hated history classes, so I'm probably wrong), occurred in response to the owners shutting down production to destabilize the newly formed government. During the missile crisis it briefly evolved into a full blown blockade. After the missile crisis, it has gotten worse ("due" to the continuing alliance with the soviets), until the fall of the Soviets... when it got even worse (Torricelli act, 1992).
I.
Let's not forget that the best estimates for the death of communist regimes killing their own people is right around 100 million people. Both The Black Book of Communism and R.J. Rummel's Death by Government come up with roughly the same number of people killed.
Communism is incompatible with both human rights and a healthy economy, and never has, never can, and never will meet the needs of its own people or offer better lives than those under capitalism.
Embargoes have nothing to do with it...
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