In Breakthrough, US and Cuba To Resume Diplomatic Relations

HughPickens.com writes: Peter Baker reports at the NYT that in a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, the United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century. In addition, the United States will ease restrictions on remittances, travel and banking relations, and Cuba will release 53 Cuban prisoners identified as political prisoners by the United States government. Although the decades-old American embargo on Cuba will remain in place for now, the administration signaled that it would welcome a move by Congress to ease or lift it should lawmakers choose to. "We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. It does not serve America's interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse. We know from hard-learned experience that it is better to encourage and support reform than to impose policies that will render a country a failed state," said the White House in a written statement. "The United States is taking historic steps to chart a new course in our relations with Cuba and to further engage and empower the Cuban people."

Comments

It's just capitalism moving slower than usual

[damn_registrars]

We found useful amounts of oil off the Cuban coast not terribly long ago. It just took this long for the oil companies in this country to put enough pressure on the US government to move towards "normal" relations.

Re:About Fucking Time

[gstoddart]

Cuban cigars are desired because they're good.

I used to smoke cigars, and I live in a country where you can readily buy Cuban ones. They're not illegal for me, but they were damned fine cigars ... much much better than some of the other countries.

And, real Cuban rum ... also tasty stuff, and something they're quite good at making. In Cuba, it's affectionately called "Vitamin R".

Maybe to Americans they're better because they're illegal. But to the rest of the world they're better because they're better.

Cuba has pretty much an awesome climate for growing both tobacco and sugar cane.

Re:Failed state policies

[radio4fan]

There's exactly one fact that actually counts about Cuba's "universal healthcare": When Comrade Fidel gets a cold, the doctors that treat him are flown in from Spain via charter jet.

Here are some other facts that actually count:

CIA World Factbook Infant mortality rates:

Cuba: 4.76 / 1000 live births
USA: 5.2 / 1000 live births

The rest is a bunch of empty Michael Moore fapping.

CIA being a well-known source of Michael Moore types.

How about life expectancy?

Life expectancy at birth (years), UN World Population Prospects 2010:

Cuba: 78.50 (rank 37)
USA: 77.97 (rank 40)

World Health Organization has USA ranked 34 and Cuba 36, FWIW. Close in any case.

Re:Why not push toward collapse?

[careysub]

Let's look at an "evil government" index to determine the "evilness" of Cuba among authoritarian regimes. A good one is the Democracy Index put out by the Conservative economics journal "The Economist".

Cuba ranks at 124, which puts it in the top 20% of authoritarian regimes, so 80% of them are "more evil". We certainly don't do any business with those 80% do we? Near the bottom of that list is our old friend Saudi Arabia, a regime we absolutely should not support right? Others in the "evil 80%" are Nigeria, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Tunisia, China, Qatar, Oman, Vietnam, and the UAE. No way we do we have diplomatic relations, do any business, or offer any support to any of those guys!

Of course six of these Evil Nations have oil, which makes everything good, correct? Well, it turns out that Cuba has useful offshore oil as well, so geology automatically promotes them to Tolerable Oil Nation, even if their much higher democracy ranking does not.