Slashdot Mirror
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."
I wonder if it's any accident that this happened AFTER the mid-term elections, but well before the 2016 presidential election season really gets underway...
(You think Christmas comes early? Hah!)
Cuban exiles are a big voting block in a big battleground state, but obviously somebody decided to risk kicking this hornets' nest now in the hopes that the furor will die down by 2016.
The Cuban people survived 55 years of near total trade embargo, with universal healthcare intact, and no one starving in the streets.
A definite failure if I ever heard of one.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
When the whole rest of the world wants sanctions, as with South Africa, they may be useful. When the whole rest of the world trades with Cuba and we don't, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot. Also, the South African government was far more malleable because it was elected by white citizens who suffered from sanctions -- the Cuban government is not elected by anyone who can be hurt by sanctions.
This space intentionally left blank
No, it's the Platt Amendment (the one which allows Guantanamo) and the American embargo which has made Cuba a failed state.
You seem to know nothing at all about Cuba.
America has been fucking with Cuba for over 100 years, and seldom to the benefit of the Cubans.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I doubt the US administration "realized" anything.
Very likely a conglomerate of US companies sees business opportunities and is pulling strings behind the scene.
Pretty much every business in the US has wanted to reopen trade with Cuba since the day after the US Closed it. They've been tugging on those strings for a long time with no luck.
Only reason it took this long is that the last few times castro caused diplomatic incidents.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Apparently the 70-90% top marginal tax rate in the 1960s didn't prevent job creation.