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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."
Long overdue. Time for cigars and mojitos all around!
"Oh oh, our cigars suck. Ummmmm...hide!"
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
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.
It is Cuban policies that make Cuba a failed state, not American policies.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Did they just lock in 25 points against Hillary?
It is a good thing. But florida may not take it very well...
US Government: hey cuba, since most of our refugees over 60 that remember why we shitlisted you are either dead or accidentally disenfranchised after the latest voter registration law, wanna kiss and make up?
Cuban Government: *sigh* sure. russia quit returning our phonecalls about 20 years ago anyway. Hey thanks for not making a huge deal out of castros death
US Government: yeah no problem. thanks for letting us run a torture prison in your country without complaining about it
Cuban Government: yeah.....that.....
Good people go to bed earlier.
Great! I've always wanted to visit Cuba. My parents honeymooned there back in 1955. A trip to Havana has been on my bucket list since I was a boy, but the US government has always made it difficult and only questionably legal since I was born.
"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.
So would the same people that support this move also say we should have continued with "constructive engagement" vis a vis South Africa during apartheid rather than imposing the punitive sanctions that were demanded by many left-of-center folks?
#DeleteChrome
Well, this has been about 30 years overdue.
If Cuban goods, especially cigars, were to ever become legal, it would spoil the impact of innumerable movie and TV scenes. I for one support locking this country off and grinding it into the ground.
Why the heck not, exactly? The evil needs to be destroyed — both to end it, and to discourage future evil. If we don't have the stomach to end it with a (military) surgery, we should continue with therapy.
Simply pretending, there is no decease in the first place is stupid — and dangerous.
We are pushing Russia towards collapse today — which is a good thing, indeed. Why let Cuba off the hook?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You mean the US stopped behaving like a petty child and decided to grow the fuck up.
I mean, really. This can't happen. The cigar industry is going to object because now they can't gouge on real or fake Cuban cigars!
Obama took a look at the states we have had near-permanent bad relations with, Iran and Cuba, and decided it doesn't always have to be this way.
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.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
When Comrade Fidel gets a cold, the doctors that treat him are flown in from Spain via charter jet.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
We've proven to the world that we are willing to significantly impact the economy of a small island nation for over 50 years because they cooperated with our enemies.
Despite Cuba having an excellent education system, most people there live in poverty. Is that the Cuban government's fault, or because the door to the largest marketplace was slammed shut on them?
It's not all rainbows and unicorns, most Cuban immigrants over the years expressed serious dissatisfaction with Castro's government. Maybe the people that stayed behind were happy with it, but I suspect it has more to do with circumstances preventing those people from leaving than an acceptance of their government.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The U.S. is not doing this out of kindness. After years of poking the Russian bear they're afraid Cuba will be brought back into play as a forward base for Russia military hardware. This is just a pre-emptive move to try and bring Cuba into the U.S. camp first. After the threat fades Cuba will be bled dry like every other small country the U.S. takes an interest in.
The curse is that a small few are about to make huge profits on land and state enterprises. I don't care how the laws will be worded, any time you have a major economic shift like this, opportunists will take incredible advantage of the situation.
The other curse is that Western 'culture' - McDonald's, Burger King, Coke and Pepsi will invade. They will do tremendous harm to the health of the average Cuban.
Lastly, the wonderful beaches and hotels will be overrun. Cuba is so close to the U.S. that development will explode and tourism will skyrocket. The 'pristine' aspect of Cuba will quickly disappear in a morass of tawdry tourist traps.
Adios Cuba viejo y bienvenido al futuro.
*** Don't be dull.***
another charnel is wiped oof and to yet another more stable
The flood of retirement age MDs may bring house calls back.
"Some" oppression? What a wonderful understatement... You have to register with police — and get their permission — just to travel from one town to another...
Yeah, this was the first thing, that struck me upon moving to America 20 years ago. Your ready willingness to equate the petty misdeeds of your country's government with the gross human rights violations of others. To you and yours, McCarthy — who caused a hundred or so people (most of them actual Communists) to lose their jobs — is equivalent to Beria, who killed millions.
What little torture we did use, was applied to enemies — and most of us are duly ashamed of it anyway. The worst, that political opposition has to fear in the US, is an IRS audit. Do you understand, what's going to happen to a Cuban questioning Fidel's competence?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
We traded three convicted murderers of Americans for one kidnapped aid worker. It was a deal Bergdahl would have applauded, but all it did was paint a target on the back of any American visiting a country that now knows it can extort anything it wants out of Obama because he's a nitwit.
Vice-President is traditionally nominated for the next Presidency by the same pary — unless (like Cheney) he explicitly rejects such plans from the very beginning.
I doubt, Joe Biden will score even so much as a nomination — despite his desires — which will, of course, be even more embarrassing for the Democrats, than him losing the subsequent election.
No, I don't think, Obama sincerely cares about his nominal "Number 2"... It was a marriage of convenience — the man was supposed to "bring foreign policy heft" to the ticket. Ha-ha-ha...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
What has changed in Cuba after the announcement?
Cuban citizens are still not permitted to speak or read freely or do anything freely without the fear of imprisonment or even death. Cuba is no closer to becoming a democracy and you have to wonder if this move will embolden other tyrants to take Americans hostage in order to win concessions.
U.S. policy towards Cuba was codified into law under the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996, and the Trade Sanctions Reform Act of 2000. The policy changes announced by the President are an overreach of his executive powers under the law. The official legislative history of the law clarifies that the President has power to tighten economic sanctions, but not to ease them beyond the baseline set on March 1, 1996.
BTW, Gross was an aid worker. He was traded for 3 convicted spies. It looks like Obama didn't learn anything from the Bergdahl trade.
Totally wrong for Cuba. The United States is pure evil and can only do that poor country harm.
"The nice thing about Secretaries of State is that there are so many of them to choose from"
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
O'Bomber finally made an effort to do something good while he was president.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
So the very polite and courteous email I received from the Cuban Foreign Office back after Hurricane Katrina will no longer be quite the unique bit of memorabilia after all?
Lest we forget, Cuba offered to send doctors and other medical assistance to help the suffering residents in New Orleans after Katrina did its thing .. and the US State Department was hardly even polite with their refusal.
http://fpif.org/bush_administr...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/...
So I emailed the Cuban Foreign Office to apologize :-) I'm sure I tripped some intelligence tripwires on that little gesture, but meh .. who cares? I, being previously assigned to the 8th Special Forces Group in Panama back in The Day, was probably on a Cuban Intelligence list or two in any event :-) Luckily everyone (Cuban and US) apparently had a sense of humor, or sense enough not to screw with the topic. Or maybe NSA wasn't quite as invasive then as now. I still thought it awfully decent of the Cuban government to respond to my unsolicited email.. startled no doubt by the "SGM, USA SF (Ret)" in my email's signature.
How did that "encourage and support reform" work for you in Iran? Oh, not so good, huh?
How did that "encourage and support reform" work for you in Russia? Oh, not so good, huh?
How did that "encourage and support reform" work for you in North Korea? Oh, not so good, huh?
How did that "encourage and support reform" work for you in Venezuela? Oh, not so good, huh?
A pox on idiots who only see what they hope and not what is.
Great we're going to restore relations to yet another shit-hole banana republic.
Wonder how much in foreign relations assistance money this one will cost us?
The only policies that led to Cuba being a crappy place (a failed state, as Obama put it) are the Communist policies. Our embargo is not to blame. Castro's willingness to imprison his own people is the problem. Also his embrace of failed economic policies.
Nice how Obama blames Cuba's Cuban-caused issues on US policy. Guy doesn't read much history, I guess.
We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. [or the definition of insanity sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein: "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"]
This phrase is overused.
When used in a practical sense, it's just plain false. It's "quasi-opposite" phrases "practice makes perfect" and "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again" are frequently enough true that they make using this phrase in an off-hand, not-carefully-considering-the-context way just sound stupid.
Anyway, you almost never "keep doing the same thing/do the same thing twice" in the real (analog) world anyway (which is why "try, try again" actually works), so using the phrase in a literal is almost always pointless outside of a computer or other non-analog (discrete-state) deterministic environment.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
They've outgrown the confines of Guantanamo Bay.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I've heard some Canadians are unhappy about this development. Now the beautiful and cheap Cuban resorts that Canadians flock to might be overrun with Americans.
The embargo has always seemed ridiculous to me though.
when you're campaigning for sanctions against the UAE and Nigeria, and the companies that do business with them. They are both unfree states that abuse their citizens. Why the difference? Hm...
Also, "overreach"? You need to go check Drudge for updated language to parrot - you're not even making sense. He's asking Congress to change the law. Diplomacy is what the executive branch does.
Of course, the ditto heads would claim overreach when Obama takes a piss, so what else is new.
In a totally unrelated story, the US will continue imposing policies to create a failed state in Russia, a nation with thousands of nuclear warheads aimed at the US and Europe and a leader threatening war before surrender.
You can't make this shit up!
...is a stupid nigger and so are you. You only like the nigger obama because, well, he's a nigger and you're a stupid worthless liberal nigger lover.
"WE ARE FAMILY!!!!!" :)
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
This wasn't solely a US decision, but was brokered between the US and Cuba by the current Pope, who has extensive experience in Cuba and working on behalf of the Cuban people. This wasn't a move made in favor of the US or the Cuban regime, but in favor of the Cuban people, restoring a large and viable US trade partner once the embargo ends (expect sugar prices to drop), and facilitating an equal exchange of prisoners. Cuba has no real discernible military might in the modern era, and since the end of the USSR, doesn't have any codependent ties to Russia or the like - besides that it's an opportune time as it's not like Russia would be able to do anything if it had an issue anyways, as the ruble is tanking.
The Cuban regime's opened up generally anyways under Raul Castro's oversight, and embargos are something of an antiquated policy considering the modern reliance instead on economic sanctions, and not wholesale embargos. The embargo did cause the economy of Cuba to suffer, as Cuba is otherwise a self-reliant nation with the majority of it's issues with infrastructure stemming from products that it could not produce itself and needed to import from elsewhere. This is, of course, not including the numerous CIA operations in Cuba over the past years, especially in the Cold War era, where the CIA would burn sugar plantations, hire terrorists to destroy airplanes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_de_Aviaci%C3%B3n_Flight_455), and make a near-obsessive amount of assassination attempts against Castro, considering that the US readily supported worse dictators in Pinochet.
Not to defend Cuba unduly, but American exceptionalism would absolve them of any responsibility in the issue here, when America's initial problem with Cuba wasn't its burgeoning relationship with the USSR (which largely came about thanks to the US's Monroe Doctrine rejection of any socialism in South and Central America) but the fact that the Cuban Revolution had displaced US-supported dictator Batista, and most of the efforts to 'retake' Cuba (i.e. the Bay of Pigs) were supported and lobbied for by Batistites, members of Batista's regime who were upset they were no longer in power. As Batista was a brutal dictator with the support of the US mafia and otherwise generally unpleasant, it was not initially a bad thing that Castro came to power and there's a reason why the revolution was supported.
Really, kind of every country is shit in its own little way, most people are shit, and the whole world is just a big spinning globe of shit.
sorry but i use slashdot as a news aggregator, usually i dont care what the "article" on the site says. I come for the links. where are my links???
Venezuela money is comming to an end and Cuba is looking to get some from relations with USA
Cuba's antique car problem is a glaring example of how communism and totalitarianism (not the United States) has kept Cuba and its millions of citizens in poverty.
http://www.newsmaxworld.com/TheAmericas/cuba-cars/2014/01/04/id/545160/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/03/cuba-classic-car-streets-rule-change-new-purchase
The conventional wisdom that it's political suicide in Florida to support normalization of relations with Cuba just isn't true any longer. 56% of Americans in general support it. That number increases to 62% if you focus only on responses from the Hispanic/Latino community, and it increases to 63% if you just ask people from Florida.
Here's the poll.
The "angry Scarface extra" demographic in Florida is dying (both metaphorically and literally.) The times, they are a-changing.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
The best time of reform, is when you are not fearful of reelection, and you are OK with using unpopular but needed reform. In this case, pretty it is much what's left for Obama. And you know what ? He might get long needed reform on the way (the cuban embargo for the last 50 years is one of the stupidiest political decision of the US, IMNSHO).
Now if somebody could really clean up that other little mess in the cuban isle before 2034-2053 that would be great.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Please tell us more. This is actually funny.
A sad day indeed. My grandparents are rolling in their graves and the left wingers are rejoicing.
As a Cuban American immigrant who escaped Cuba to the US myself, I feel I have to comment on this because unfortunately most of you saying how this is such a great thing are fucking clueless.
I read someone said that people have an "antiquated view on communism". Really?
Tell that to me and my siblings who in the 90s went through a rationing period where we were only allowed to shower once a week for a few minutes while a soldier stood outside our fucking door with a gun counting down the minutes.
Tell that to my parents who had to make the choice during the rationing period to feed us toothpaste in the morning so that we would be full enough to wait until we got more food.
Tell that to my grandparents who had their entire small private tile business stripped away from them and were told "this isn't yours anymore, it belongs to government and to the people."
Tell that to my cousins who came to the US on top of a fucking car floating between Cuba and Florida.
Tell that to my dead great uncles who were DRAGGED from their house in front of their children and wives for speaking out against the new regime only to be EXECUTED by firing squads led by Raul Castro and Che Guevara. Yes, your communist piece of shit heroes.
So please go fuck your snobby, pseudo intellectual self when you tell me that my view on communism is fucking outdated. You can say whatever you want about my information and my story not being true because you've read some biased bullshit book about the "truth" of the Cuban revolution but I've fucking lived it and I can tell you personally from experience that you don't know shit.
You people stop supporting a business like Hobby Lobby or Chic-Fil-A with your money for their religious beliefs and treating their employees poorly according to your standards (which is understandable and well within your rights) because you "care about people", yet you support an open economy to give our money and support to a communist Cuban regime who have murdered, robbed, and deprived their own people of basic human rights. I thought you cared about people? Maybe you're just not educated on the history of the Cuban people and communism. Or maybe you're just full of shit.
Either Obama has written off the Cuban vote in Miami or he has decided to concede FLA to the GOP.
You seriously think Obama cares who wins the next election? If he cares at all, it's probably to make sure that Hillary's chances of winning are even lower than they'd be if he hadn't antagonized the GOP by this move. And that just out of a "FU Clintons" perspective, not from any ideology at all.
Obama is done with elections. Well, at least until it's time for Malia or Sascha to run. He has no votes to "write off"
Funny how a President from team A is superman who is imagined to have done everything himself while a President from team B is just the boss who says OK to what the team gives him to work with.
I suppose you are half grown up, ditch the superman fantasy and understand that both teams run like team B where the leader is just the boss and you'll be all the way there.
Soon, Cuban cigar production will be industrialized to meet pent-up demand, followed by the sacrifice of quality on the altar of profit margins...
The Miracle of the Market Place!
I always thought the US embargo of Cuba was a bit of hypocrisy at least in modern times, particularly after the fall of the USSR.
I mean as you say it isn't like the US is making a big deal about other nations that aren't democratic, and by any measure much much worse than Cuba, as far as human rights violations etc... China being the big one.
I guess it is more close to home physically, which probably played into it. However unfortunately I suspect it had more to do with internal domestic politics in Florida than anything else which is a bit sad. Lets punish a whole people forever to possibly win a few extra seats in a particular state. I doubt it is any coincidence that Bush killed the idea, when his brother was the governor of Florida.
Nothing personal but I really enjoyed going to Cuba as you never saw any American tourists on the beaches.
On the other hand I think normalizing relations with Cuba was way overdue.
The article lists his time in office as ending in 2011, not his death. He's still alive as far as anyone knows for sure.
Two comments. First, I expect better of the MPR audience than a bunch of personal attacks on the politicians involved ("crazy", "nut job", etc.). Where is the dialog in that? [They were discussing Rep Bachman]
Second, this Republican agrees that the [Cuban] embargo was a success, but not in the sense that it kept Cuba from profiting from its low wage workers (a form of serfdom?), but rather in the sense that Cuba was able to attempt to build a socialist paradise absent the machinations of the free world and its powerful interests. Did they succeed? If you think that universal health care at the 1950's level is success, with life expectancies comparable to US, and with a thriving black market in access to medical care for those with money (similar to ours, except that our high-payer patients subsidize the entire health industry rather than just the people they bribe), perhaps they did. If you think that a two-level economy is success (the have-nots and the tourists), perhaps they did. If you think a population with low expectations of their government and a high level of self sufficiency, perhaps they did succeed. Certainly their model of socialism is much more benign than, for example, North Korea's alleged communist system (I say alleged because NK is communist only in its choice of friends, not in its actual economic system, which is more a large slave plantation, as near as I can tell). So while I can understand a certain amount of hostility towards Cuba for their oppression of their people's freedoms, I must also acknowledge that, for a Luddite nation, they are doing much better than their Russian handlers did.
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
And so we should all just pay more taxes because your alleged "uncle" is allegedly "very rich" and allegedly "keeps more money" from the "dirt poor on food stamps" all the while who doing nothing to contribute to society because he's vacuously "traveling the world". So naturally, everyone should agree to paying "significantly higher taxes".