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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.
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.
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?
near total trade embargo
To be fair, it's only a unilateral embargo...
.: Semper Absurda
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.
Don't believe me? Even pro-Castro sources flat out say it: http://www.laht.com/article.as...
The rest is a bunch of empty Michael Moore fapping.
P.S. --> Shouldn't the embargo make Cuba stronger? After all, the Revolution shouldn't be contaminated by evil American Capitalist Imperialism.. right?
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Yeah, we have them on the ropes! Another 55 years should do the trick for sure!
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Um, because it's clearly not working? The whole "towards collapse" is simply a face-saving measure.
We deal with worse governments (in terms of "communism" or totalitarianism) every day, and they're our (nominal) allies. The whole Cuba thing is just a 50 year long pout. Nobody cares anymore. There's not some super-villian running Cuba that will destroy the American Way of Life if we join the rest of the world in trading with them.
We are pushing Russia because we disagree with their tactics in the Ukraine. From this year, not from 50 years ago. Totally different condition.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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!
Since 1996, the US has a law which penalizes foreign companies that do business in Cuba by preventing them from doing business in the U.S.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Well, Iraq was pushed to collapse. That did not go so well. Syria was pushed to collapse. Not ideal either.
Burma/Myanmar was not pushed to collapse, and instead relations were softened. That is going fairly well.
I am not sure the push-to-collapse strategy has any successes to its name. Well possibly Germany 1945.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
The Cuban people survived 55 years of near total trade embargo, with universal healthcare intact, and no one starving in the streets.
Cuba survived by getting huge payments from the USSR, then from Venezuela. I hope 'no one starving in the streets' isn't how you measure success these days.
As for me, the economics are irrelevant. I'd rather live in an impoverished country with the right to insult my president and point out problems, than live in a rich dictatorship without those rights.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
If Russia were to actually collapse, it would be an extremely bad thing for the west. It would mean wars and it would mean big increases in terrorism exported from the region, and not just from Chechnya.
Iraq collapsed. How's that working out for US interests?
This space intentionally left blank
I didn't say that. I said their system had the resiliency to survive severe sanctions and externally imposed economic isolation. For example, ships that dock in Cuban ports are not permitted to dock at US ports.
Honestly the US embargo is the dumbest policy conceivable. If it hadn't been in place, chances are high that the people in Cuba, immersed in the world economy and saturated by mainstream western "culture", would have made substantial changes to their government policies by now.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
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
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.
What do you mean? The country was then conquered within months by us. Saddam Hussein himself was then captured, tried publicly, and executed deservingly.
Seeing that happen, Muamar Qaddafi relented too — without costing us another dollar or a drop of blood.
That the current Administration managed to destroy those successes by pulling from Iraq too soon and hunting down Qaddafi on made-up pretexts is a shame, but that does not mean, the original plan was flawed.
The only alternatives to such slow suffocation are: a) military intervention; b) pretending, it is Ok. Which do you prefer?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Health care and food. The two things that the US does export to Cuba, ever since the Trade Sanction Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000. Funny how that works out.
The US sells a lot of food to Cuba. In fact, only a few years ago, they imported 80% of their food, and the bulk of that from the US. That's down to 60% now, but about half their state-owned farmland (which in turn is 70% of all farmland) is sitting unused. Cuba could be a thriving place if it weren't so badly run.
The same goes for health care.
They probably would have been bankrupted by the bankster cabal like everyone else. They may actually have been better off with the embargo.
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.
Don't believe me? Even pro-Castro sources flat out say it: http://www.laht.com/article.as...
The rest is a bunch of empty Michael Moore fapping.
P.S. --> Shouldn't the embargo make Cuba stronger? After all, the Revolution shouldn't be contaminated by evil American Capitalist Imperialism.. right?
So which is worse, being a failed communist state or what Cuba was before the revolution: America's whorehouse? Only an American would fail to understand why people would rather put up with communism than live in a capitalist paradise where the most promising career option for a young woman is to prostitute herself to fat and VD infested American tourists.
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.***
Lots of Canadian companies trade with or actually operate in Cuba, and none of them are facing any sort of issues in the US. I realize that the Helms-Burton act does enable the US to sanction such companies, but it seems that in practice the sanctions are not applied.
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
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.
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.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
A total trade embargo from the USA only, not from the rest of the world.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The flood of retirement age MDs may bring house calls back.
Against Hillary? Nope.... she won't be the nominee.
Perhaps that is one of the many reasons that all south americans hate you?
Anyway, was that law ever executed or "enforced" ... I can buy plenty of goods from Cuba in Germany, never noticed any restrictions the last 40 years.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
So which is worse, being a failed communist state or what Cuba was before the revolution: America's whorehouse?
C) None of the above.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I'm sorry, but increasingly it's hard not to see the US as evil.
Because they've decided it's their right to spy on everyone else on the planet, bomb civilians as collateral damage, and engage in some pretty nasty crap. America has become the enemy of the freedom and rights of everyone else on the planet, but you keep acting like you're the fucking saviors of man kind, and the Champions of Liberty and Justice. That's completely delusional.
This moronic "Yarg, teh communists are teh evil and god said we must kill them" is getting tired.
Are you seriously saying "hey, let's destroy the lives of all Cubans so we can get regime change"? because if that's the case, suddenly I think America needs a regime change
The hysteria of the 60s is 5 decades behind you. Why don't you learn a little about the facts instead of just spouting gibberish?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
WTF are you tlaking about? What 'evil'? What 'therapy'?
Clearly you know NOTING about Cuba, so stop saying idiotic things.
The Goal we have for Russia is different then the one we have for Cuba, you simpleton.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So what your saying is that if we took all the illegal -- uh "undocumented" immigrants from third-world countries that Obama lets in and dump them into the socialist paradise of Cuba that America's healthcare statistics will look massively better than Cuba's.
Oh, and that infant mortality statistic is complete B.S. In Cuba, they just let the premature babies die and it never counts as a live birth to mess up the statistics. In the U.S. they bend over backwards to save babies but since they aren't always successful, the statistics get skewed.
Proof: http://www.nationalreview.com/...
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
The Cuban people survived 55 years of near total trade embargo, with universal healthcare intact, and no one starving in the streets.
Cuba survived by getting huge payments from the USSR, then from Venezuela. I hope 'no one starving in the streets' isn't how you measure success these days.
No, success for a small country under US hostilities is not having having thousands upon thousands of civilian deaths while under US occupation/protection to establish democratic government. I think Cuba qualifies.
Pushing Germany to collapse after WW1 was an incredible success! We need more successes like that!
Why would Chechnya "export" terrorism?
Sorry, seems you have not much clue. Chechnya is a nation that tries to separate from Russia.
During WW II the chechnic "terror attacks" would have been called "commando attacks", sure getting civilians as hostages in a theatre is a bit over the edge, but the germans, the spanish and the italian _REGULAR TROOPS_ did the exact same during WW II and the Spanish Revolution wars.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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
Here's a list of countries with even better infant mortality rates that don't control the media or oppress free speech:
Japan: 2.17 / 1000
Sweden: 2.73
Iceland: 3.17
Italy: 3.33
France: 3.34
Finland: 3.38
Norway: 3.47
Germany: 3.48
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
> I hope 'no one starving in the streets' isn't how you measure success these days.
Actually it's a pretty good thing compared to 'people starving in the streets'.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
You must be American.
I'm Canadian. I have traveled to Cuba for vacation a couple of times.
It is (or was) an absolutely beautiful place. Pity that will end with the arrival of Americans.
Last time we were there we stayed in a 5 star resort. (Cuba's 5 star is not the same as a North American's 5 star.)
My son cut his foot on a broken tile in the pool. The pool attendant patched it up best he could, with what he had.
I went to the 'International Clinic' down the road for bandages. It was close enough for me to walk to.
Keep in mind, this 'facility' is targeted towards foreigners/tourists, and is kinda a combination of emergency room/hospital/pharmacy.
The 'Pharmacy' is about the size of my bathroom at home, and less well stocked. What limited item selection they had, they only had 1 or 2 of each item. They had surgical tape for sale, but did not have any gauze. It was not what I would call a 'clean' facility. I had to speak to the doctor on call to explain the injury, and ask for gauze. While speaking to him, we ended up in an examination room. It had a plain steel table, an open window with no screen. He went and found the gauze, and took it from the hospital's supplies. It came wrapped in a brown paper wrapper, folded over (reminded me of industrial paper towel).
More photos. https://www.google.ca/search?q=cuban+healthcare+expose&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=ZNSRVO_HPIf9yQTK7oG4BA&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1440&bih=789
Many of the lights in the hallways/rooms were not functioning.
The tape was the equivalent of 3 or 4 dollars for the roll. The gauze was 'free'.
Keep in mind, the a local cuban worker only makes between $18 and $22 per month. The maid cleaning my room made more than that just from tips. Currently, they have more incentive to be a maid or bartender, than a Dr, Engineer, etc. It will cause some upheavel when this changes - people who have been making (relatively) good money being maids and the like no longer will be, and 'skilled' people such as trades, Doctors, engineers, etc will make huge gains.
Things you take for granted, like baby Tylenol is just not available. What is available is completely unaffordable for them. Imagine having a headache, but a bottle of aspirin costs 1/3 of your monthly income.
Every time I go, I bring along over the counter medicine and other supplies and give it away.
People are not starving in the streets, because they will be jailed.
The only way people survive without starving is by participating in the black market, and prostitution.
Our tour guide admitted to buying food from the black market for his family to keep from starving.
The police have road side checks - they are not checking for impaired driving, or seatbelts - they are checking cars for people with 'illegal' food (ie - maybe a Cuban went fishing, and caught a fish).
So - yes they have survived 55 years of near trade embargo, but they have not thrived. People are hungry, and the poverty is crushing.
But - the attitude is changing. Last year we had a conversation with out guide that would have not happened the on our 1st visit.
I believe that the American embargo has certainly contributed to this, but is not fully responsible. The embargo seems more than a little hypocritical seeing as the USA has trade relations with North Korea, but has an embargo with Cuba.
Catpcha: intruder
The hysteria of McCarthyism hasn't gone anywhere, it's just found a different topic to obsess over and a different target.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
It is "good" simply because it is better than the alternatives: a) remain under Saddam Hussein; b) be taken over by ISIS (or Iran).
10 years is not that long — had we pulled out from Western Germany in 1955, for example, that country (with plenty of Nazis still inside and USSR's massive armies right across the border) too would've been in deep trouble.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
So what? Non-sequitur of the thread. Bet those countries rate higher on Maseratis per head too.
Cuba sucks, but their healthcare doesn't suck as bad as it ought to and that's not "Michael Moore fapping".
My god, are you that delusional?
You toppled a government, but you sure as hell didn't "conquer" them.
You barely got out of there with your asses intact, and every single justification for going in there in the first place was provably false before anybody got sent in. Oh, and your inept fumbling about led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians -- far far more than were killed in 9/11.
The entire reason for being in Iraq the second time was a colossal lie perpetuated by a chimpanzee of a president trying to finish what daddy started.
You were in the wrong fucking country, because Iraq had nothing at all to do with 9/11. And now you've left a giant power vacuum which has destabilized the entire region.
Being in Iraq was such an epic failure that only people who can call it a success were the private companies who made huge profits, and the lying bastards who got you in there in the first place.
If you think that's a template for how to fix the worlds problems ... the world doesn't want any more of your "help".
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
No, that must be the voices in your head. Try increasing (or decreasing) your dosage.
OK. So they let premature babies die in Switzerland, France, Sweden etc. Right.
As a south american and an American citizen the majority of south Americans love america...
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Is your point that the Cuban government is more successful than Iraq?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You have no goal for Russia. Your country is pure evil and must be removed from the Earth.
for one kidnapped aid worker
and a jailed spy. 3 for 2 aint too bad.
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
Really, that actually happened? Or does famous izquierdista Doctor Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido just work in Cuba? That's certainly where he treated Chavez. I honestly don't know; google isn't helping.
I completely agree with you.
"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.
And if you value freedom and liberty and good public health care you can move to Canada (that's what I did).
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.
That fact doesn't matter nearly as much as you might think it does. He flies in doctors because the Cuban ones aren't as competent and because he can personally afford to. That has zero bearing on whether people have access to healthcare - though it does speak to the quality of the healthcare they are being given.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Cuba's failures have nothing to do with Cuba seizing and redistributing the property of its people.
Also, this is not happening because one of the two countries is trying to openly embrace communism for the first time.
I'm glad you are keeping up with the DNC memo's and talking points.
because further hordes of boat people are not something to be desired.
I hope you are wrong. :(
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.
In addition, American doctors toured the Cuban health care system and published their results in the New England Journal of Medicine. Cuba has one of the best medical schools in Latin America. The Swedes helped them set it up. As a result they have a major modern biotechnology industry that discovered and manufactures some vaccines that are used worldwide.
Is your point that the Cuban government is more successful than Iraq?
Or Afghanistan. Or North Korea. Iran... maybe not but Iran has oil money and is much bigger. Anyway, pretty well among enemies of US.
The property which was seized was mostly owned by foreign countries, and benefited the existing dictatorship of Bautista -- who was a brutal bastard, but friendly to the US so America was fine with it. America only objects to dictators who dislike them.
When Baustista was in power, the average Cuban worker was pretty much a serf, and all of the economy benefited only a few.
You're a drooling idiot.
I'm not an American, and I have no idea of what the DNCs talking points are on this. But your childish little hamster brain apparently needs to make this a Republican v Democrat issue, so you're only capable of seeing thatg.
I've been to Cuba a bunch of times. I've read books my Castro and Che, as well as the history of how the Platt Amendment came to be foisted on Cuba despite their not wanting it. I've also read about the history from non-Cuban sources so try to see the whole picture.
The vast majority of Americans really have no clue about Cuban history. They boil it down to about a 10 year period, and then haven't bothered to learn anything which happened before or since. Cuba and Casto are just the bogeymen to get yourselves worked up about.
So, it's tragic you're so ill informed and are tied to whatever idiotic talking points you're repeating.
Because clearly don't know a damned thing about it you haven't been spoon fed.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
A definite failure if I ever heard of one.
It's not that Cuba is a failed state; it's that the U.S. policy was intended to push Cuba to fail. But after 50+ years, we are finally acknowledging that it is the policy itself which failed, not Cuba ;-)
Rofl, ever been there?
You have no clue at all.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The only country that had an embargo on Cuba is the US. They trade w/ everyone else - Europe, Canada and whoever else you got. Despite that, their economy is in a mess. They need a Putin
The thing in 1945 regarding Germany is both sad and sickening. I say this because it's quite apparent with all the things going on in the world today that Hitler was indeed correct. If the Germans had been victorious we would likely be far better off than we are now. This is why I consider myself to be a National Socialist. That's right, I am a Fascist and I am proud of it. They were a truly great people and culture who were light years ahead of this disgusting and degenerate "progressive"/Jewish multiculturalist tyranny we find ourselves subjected to.
Heil Hitler!
Ave Victoriam!
Yes, exactly. They are as poor as a Socialist economy can be and, had it not been for Russia's support, would've collapsed long ago.
May as well, for all we should care. No skin off our back. But Fidel is unlikely to last that much longer, and this sort of regimes tend to change dramatically with each new Dear Leader.
Russian economic support to Cuba ended after the Soviet Union came apart. Question is how much longer would Raul Castro last, and whether Cuba would see another Gorby after him?
"WE ARE FAMILY!!!!!" :)
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
Nice red herring on the infant mortality rates.
Cuba doesn't count the deaths of infants that die within three days of being born. Those are considered miscarriages, and don't contribute to the numbers. In the US, any birth that still has a heartbeat outside of the mother is considered a live baby. If it dies moments later, that's "infant mortality." Many (very sensible) countries around the world don't do the math that way, resulting in complete apples/oranges when you compare the stats.
Regardless, you're trusting ANY numbers out of Cuba, where the government jails and sometimes kills people who say even very non-specific things that run counter to the totalitarian propaganda?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Oh, and that infant mortality statistic is complete B.S. In Cuba, they just let the premature babies die and it never counts as a live birth to mess up the statistics. In the U.S. they bend over backwards to save babies but since they aren't always successful, the statistics get skewed.
Proof: http://www.nationalreview.com/...
Nothing in that article says that Cuba measures its infant mortality differently than the WHO standard, or even mentions Cuba.
So the fact remains that the Cuban infant mortality rate is lower than the U.S., by any standard measurement.
The main reason for that is the lack of access to health care, and health care doesn't do much good without access to nutrition, housing and basic living standards, which the poor don't have in the U.S. That's why we have so many premature infants. True, it's not just Cuba's health care system, it's also their nutrition programs. I concede that the poor in the U.S. have worse nutrition too, which contributes to their higher infant mortality.
Every honest doctor who follows international health statistics knows this, in contrast to guys like Scott Atlas who cherry-picks his statistics and publishes them in the National Review.
Let me know when you find something in a peer-reviewed journal that says Cuba's infant mortality statistics use definitions that distort them to make them better. I'm not holding my breath. There was an exchange of letters about this in Science, and the anti-Castro people couldn't come up with anything, so I don't think you will.
The mistake in Iraq was to try and rebuild that country after toppling Saddam. Invading them and toppling Saddam was justified, given that he was housing terrorists like Abu Nidal, and rewarding Hamas suicide bombers in Israel. But once he was overthrown, the campaign should have been over, while allowing the UN to search for the WMDs. When Bush stood on that ship the first time w/ the 'Mission Accomplished' sign, he happened to be correct! The US debacle in Iraq started after the scope of the mission became 'bringing democracy to Iraq'.
No Arab country had ever been a democracy, and translated to Arab ground realities, it just meant mob rule. In Iraq, the Shiites, being the majority, came to power, and suddenly, the persecution of Chaldeans & Assyrians started, w/ most fleeing to Syria and then Lebanon. In the meantime, in Baghdad, Iraq became a new client state of Iran, who must have been laughing themselves silly @ the Great Satan (TM) installing their puppet in Iraq, and making the formation of a Shiite Crescent easier.
In the meantime, the US wasted billions in reconstructing a country that never had any major infrastructure in the first place, aside from anything that would make waging war easier. All the while battling Iraqis of all ethnic backgrounds who hated it (except the Kurds and Assyrians). Instead, withdrawing from Iraq after Saddam's overthrow and letting Moqtada al Sadr battle it out with Zarqawi and not take any Arab refugees into the US would have been the right move.
You can hardly call the invasion of Iraq a conquest. It was a successful expeditionary incursion but the stated goals by the PNAC for the war were the stabilization of the Persian Gulf oil producing region and the demobilization of the troops stationed in the border since the first Gulf War. The demobilization did happen but the Persian Gulf was not stabilized at all. So in that sense the war failed to meet their objectives.
The PNAC also intended to invade North Korea at the same time but I guess the Afghan war precluded that from happening.
I don't call 'oppressive government with no freedom of speech' to be successful, but different strokes for different folks.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
No the mistake was supporting the overthrow of Assad and Gaddafi. They came in from Syria remember? And they probably got to Syria via Turkey from Saudi Arabia.
I would be less concerned about Russia and more concerned about the efforts the Chinese have made to get into Cuba.
But Russia's recent wars & bullying have been against groups or countries far weaker than them - Chechens, Georgia and now Ukraine. They've not fought wars against China or Kazakhstan. Going by what you said, those 2 would theoretically be Russia's greatest threats. However, China is an ally of Russia, and their only border with them is on the Manchurian side. Kazakhistan is still more or less a client state of Russia, and hardly a threat to it. In fact, before Putin came to power, when Yeltsin was running things, there were times when Moscow had a really weak hold on things, but that didn't encourage China or the stans to act up and try bullying Russia. The only group that tried it was the Chechens.
Being in Iraq was such an epic failure that only people who can call it a success were the private companies who made huge profits, and the lying bastards who got you in there in the first place.
If you think that's a template for how to fix the worlds problems ... the world doesn't want any more of your "help".
There is one other group that can call it a success... ISIS. They wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the US meddling in Iraq and creating a power vacuum. There's a reason Hussein was kept busy between the Kurds, Sunnis and Shias. He wasn't just sitting on his hands letting his country fall apart around him, despite all the horrible methods he used to try and prevent collapse.
Not to mention the stuff Obama is lifting is already so easy to circumvent it is relatively pointless. I've met numerous divers that have gone to Cuba via Mexico or Canada and Cozumel is filled with shops selling Cuban cigars, probably exclusively targeting Americans. Even during the Cold War I had a friend that visited Russia to study Russian architecture and brought back Cuban cigars (and they didn't bother to check where the cigars came from because he visited Russia... also they were much better back then - the subsidies helped immensely).
Obama pulled us out too soon from the collapsed country. That was a mistake, not the bringing upon the collapse (of Saddam Hussein's regime) itself.
Iraq was already in collapse prior to the US military pulling out. ISIS was not the juggernaut it is today, but they were already strategically attacking installations and gaining members. Pulling out proved to have negative consequences, but staying there likely would have had other consequences just as bad. That's what happens when you install someone like Hussein in the first place and expect him to be an acquiescent puppet. The fact that the US had to invade the country and have him deposed when the US was responsible for him being in power in the first place seems to fly over many people's heads.
If sanctions causing collapse of an allied country don't work, what hope is there for having them with a country that nobody but you considers to be an enemy?
What do you mean? The country was then conquered within months by us. Saddam Hussein himself was then captured, tried publicly, and executed deservingly.
Yes, and look what took over after Saddam Hussein was gone. What did Bush leave Obama? Anarchy, controlled by armed gangs. Now the strongest force is the Islamic State.
von Clausowitz that the purpose of war is not to destroy the enemy, it's to accomplish policy. (However you spell it.)
Bush is like that guy in Atlas Shrugged who couldn't watch a pot of soup without letting it boil over.
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???
Why would Chechnya "export" terrorism?
Sorry, seems you have not much clue. Chechnya is a nation that tries to separate from Russia.
During WW II the chechnic "terror attacks" would have been called "commando attacks", sure getting civilians as hostages in a theatre is a bit over the edge, but the germans, the spanish and the italian _REGULAR TROOPS_ did the exact same during WW II and the Spanish Revolution wars.
To answer your question: Chechnyans don't really have any reason to export terrorism -- but they DO have reason to sell munitions to those wanting to use them to overthrow western powers. And if Russia collapsed, you'd have a LOT of equipment looking for a new home. This is already a bit of an issue in Ukraine.
May as well, for all we should care. No skin off our back. But Fidel is unlikely to last that much longer, and this sort of regimes tend to change dramatically with each new Dear Leader.
Fidel Castro stepped down in 2008.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
They were a truly great people and culture who were light years ahead of this disgusting and degenerate "progressive"/Jewish multiculturalist tyranny we find ourselves subjected to.
You missed the memo. You people are supposed to be on the Jewish side against Islam now.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
That makes no sense. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the destruction of his entire army apparatus was wat created the power vacuum that ISIS is now stepping into. For all his obvious evil, Saddam Hussein managed to create a militarily and economically strong Iraq that would have made short work of any bandits trying to invade Iraq, no matter what their sales talk.
Any attempts at nation building after the Iraq invasion were at best pathetic. Cynically corrupt windowdressing is a better description. I'm sure some coalition people (for example in the US defence industry) thought his period was far too short, but the Iraqi people thought differently, despite the obvious dangers.
Iran taking over Iraq is just delusional.
Not true at all. Iraq was moving in the right direction, its various groups learning to talk to rather than fight rivals.
Withdrawal was grossly premature. That it was done not as an honest mistake, but for cynical political considerations ("See? I did not close Guantanamo, but I did get us out of Iraq"), makes it all the more disgusting...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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
Iran was a democracy.. until, a country that tries to build democracies decided to topple that one.
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
Chechnyans don't really have any reason to export terrorism
Except for the fact that a lot of the ones who fought against Russia (and their pro-Russian compatriots) are fucked-in-the-head Islamists that behead, dismember and enslave people for fun. A lot of Chechens are fighting for ISIS right now. A Chechen conducted the boston bombing.
And yet, Russia is the enemy and Chechens are our friends. It's a bizarre world.
"The enemy of my enemy is likely out to get me too, and is not to be trusted."
As I understand it Alan Gross was just a freebie thrown in. We traded 3 Cuban spies for the spy we had in Cuba that helped us catch them in the first place.
Not true at all. Iraq was moving in the right direction, its various groups learning to talk to rather than fight rivals.
Withdrawal was grossly premature. That it was done not as an honest mistake, but for cynical political considerations ("See? I did not close Guantanamo, but I did get us out of Iraq"), makes it all the more disgusting...
That article seems to undercut your own argument.
The war hawks in the Bush Administration, like Douglas Feith, were telling us that we could replace Saddam Hussein with our own dictator, Chalabai, like replacing a chip on a motherboard. The free-market ideologues were telling us that all we had to do was destroy Iraq's government-run industries, and replace them with the free market, and they would flourish.
Instead, the new free-market Iraqi health care system fell apart, the power system failed and couldn't supply electricity to run the air conditioners and sewer pumps, and most of all, neither the U.S. military nor the "free" Iraqi government could maintain security, against the armed sectarian gangs that started killing each other, as that Slate article described. Bush struggled in Iraq for longer than it took to win the entire WWII, and he failed. 600,000 Iraqis died, and 4,000 American troops and contractors.
Bush lost the war. At what point do you face that and cut your losses? Maybe you don't care about the 600,000 Iraqis, but do you want to lose another 4,000 Americans? Did you volunteer? Where did you earn your battle stripes?
A sad day indeed. My grandparents are rolling in their graves and the left wingers are rejoicing.
That Illiberals at Slate criticize Bush and free markets is no surprise. That they also criticize the premature withdrawal of American forces — that's noteworthy. It is like having your mama tell you, you have an ugly nose — it must be really ugly...
Bush conquered the entire country, replaced its government, captured its previous leader and handed him over to the new government to be hung by the neck. If that is still "losing", I don't know, what "winning" is...
Oh, this is so special! So only the military must have a say on matters of foreign policy? Is that your argument — or did you just get carried away with your ad hominem a little?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"A good one is the Democracy Index put out by the Conservative economics journal "The Economist"." You have got to be shitting me. Do you actually believe the "The Economist" is a conservative publication? Please!
What do you mean? The country was then conquered within months by us. Saddam Hussein himself was then captured, tried publicly, and executed deservingly.
There were over a million deaths by some estimates caused by the invasion. A million! Even if the estimates are off by half, that's an incredible number of people.
Iraq is still in chaos many years later. IS has taken over a lot of the country. The Middle East as a whole was destabilised and has yet to recover.
I'd hate to know what your definition of a catastrophe is.
Bush conquered the entire country, replaced its government, captured its previous leader and handed him over to the new government to be hung by the neck. If that is still "losing", I don't know, what "winning" is...
Winning, as von Clausowitz said, is accomplishing policy. One of the stated purposes of the war was to replace Saddam Hussain with a leader that was more agreeable to us, while converting Iraq into a free market economy (according to what I read on the Wall Street Journal editorial page). Douglas Feith said, it would be like installing a new chip on your motherboard.
Instead, under Bush, they dismissed the army, were unable to create a new one capable of maintaining security and safety, and were unable to maintain the economy. It's a failed state.
Bush had six years to do whatever he wanted. Roosevelt and Truman won World War II in less time. Bush didn't accomplish his goals. He created a mess, and handed it over to Obama. I can't imagine how anyone could restore order to Iraq again. It might take another 10 years, 20 years, 50 years. You can't blame that on Obama.
Well, of course, if von Clausowitz said it, it must be truth and nothing but the truth, sure...
We remained in Germany for decades after that — had we withdrawn in 1955, Germany too could've become a failed state — or be run over by USSR.
Yes, I can. And I am far from being the only one. And I'm not just talking about RethugliKKKans: even Leon Panetta was rather critical of the President over this.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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"
Yeah, I know, it's frustrating, isn't it? Do a little homework yourself. You'll see that definitions for stillbirth, miscarriage, and neonatal death vary tremendously by country, and are famously all of the map in poorer countries.
The US counts every birth that shows any sign of life - regardless of size or weight - as a live birth. Most European countries, though, don't consider any birth before 26 weeks to be "live births." A fetus needs to be at least 30cm in Switzerland before it's considered a live birth. Has to be at least a pound in Canada, Germany, and Austria. Those don't survive, and aren't considered live births. But in the US, they are (and then are promptly considered cases of infant mortality). About half of infant deaths in the US occur within moments and well within 24 hours of birth, but countries like Japan (with their excellent stats!) don't count them as deaths unless they occur AFTER 24 hours of birth. See how this works? By contrast, in much of Europe, babies born before 26 weeks’ gestation are not considered “live births.” Switzerland only counts babies who are at least 30 centimeters long (11.8 inches) as being born alive. In Canada, Austria and Germany, only babies weighing at least a pound are considered live births. Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2009/09/111...
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
What he said is true though, maybe it was misunderstood. Abortion is the number one reason the Republican party is such a mashup of strange bedfellows. It is a distraction view which normally one would expect to be a side issue, but it's also the one litmus test that you can't fail if you want to be elected as a Republican. People who otherwise had tepid political views suddenly start getting frisky when there's an issue about abortion being discussed. An abortion issue will kill a candidacy quickly. It's a wedge that fuels divisive politics of the "they're not real Americans like us" sort. Abortion brings people to the polls, especially Republicans but also true for a lot of Democrats.
Oh, and that infant mortality statistic is complete B.S. In Cuba, they just let the premature babies die and it never counts as a live birth to mess up the statistics.
I was a premature baby, and I am very much alive. Also, your "proof" link does not mention Cuba.
Too bad they didn't get that choice. It was either the American dominance with a corrupt puppet regime, or Castro's revolution. Anyone who thinks they could have had a grass roots counter revolution at any time is engaging in a lot of wishful thinking.
1) Fidel Castro leaving the country for treatment actually happened, which is very obviously an option not available to the vast majority of Cubans, hence my quote from Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."
Actually, you would be surprised about that. When treatment is not available in Cuba, patients are often sent to other countries. This is in no way limited to elites. Unfortunately, budget restrictions are very real. I wanted to share another link about that, but I could not find it. (Also, I have no idea re: Fidel Castro leaving the country for treatment)
2) They could have the best healthcare system in the World and I still wouldn't want to live there.
Indeed.
Nor would most people who value freedom and liberty...
Try "prosperity". I would say that most Cuban migrants leave because of the economy. Yes, there may be a causal relationship between the lack of liberty and the poor economy, but they are subtle enough that most don't even notice. I didn't feel not-free (though, in hindsight, I really did not have the "freedoms" that I now enjoy). Even some who thirst for liberty, seem to be seeking a better economy, to the point that some want to return to Cuba after receiving asylum in Spain. (Sorry, I couldn't find a source in English).
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.
Actually, it is in the interest of Americans to maintain the embargo. If it ends, the USA gets:
1) good cigars (to raise the cancer rates)
2) good rum (to raise the alcoholism rates)
3) cheaper sugar (to raise obesity rates)
So the US forces did create the vacuum by removing Saddam's army and then leaving.
Maybe even more successful than California where there's a government that blames a small number of prison officers for the inability of the government to scrape together enough money to run. It looks like the wrong country has been blockaded since there's no cocaine to come from Cuba to the noses of those in politics in California.
If you are playing that card then how are things in Myanmar? Algeria? Even Saudi Arabia?
Read some of Michael Totten's series on Cuba.
It's not much better than North Korea, if you get beyond the goo served up by the michigan documentator.
What a great euphemism for rationing. One of the reasons the US has a lower life expectancy is that US citizens have the money and right to eat whatever they want.
Emphasis on the "near" total embargo. Healthcare and medical products and services were excluded, hence why they have a certain amount of relatively good hospitals and many, many doctors. The good hospitals aren't for the natives incidentally, they get the oil lamp and cockroach treatment, they're for wealthy medical tourists.
I have no information about people starving on the streets but I suspect it's a similar story.
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!
What a great euphemism for rationing.
Cuba has a relatively low income, and the boycott is responsible for much of that (that was the purpose of the boycott, remember?) That's the result of U.S. policy, not the failure of Cuban socialism. So you cut their food and then blame them for rationing food.
In other low-income countries, especially free-market countries like Guatamala, when people can't afford to buy the food or health care that they need to live, they just die. That even happens in the U.S., where people die from curable diseases all the time because they can't afford to pay for medical care http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/1...
However, unlike most other low-income countries, Cuba has distributed their scarce resources, like milk, to those in greatest need, particularly to pregnant women and children. Prenatal nutrition is a big factor in infant survival. The studies of the Dutch famine during WWII showed that. There are studies of animals. That's established medical science. So doctors would expect Cuban infant survival to be lower because they give pregnant women more food. And it is. Even the CIA agrees. It's not because they define infant mortality differently.
Once again, there are no studies that meet the standards of science (published in peer-reviewed journals, adjusted for any differences in definitions) that say that Cubans have a higher infant mortality than Americans. The "scientists" who made that claim (in the letters section of Science, for example ) can't support it with facts.
Low-income people in Cuba have better health care than low-income people in the U.S. That's the facts.
There are people who form their conclusions based on scientific facts and people who form their conclusions based on ideology. You are free to join whichever group you want.
your proof is a national review article? please.
actual doctors who study this stuff have destroyed that piece of garbage so many times its not even funny anymore.
the article presents it as if its the only one that realized that people measure statistics differently, but publish research anyway...without compensating for the differences.
news for ya buddy: the researchers and statisticians are well aware of hte differences and if you bother to read their papers include the fact that they have compensated for them, and even how they did so.
And about that "all those illegals that Obama let in: Enforcement is at all time highs. More people have been deported than under any other president. The last few years have actually seen a negative flow rate across the Mexican border (thats right: more crossing into mexico than entering the US)
So the only bull around here is yours.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
then explain Europe.
I'll wait.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I'm not sure there is anything to explain. I was pointing out that life expectancy is not an accurate proxy for the performance of a country's healthcare system.
So if life expectancy is ranked like this: Europe > Cuba > USA. It's still possible for the quality of the healthcare systems to be like this: Europe > USA > Cuba. Because Cuba's life expectancy is artificially raised by forcing everyone on to a healthy diet through rationing.
What do you think life expectancy would be like in the USA if everyone was forced to eat healthily?
Since nobody had the stomach to end you with a surgery, we should continue with therapy.
"My god, are you that delusional?"
You seriously haven't realized that yet, have you?
You don't get it and probably never will. I feel sorry for you.
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.
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.
Well, I'm in favor of getting rid of the embargo, but it doesn't make much sense to call Cuba more successful than California.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You know, I honestly should be less harsh. I've just experience more and it hits closer to home. You just don't know any better.
I'm afraid you can't blame or give credit to Obama for that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
BS. Of course, I can blame Obama — he could have and should have gotten Iraqi government to agree for us to stay there longer — based on the new developments.
Then, of course, if you are killing suspected terrorists instead of capturing and interrogating them (so that, heaven forbid, no new prisoners appear in Guantanamo), you might not even be aware of those new developments until you see some decapitations on YouTube. Either way, the affirmative action wonder is as sorry excuse of a president, as Carter was before him...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Please explain to the childish hamster brain why all the cars in Cuba were built during the Bautista administration.
Are you really going to make the claim that Cubans are better off now than they were during the Bautista days?
You seem to indicate you think it is OK to just take foreign property in your response. Does that mean the US should just be able to seize whatever it wants from other countries as well? Or is this more like a one sided kind of thing?
It is not true that all the cars in Cuba were built during the Batista administration. It is true that all of the American cars predate the embargo.
But the Russian, Chinese and Korean cars which are all over the place? Not so much.
Again, do you know anything about Cuba?
As a matter of fact, I am ... Batista was overthrown in 1959, and in the last 55 years a lot of incremental changes have happened in Cuba.
Do attribute that all to the glory of communism? Not really. Do I personally know numerous Cubans with educations, access to health care, and insights into their society who have talked to me about what life has been like over the last several decades and how it has changed? As a matter of fact, yes.
Under Batista, pretty much everything in Cuba was to benefit a ruling wealthy, and American businesses which were mostly ran by the US mafia. Everyone else pretty much got nothing at all. This wasn't some noble democracy with freedoms which was overthrown.
Batista was a thug and a crook operating under the approval of America, so don't paint yourselves as the white knights here.
Cuba is much more complex and nuanced than your ridiculously reductionist view of it.
Tell you what, if you ever find yourself as a small nation in which most property has been bought by foreign entities, and you essentially have no rights so you can make money for foreign owners ... you decide if nationalization is a viable option.
Nobody said "go to any country you want and seize their stuff" -- that's what America was talking about with Iraqi oil in 2003 and the notion that stupid war would be paid for with oil revenues.
But when that foreign country essentially occupies yours and you have nothing? Well, if you think making yourself a serf in favor of foreign property ownership is a good choice, that's up to you.
Me, I would be inclined to think "fuck that".
So, please, when you know something about the topic, chime in. In the mean time, you're just another clueless idiot who doesn't know a damned thing about it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Iran was NEVER a democracy. It was always a dictatorial monarchy under the various dynasties ending w/ the Pahlavis, then it became a Shiite theocracy under the Ayatollahs. Since it's Islamic, it's not likely to ever remain a democracy even if it has an odd election here or there.
Iran taking over Iraq is just delusional.
They don't have to - the current regime in Baghdad is Shiite dominated, and a good number of them, like Moqtada al Sadr, take their marching orders from Teheran
How long should we have stayed in Iraq? It was a drag on the US economy and military capabilities. It allowed the Iraqi government to be irresponsible since the US Armed Forces would back them up. Exerting military control over Iraq caused a lot of resentment. There were plenty of reasons to leave Iraq, and apparently people who are very happy that their counterfactuals can't be refuted.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
OK, the Communist government of Cuba was bad. We get that. So was the preceding capitalist government of Cuba, although I don't know how to compare the degrees of badness here.
That doesn't mean the US should maintain a trade embargo for decades. There are worse regimes in the world (frightening as that is) that we've had business dealings with.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Just as it makes no sense with your comparison above. They've done a lot with what they have despite the childish blockade, so they have some success. Others have access to vast resources and come short, such as the Californian State government.
So you are saying if the communist country had access to a free market and the banking system, they would do better?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
They are authoritarian, so yes, they would grab whatever advantage they could get because pure ideology was told to go fuck itself years ago.
Anyway, they've gotten plenty of money from Russia and Venezuela, so it's kind of hard to give them a fair judgement.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
This again? The Berlin Wall fell how long ago? Venezuela got enough oil money to be able to afford giving away aid how recently?
You previously came across as someone who would not be childish enough to push that idiotic line.
So.....apparently you think it makes sense, when evaluating the Cuban economy, to ignore an important source of revenue.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Seriously? Sources of revenue that became either vanished before most posters here were born or turned up so recently that they did not shape the Cuban economy.
Such a deliberate pretence of stupidity is very insulting to anyone that reads it.
Precisely, one reason, not the only reason. Europe might have better healthcare systems than the US, which is why LE is higher there but that does not mean that Cuba has a better healthcare system than the US because it has higher LE. I offered an alternative explanation. Given that a lot of the health problems in the west (and especially the US) are caused by overconsumption (obesity, binge drinking, etc.) then this is not an unreasonable alternative explanation. These problems are also present in Europe (to a lesser extent) and maybe they handle them better with universal healthcare systems but that doesn't mean that overconsumption doesn't have an impact on LE, a problem that an authoritarian state can handle through compulsion.
Anyway, we agree on what should be done in Cuba, so the rest doesn't really matter.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I'm interested that Tunisia is included in the list. My impression is they used to have a relatively well-meaning monarch/dictator, then the Arab Spring started there and he stepped down without violence to make way for democracy. Early days yet, but my impression is it was one of the few success stories in recent times
Your response basically reads to me like this:
A) Here is a very bad thing that happened under Batista.
B) Here is a terrible thing that happened under Batista.
Sure. I think the mafia and prostitution are bad. I fully concede all of that.
But were people risking their lives to raft themselves to Florida during Batista? Were the Castro refugees mindless hamsters? Would you tell them they don't know a thing about Cuba?
And why do the people from Cuba hate oversized government with a vengance? Would you tell those people they don't anything about Cuba either?
You are making a losing case, my friend.
Nationalism sounds too governmenty to me. So I wouldn't label my solution that way.
Point taken, although it's really what is being done in the US - scrapping an outdated policy that's causing damage on both sides and gave Castro a reason to blame the USA for many of his own mistakes.
Did you have the same indignation about the similarly authoritarian and brutal but non-communist regime that was in place in Cuba before Castro?
You know, the one that was not only tolerated, but actively supported by US?
Are you seriously asking a Cuban American who wasn't alive during Batista's regime (but was close enough to the situation to know it) if he had the same contempt for them as a government who abused him and his families basic human rights 1000 times more over than Batista's did to anyone? Batista was no saint, but Jesus think about things before you say them. While the government was bad even before Castro, at least our economy was somewhat prosperous in a free market.
You say similarly authoritarian and brutal as if you actually know what went on and was there, but you probably just read some Wikipedia article.
So using your logic, since the US tolerated and "supported" the previous government, it makes tolerating and supporting the next up regime which is much worse acceptable? Really? Congratulations, you've just discovered the cliche saying that two wrongs don't make a right all by yourself.
There is a difference between tolerating and supporting. With Batista, US has actually supported him - helped him maintain power and suppress his political opponents. With Cuba, we're talking about tolerating what they are. Which is clearly the best that can be done, given how several decades of attempting to pressure them did absolutely zero good for anyone in the country.
The only people who object to the lifting of sanctions are those that are motivated by personal revenge against the Castros. There's no other logical reason for the embargo.
So what your saying is that if we took all the illegal -- uh "undocumented" immigrants from third-world countries that Obama lets in
Haha, "that Obama let's in." You're funny!
"The only people who object to the lifting of sanctions are those that are motivated by personal revenge against the Castros. There's no other logical reason for the embargo."
False. Your confusion lies in the fact that you believe this will do good for the Cuban people, as if somehow magically a place with no free market and a government that has historically given it's people dirt will all of a sudden benefit from these relations. This money will go to the Cuban communist regime, not the people that are suffering that need it. That is where there is truly no logic and severely detached from reality.
Also, even if it was for revenge, would you really blame someone who feels that way? It's convenient to say that from your comfy chair when you haven't experienced it. Especially if you know all it will do is keep feeding the bloated corrupt beast that is the despicable government that Castro has built. All your money is doing is going to bad people to keep doing bad things.
False. Your confusion lies in the fact that you believe this will do good for the Cuban people, as if somehow magically a place with no free market and a government that has historically given it's people dirt will all of a sudden benefit from these relations. This money will go to the Cuban communist regime, not the people that are suffering that need it. That is where there is truly no logic and severely detached from reality.
Even if 1% of that money gets to the people (and, pragmatically speaking, more of it will for sure), then they are going to be better off.
More importantly, if it prompts economic reforms along the lines of what most other communist countries did - the closest example here probably being Vietnam - the people are going to be vastly better off even if the authoritarian political system remains in place.
Either way, while we can only guess what will happen without sanctions, we know full well what happens with the sanctions: absolutely nothing. So what exactly is their purpose then?
Also, even if it was for revenge, would you really blame someone who feels that way?
Blame them for feeling that way, no (well, it depends on who they were before Castro; if it's one of Batista's cronies, or the members of the top ruling elite supporting him, I'd say they can suck it and go cry in a corner; I have no sympathy for people robbing others under gunpoint when they get robbed themselves in a similar fashion). But I will blame them for letting that emotion guide their political decisions, and especially for pushing the same onto others.
Oh, as for my comfy chair. I was born in a communist country. Don't try that "you rich American asshole can't understand" on me.
Even if 1% of that money gets to the people (and, pragmatically speaking, more of it will for sure), then they are going to be better off.
More importantly, if it prompts economic reforms along the lines of what most other communist countries did - the closest example here probably being Vietnam - the people are going to be vastly better off even if the authoritarian political system remains in place.
Either way, while we can only guess what will happen without sanctions, we know full well what happens with the sanctions: absolutely nothing. So what exactly is their purpose then?
And the proof or evidence that this will happen is where? Are we so naive that we trust their government and corrupt to do what we think they should for the good of the people? All of Europe has been in free trade with Cuba. By your logic, if it were to really help, it would already have. But the return on investment for the Cuban people has been zero. They're still abused and given dirt and dead cats and dogs to eat (literally.)
Here is your magic reform for you, straight from Raul Castro's mouth.
http://www.washingtontimes.com...
Blame them for feeling that way, no (well, it depends on who they were before Castro; if it's one of Batista's cronies, or the members of the top ruling elite supporting him, I'd say they can suck it and go cry in a corner; I have no sympathy for people robbing others under gunpoint when they get robbed themselves in a similar fashion). But I will blame them for letting that emotion guide their political decisions, and especially for pushing the same onto others.
Oh, as for my comfy chair. I was born in a communist country. Don't try that "you rich American asshole can't understand" on me.
I didn't say you were American or rich and neither do I care. Don't put words in my mouth. I don't know your situation but many people (and there are a lot) who are born into communist countries nowadays still don't go through what Cuban people went through in the revolution and to this day, especially with no free market.
And the proof or evidence that this will happen is where?
In the fact that it happened in every other communist country to date that has underwent a similar process.
Are we so naive that we trust their government and corrupt to do what we think they should for the good of the people?
No, but I trust their government to be pragmatic. It's easier to rule over fed people than it is to rule over hungry people. And when there's a fresh new revenue stream, and not even crumbs from it get to the people, the latter get restless, and restlessness leads to riots. Any smart and successful dictator knows that. Judging by how long the Castros have been going, they're not deficient on both counts. So yes, they will share. Not much, perhaps, but even a little helps.
All of Europe has been in free trade with Cuba. By your logic, if it were to really help, it would already have.
And it did help, of course. If everyone would embargo Cuba, it would be as much of a shithole as DPRK is. But it's not.