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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.
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?
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!
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?
When the whole rest of the world wants sanctions, as with South Africa, they may be useful. When the whole rest of the world trades with Cuba and we don't, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot. Also, the South African government was far more malleable because it was elected by white citizens who suffered from sanctions -- the Cuban government is not elected by anyone who can be hurt by sanctions.
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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."
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.
They probably would have been bankrupted by the bankster cabal like everyone else. They may actually have been better off with the embargo.
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
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.
> 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
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.
You have no goal for Russia. Your country is pure evil and must be removed from the Earth.
Actually, historically it was the Secretary of State that benefitted the most. Seeing VPs become President is a relatively recent occurrence with any real regularity, and even then, not all have managed to get two terms out of it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
And if you value freedom and liberty and good public health care you can move to Canada (that's what I did).
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.
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 ;-)
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.
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?
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.
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).
If you are playing that card then how are things in Myanmar? Algeria? Even Saudi Arabia?
then explain Europe.
I'll wait.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
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.