CUBA DERANGEMENT SYNDROME

[Draggingtree]

Human Events: CUBA DERANGEMENT SYNDROME

By: George Will 12/26/2014 06:00 AM

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama has made a geopolitical irrelevancy suddenly relevant to American presidential politics. For decades, Cuba has been instructive as a museum of two stark failures: socialism and the U.S. embargo. Now, Cuba has become useful as a clarifier of different Republican flavors of foreign-policy thinking. The permanent embargo was imposed in 1962 in the hope of achieving, among other things, regime change. Well. Fidel Castro, 88, has not been seen in public since January and may be even more mentally diminished than anyone — including his 83-year old brother — who still adheres to Marxism. Whatever Fidel’s condition, however, Cuba has been governed by the Castros during 11 U.S. presidencies, and for more years than the Soviet Union dominated Eastern Europe. Regime change — even significant regime modification — has not happened in Havana.

[Cyber_Liberty]

I had to click in and read for what seemed like an eternity (good Lord, hasn't his editor heard that paragraphs are nice and they're your friend?) to find out George thinks this is all about making Rubio and Rand Paul look "non-Presidential." News for George: Let either Senator speak freely on any topic of their choice and you'll get that much out of them (remember "The Sip?"). Neither is a particularly good choice.

In fact, Senators rarely are (yes, there were exceptions). It's because "Compromise" is their job, and after a few years there is plenty for any opposition to demagog, from any angle. I've long had an expression about the Senate: "The US Senate consists of 100 politicians who each think they can be President, plus one person who will be if anything happens to the real one." In fact, they're all usually terrible candidates like Bobdole.

 

I prefer Governors.

[Draggingtree]

DECEMBER 18, 2014 4:00 AM

Obama Acts on Cuba

By The Editors

Here are four names, long forgotten, that should be noted today: Armando Alejandre, Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, and Mario de laPeña. They were three U.S. citizens and one permanent resident. They were pilots with Brothers to the Rescue, the outfit that looks for Cuban refugees, as they are stranded or desperate on the sea.

 

On February 24, 1996, the four pilots were shot out of the sky by the Cuban dictatorship’s forces. The planes were in international airspace at the time. The Castro government killed the men simply because they were trying to help innocent Cubans.

 

The Castros had the help of a spy network in the United States. U.S. authorities apprehended five of them, who were then given the full benefit of our justice system (including appeal after appeal). Eventually, they were convicted of espionage and conspiracy to commit murder.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/394949/obama-acts-cuba-editors

[Draggingtree]

How Embargoes Destroy Freedom

 

JANUARY 10, 2015 Ryan McMaken

 

In the wake of the Obama administration’s partial normalization of relations with Cuba, proponents of the embargo condemned the move, with National Review publishing an unsigned editorial claiming that allowing Americans to trade freely with the island nation amounts to giving comfort to murderous dictators. NR’s editors concluded with:

 

The Cuban government is not legitimate, and never has been. It is a one-party dictatorship with a gulag, an archipelago of prisons into which democrats and dissidents are thrown. We hope that the new American policy — Obama’s policy — does not benefit the Cuban dictatorship and harm Cuban democrats. We fear that yesterday was a good day for the Castros and a bad day for the Cuban people, and for American foreign policy.

 

This is all very interesting from an international relations perspective, and there is no doubt that the Cuban regime is a brutal regime. On the other hand, why does the brutality of the Cuban regime make it alright for the US regime to jail and persecute private American citizens who attempt to trade with people in Cuba?

 

That is, after all, the position of those who favor the embargo. Embargoes are not something where a magic fairy waves her wand and Cuba suddenly becomes invisible to Americans

http://mises.org/library/how-embargoes-destroy-freedom

[Draggingtree]

The Post's View

Three weeks after Cuba accord, why haven’t more political prisoners been freed?

 

By Editorial Board January 8

IN ANNOUNCING the normalization of relations with Cuba last month,President Obama violated two pledges he had made: to link such a liberalization to “significant steps toward democracy,” including the freeing of all political prisoners; and to consult with Cuban civil society, including pro-democracy activists, on the change. In what looked at the time like a partial recompense, the White House announced that the Castro regime had agreed to free 53 detainees — or about half the number of political prisoners identified by Cuban human rights activists.

 

Now it’s becoming clear that Mr. Obama chose not to make even that half-step a condition for the broad relaxation of travel and economic restrictions he is granting to Havana along with the normalization of relations. As of Wednesday, three weeks after the U.S.-Cuba accord

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/three-weeks-after-cuba-accord-why-havent-more-political-prisoners-been-freed/2015/01/08/c2fe94f4-975f-11e4-8005-1924ede3e54a_story.html