Normalizing relations with Cuba

Mr. Deez

Mr. Deez

Beer Prophet
Looks like the White House is taking steps toward normalizing relations with Cuba. Link.

I view our Cuba policy the way I view the drug war. There may have been a time for it, and it may have had good intentions. However, it simply isn't working. Our policy didn't weaken Castro. It just hurt the Cuban people, fostered resentment, and denied Americans respectable cigars. It has also always been undermined by the fact that nobody honors our embargo. I don't see why we should keep it.

I also see inconsistency. We have normal relations with China and Vietnam. Why treat Cuba differently?

I think we're more likely to see freedom in Cuba through economic advancement brought about by trade. It sure as hell doesn't hurt to try it.
 
"I think we're more likely to see freedom in Cuba through economic advancement brought about by trade. It sure as hell doesn't hurt to try it."

This.
 
If this means we can buy Cuban cigars, the 'Stros sign a decent relief pitcher, and guys' weekends in Havana, I'm all for it!

I officially propose the first NCAA football game in Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana, Cuba - TEXAS v The U.

Even a blind squirrel...
 
I tend to agree with Deez, but interesting statements from the Obama state department in 2013.

Responding to press reports that Obama’s new Secretary of State John Kerry was considering lifting the harsh economic sanctions on Cuba, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland such rumors are false.

“This department has no current plans to remove Cuba from the state sponsor of terrorism list,” said Nuland. “We review this every year, and at the current moment we — when the last review was done in 2012 –didn’t see cause to remove them.”

Honestly, I do not know. What did Cuba do since then to change this view? Why did we need to "swap" prisoners?
 
Isn't this something (international treaties) that is supposed be ratified by the Senate? Or is this simply another stroke of the pen?
 
I was not asking to know about the State Department negotiations, I was asking what changes Cuba has shown us that warrants those negotiations. Maybe the signs are they will vote Democrat when they start flooding more into South Florida?
 
Every President since Eisenhower has seen fit to enforce the sanctions on Cuba. This isn't going to help the Cuban people. It's only going to keep the Castro brothers in power. They're a Socialist state. The government regulates everything.

In reply to:
Click to expand...
 
The Castro brothers Raul, 83, and Fidel, 88, aren't going to rein forever. When US commerce comes in, so will American ideals and information. A naturally freedom-loving people with values compatible with capitalism, will soon see the light. Take a look at Poland and the reunited Germany.
If the Cuban people want socialism, let them have at it. Despotism, though, should be headed for the trash heap.
 
BTW, my Texas v Miami game will have to be booked as an "educational" trip with the Treasury Department...an educational trip with 30,000 participants.

But you can bring back all the cigars you want!
 
We only know what the two governments have said so far and that is not much. I talked to a friend who has been to Cuba a few times and he believes the Castros have to move because the island is running out of food and the two enablers, Venezuela and Russia, are going to see their economies crater as a result of the Saudi oil policies/ driving prices down, Raul Castro is reaching out to save what he can,.

I hope the US government handles this better than they have the unfolding disaster that is current policy with Russia. Wrecking their economy is likely to have a lot more ramifications than wrecking Cuba's has.
 
Clean: you have misread the situation entirely in my opinion. When I studied diplomatic history at UT in undergrad and grad school with Professor Robert Divine,one of the things he drilled into us was that almost nothing is as it seems on the surface in diplomatic negotiations. There are always unseen motivations and hidden hands. First off, this thawing is nothing in itself. We will have an embassy in Cuba, an upgrade over the mission we have there. The heavy lifting in terms of trade and its conditions and what to do, if anything, about fifty years worth of reparations claims will come in the next few years, as will discussions about continued Russian use of Cuba, etc.

Everything I have read from any recent source says the Cubans are having to import food and now that Venezuela and Russia are going to be of limited assistance they are going to have to pay market or make some concessions to get breaks on it. I mentioned my friend who has visited there several times. His friends there have told him that their food has grown more limited and harder to get. They get almost no meat or chicken now. Look at pictures from Cuba and see how many overweight people you see. it is not because they are all on the south beach diet. They are out of food and the situation is getting worse. Commies can't feed themselves and an enormous amount of the land on that island is fallow.

This is not just a cave in by the hated Obama, as much as the blind haters of the man may imagine. The Castros are pragmatic, They understand they are the ones taking a huge risk by shaking hands with the bogey man they have blamed for all their problems for the last fifty years. More Cuban Americans will be visiting their half starved relatives and regaling them with stories of the glories of Miami and how great Cuba might be. THis is the death knell for communism on the island,. It will not happen overnight.

I would suggest you read something on the nature of the emotion of hatred and how it twists one's perceptions. I never voted for Obama even though I am a default democrat. I thought him amateurish, egotistical and not ready for the job. The last six years have confirmed that belief, largely. But I do not hate him, just as I did not hate his unprepared predecessor,

Too much of our national discussion is ruled by hate from one side or the other,. It is a poison and you seem in its grip,.

You don't know the details of whatever discussions have taken place, what offfers have been made and which ones are on the table and which aren't.

I would direct your attention to the negotiations that defused the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. At the time it appeared that JFK had stood tall and the Soviets blinked. Years later we learned there was a covert agreement that we would withdraw our missiles from Turkey. We gave and got; so did the RUssians. Is it too much to believe something like that is going on here? Of course, if you hate Obama blindly, anything short of abject surrender cannot be countenanced.
 
I think the timing has to do with Russia as much as anything. Saudi has them backed into a corner with oil prices. Putin has threatened to patrol the Gulf of Mexico, theoretically using Cuba as a jumping off point. If we work towards having better relations with cuba, it makes it harder for Putin to start **** in order to get oil prices up and the Russian population off his back. It also gives us something to take away in the future whereas we currently have just about nothing we can do to them outside of military action. I think it was a pretty smart move from a guy that has impressed few with his international dealings. Generally I have found that most people I know support this with the dissent coming from the blind Obama haters.
 
Thanks for the long-winded, condescending post to try and save my right-wing soul, huisache. I'm sure you're old Yalie Professor, Dr. Divine, gave you a good and proper Leftie indoctrination into world diplomacy. Let's just say we agree to disagree.

And as far as the Castros caring about the Cuban people not having meat and chicken, I dont' think they give a damn. They certainly didn't give a damn when Wilman Villar straved himself to death in protest over the oppressed political prisoners in Cuban prisons.

I agree with what Mitt Romney said during his 2012 Presidential campaign when speaking about the olive branch that Obama offered Cuba by relaxing travel bans and moving money between the two countries ; "What has occurred to me as I’ve watched our president over the last Castro years, is that from time to time we have a president who thinks that a tyrant, that a person who considers America their enemy, that that tyrant will give them something, just by virtue of us giving them something, with no trade whatsoever. Where we just say here, we’ll give you this thing and hope you’ll give us something nice back. Negotiations are not a matter of giving and hope. They’re a matter of giving and getting in return.".

The Link
 
I did not say the Castros cared about the people's diets. The motivation would be to forestall social disruption as a result of starvation, such as we have seen in north Africa.

I am not any kind of leftist and neither was Divine. I got my politics from working in my parents' business and seeing how the real world works.
 
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