"Engaging Cuba".
Engaging Cuba
When President-elect Barack Obama was candidate Obama, he indicated a willingness to meet and talk with leaders of states long considered enemies of the United States.
We hope when he becomes President Obama that he will follow through on that promise, because principled engagement is better than reflexive stonewalling.
We also hope Cuba is one of the first states with which he engages.
We don't think Cuba has suddenly morphed from a dictatorship that jails dissidents and squashes free expression into Sunnybrook Farm. That hasn't happened, and human-rights and press-freedom watchdog groups properly still put Cuba on their bad-guy lists.
But for much too long, relations between the U.S. and the Communist-run island nation 90 miles south of Florida have been frozen in a Cold War time warp.
As long as Cuba was -- or had the potential to be -- a Soviet satellite, that might have made sense.
In 2009, the Cold War has long been over. The Soviet Union crumbled 20-plus years ago. Remember -- we won. But our relationship with our Cuban neighbors remains unchanged.
Progress has been held hostage by an obstinate, moldering state that we have only made stronger with our own old thinking, political posturing and a disproportionately influential voting bloc in Florida, which is -- not coincidentally -- home to 25 Electoral College votes that have mattered to the 10 U.S. presidents who've come and gone in the 50 years since totalitarian dictator Fidel Castro ousted authoritarian dictator Fulgencio Batista.
It's past time for our stance with Cuba to reflect how much the world has changed in a half-century.
An ailing Fidel is no longer in sight; he didn't show at all for last week's stilted "festivities" commemorating la revolución. Brother Raúl has been running things for the past two years, and while no one should mistake him for an enlightened leader, he has shown some pragmatism.
We need to take advantage of that, and improve relations -- and the quality of life for the Cuban people -- if we can.
Not to be lost or forgotten in this argument is the rise of leftist governments in South America in the past several years.
If we change our approach with Cuba, even with a gradual unclenching of trade and travel restrictions, who knows what other revolución we might usher in with messages of freedom and tolerance?
Editor's comment: Yes, it's time to understand that Cuban?American relations is based on nothing but SPITE and ARROGANCE, not to mention pure politics.
In other words, our whole foreign policy towards CUBA has been an UNMITIGATED disaster!
When President-elect Barack Obama was candidate Obama, he indicated a willingness to meet and talk with leaders of states long considered enemies of the United States.
We hope when he becomes President Obama that he will follow through on that promise, because principled engagement is better than reflexive stonewalling.
We also hope Cuba is one of the first states with which he engages.
We don't think Cuba has suddenly morphed from a dictatorship that jails dissidents and squashes free expression into Sunnybrook Farm. That hasn't happened, and human-rights and press-freedom watchdog groups properly still put Cuba on their bad-guy lists.
But for much too long, relations between the U.S. and the Communist-run island nation 90 miles south of Florida have been frozen in a Cold War time warp.
As long as Cuba was -- or had the potential to be -- a Soviet satellite, that might have made sense.
In 2009, the Cold War has long been over. The Soviet Union crumbled 20-plus years ago. Remember -- we won. But our relationship with our Cuban neighbors remains unchanged.
Progress has been held hostage by an obstinate, moldering state that we have only made stronger with our own old thinking, political posturing and a disproportionately influential voting bloc in Florida, which is -- not coincidentally -- home to 25 Electoral College votes that have mattered to the 10 U.S. presidents who've come and gone in the 50 years since totalitarian dictator Fidel Castro ousted authoritarian dictator Fulgencio Batista.
It's past time for our stance with Cuba to reflect how much the world has changed in a half-century.
An ailing Fidel is no longer in sight; he didn't show at all for last week's stilted "festivities" commemorating la revolución. Brother Raúl has been running things for the past two years, and while no one should mistake him for an enlightened leader, he has shown some pragmatism.
We need to take advantage of that, and improve relations -- and the quality of life for the Cuban people -- if we can.
Not to be lost or forgotten in this argument is the rise of leftist governments in South America in the past several years.
If we change our approach with Cuba, even with a gradual unclenching of trade and travel restrictions, who knows what other revolución we might usher in with messages of freedom and tolerance?
Editor's comment: Yes, it's time to understand that Cuban?American relations is based on nothing but SPITE and ARROGANCE, not to mention pure politics.
In other words, our whole foreign policy towards CUBA has been an UNMITIGATED disaster!
Labels: Keeping them honest
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 6:05 PM
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