Castro not to return to Cuban presidency

[Dobbs 3K 0]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8...;show_article=1

 

One Castro leaves, and they'll have another.

[Guest Vitamin X]

*celebrates, then realizes this is pretty much what happened a year and a half ago anyways*

 

He's probably already dead.

[RepoMan 0]

I hope I can finally score in the deathpool after being shutout last year.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Castro's resignation won't affect U.S. policy, official says.

 

SS, DD.

 

I'll be happy when the fucker finally kicks the pot, but I'm hoping whoever comes after Raul will be the one who helps institute real change. Releasing political prisoners, allowing different parties to form, etc.

[pappajacks 0]

If Cuba becomes democratic, will it change anything economically for the Cuban people? It's neighbour Haiti is even poorer.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Trade with the US would probably dramatically improve Cuba's economy. The place could become a gigantic tourist destination for US citizens.

[Zorin Industries 0]

Coming from the UK can anyone explain to me why Castro is still this demonised figure nearly 2 decades on from the end of the Cold War? I know its a pretty totalitarian regime, but its nowhere near the worst on the planet, and its not like the US hasn't made up with worse. Have economic sanctions really been necessary, you could argue they have had just as bad an impact as the regime.

 

Is this just a case of Castro got one over on the US years ago and you've never forgotten it? The hatred for him in the States is really confusing looking from the outside in.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

It's all about politics. There is a gigantic Cuban exile population in the Miami area (Florida) that hates Castro and wants the US embargo against Cuba to continue. Our politicians are too spineless to go against the will of a single voting block, so it continues even though it really doesn't make sense and just hurts the Cuban people actually living in Cuba.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

What Dobbs said. You & I are agreeing way too much lately, brother.

[cbacon 0]

It's written into law that the embargo can't end unless all nationalized properties taken from Americans are returned to them. This has been extended to include native Cubans who have since immigrated to the United States. Congress could, of course, repeal Helms-Burton, but the odds of that happening are about as good as the odds of Bush or Cheney ever being charged for the war crimes they've committed

[Jingus 0]

Bush or Cheney ever being charged for the war crimes they've committed

Jesus, can you order a Big Mac without lecturing the fat chick with frightening fingernails who's working the drive-thru about foreign policy and how much America sucks? Furthermore, what exactly are these war crimes? I mean I want specific details of when, where, and how they violated which exact rulings from the revised Geneva Conventions of 1949.

 

As for Cuba, part of it was how they aimed nuclear missles at us, less than a hundred miles from the American mainland. People tend to hold a grudge over that sort of thing. Also, we did tried everything short of full-scale invasion to topple Castro's regime, and none of it worked. People tend to hold a grudge over that sort of thing too, especially conservative Americans, some of whom would still enjoy seeing a massive new bombing campaign upon Vietnam today.

[Anakin Flair 0]

I find it amusing that we spent somuch time, effort, and money into trying to kill Castro- and in the end, he just resigns.

[cbacon 0]

Bush or Cheney ever being charged for the war crimes they've committed

Jesus, can you order a Big Mac without lecturing the fat chick with frightening fingernails who's working the drive-thru about foreign policy and how much America sucks? Furthermore, what exactly are these war crimes? I mean I want specific details of when, where, and how they violated which exact rulings from the revised Geneva Conventions of 1949.

 

 

Well, the war itself was in violation of Article 51 of the UN Charter (relation to wars of aggression). Furthermore:

 

- The 1945 Nuremberg Charter defines war crimes and the "shock and awe" campaign in Baghdad violated this provision.

 

- The Geneva Convention states: "fixed establishments and mobile medical units of the Medical Service may in no circumstances be attacked, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict." The US targetered hospitals during the attack on Fallujah including forcing patients and hosptial employees on the floor and tying their hands behind their backs.

 

- The treatment of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo violate the Third Geneva Convention and the War Crimes Act. The government still regards waterboarding as fair game because, as history has shown on numerous occasions, international law is irrelevant when convenient.

 

There's more, but I really don't feel like I should have to be explaining all of this. Especially since it's veering off topic :/

 

Maybe give the Nuremberg Trial a read?

[Gary Floyd 0]

Can we please not argue about Bush, since he has jack shit to do with Castro resigning?

[cbacon 0]

k

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

In C-Bacon's defence, he did try to steer things back towards the Castro discussion.

 

At the risk of sounding awfully igorant, can anyone bring me up to speed on Castro's reign?Somehow Wikipedia doesn't seem like the greatest place to search...I know little more of the history of Cuba/Castro than:

 

- Che Guevera helped him take over.

- The States hate him.

- There's lots of Cubans in Miami.

- They're communist.

- Almost war in 1962 with JFK.

[Guest Vitamin X]

There is a gigantic Cuban exile population in the Miami area (Florida) that hates Castro and wants the US embargo against Cuba to continue.

 

That's so incredibly incorrect on so many levels, you have no idea. The Cuban population in Miami wants nothing more but to END the embargo. Hell, the whole reason Bush signed the law into place in I believe it was 05 or 06 that you can only go once every three years (legally anyways- several people I'm aware of just go through Canada or Mexico, but they go at their own risk of course) BECAUSE of all the business that Cubans were bringing back to their families- namely medicines, food, etc.; American products. Cuban filmmakers in exile want to film in their homeland, but can't, because of the embargo. Several people have written and spoken, loud and clear on Radio Marti, about how the embargo does NOTHING to punish Cuba's government, only its people who are truly the victims of the lack of resources available to them like food, clothing, and shelter. Things that make otherwise good people turn to petty theft, prostitution, and building rafts out of anything they have available to them and crossing one of the most dangerous, shark-infested straits in the world just to get to the United States.

 

You're right on one level; it is all politics. But the supposed Cuban 'voting bloc' has jackshit to do with anything the U.S. does- every now and then the Bush (and as I remember the Clinton as well) administration will form a SPECIAL COMMITTEE on Cuba, and then do exactly nothing, except in Bush's case, put further restrictions on people. Hell, the primarily Republican status of the older Cuban exile community didn't even affect Dade County much- in 2004, Miami-Dade went for John Kerry, although I believe the counties in the Tampa area went for Bush.

 

CG- all you need to know is this: Fidel Castro led a popular revolution for nearly a decade against a selfish dictator named Fulgencio Batista with the help of Che Guevara, his brother, and a mixed race leadership, signifying the supposed strength and unity of all races and all peoples for the revolution. Taking over on January 28th, 1959 (my dad's birthday!) el Che became Minister of the Interior and imprisoned and/or murdered several tens of thousands of political dissidents and other "enemies of the state". As in Stalin's USSR, it didn't take much to be singled out as an "enemy of the state", as you might imagine. Over the next few years, Castro and his party solidified control of the country, nationalizing several businesses and scapegoating the U.S. as the largest problem in the world. Castro actually had very little intentions of being a communist dictator, it was actually noted that Raul was the one who gave him the ideas, and Che helped him think much along the same lines. As time went on, it was increasingly obvious that Castro could give a shit about "the people" and became just a cruel tyrant who only sought to benefit those around him and those who were "good to the party" while constantly training his country for war against the United States, being on the Soviet Union's side.

 

Cuba also has an increased importance in the international community recently, by the way, due to the discovery of offshore oil near Isla de la Juventud. They have several resources including coal, sugar (Bacardi was actually founded there, and moved in exile in `59 to Miami, now using Dominican sugar cane instead), wood, and a fairly robust agricultural science. The University of Havana is probably the most renowned university in any sort of developing nation, as rated by the UN in a recent study, as evidenced by having one of their most major exports to allies Venezuela and Nicaragua being educational and medical assistance.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

VX, if my (admittedly rather rudimentary) summary of the situation is incorrect, why hasn't it changed by now? Let's not forget that the president's brother is governor of Florida, and has seemed to cater to that community in the past.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Jeb Bush's elections in Florida are successful because Miami Cubans seem to be much more content with conservatism at a smaller governmental level (I'm particularly looking at Mel Martinez and Iliana Ros-Lehtinen's long terms in Congress) than they do on a larger scale. Jeb is actually married to a Cuban woman, and has shown that he wants to reach out (be it with his dick or beyond) to the Spanish-speaking community by actually learning the language, and he speaks it pretty damn well, I might add. But he caters to that community because they make up a VERY large part of his demographic that is likely to vote for him, and also because the new waves of balseros coming over seem to be much more liberal, since not only are they being taught that Bush is a terrible president in Cuba, but that he is particularly unpopular here as well.

 

In short, the embargo continues because the government, from my estimation, doesn't want to do anything about the situation in Cuba because they don't see any immediate benefit to it (although a couple Republican senators flipped when Cuba found offshore oil and tried to pass a bill a year or two ago that would exclude Big Oil from the embargo- see what I mean?) and so long as the Cuban government is communist and spewing vitriol at the American government for continuing to "starve their people" (that's the spin, alright) the embargo will last because it's the government's lazyass way of waging war on the Cuban government. Rather than spending military resources to them, they offer free political asylum to any Cuban that successfully emigrates, boost an extremely strong anti-Castro radio signal (Radio Marti- if anyone speaks Spanish and in the Miami area, listen to it for a while, it's a great station) to the island, and basically try their best to fuel incendiary reaction to the government. There's talk also of the government attempting to give arms to possible governmental resisters, but reports of that largely go unnoticed or unpublished.

 

For all the shit that Saddam did from 1978-2003, Fidel has been in power for 19 years longer, and was able to successfully and peacefully transition his government to his brother, while still oppressing millions of people who want a better life with more freedom, liberty, and equality. Like I said a long, long, time ago in the Iraq War thread, it is particularly insulting to the Cuban community to go to war in Iraq and term it an invasion for liberation when Middle Eastern culture is so unwilling to accept democracy, whereas the Cuban people would love nothing more than to have free, democratic elections, and they're no more than 90 miles from U.S. shores.

 

EDIT: Oh, and for Zorin Industries' claim that Castro's regime is nowhere near one of the worst on the planet, the UN's council on human rights has frequently had Cuba at or near the top of the list for decades in the realm of human and civil rights abuses.

 

Of course, my opinion of the situation is really that there's absolutely no reason for the embargo to continue, seeing as how both Cuba and the U.S. can benefit from it. If the U.S. wants some form of democracy to succeed in Cuba without initiating some sort of violence (whether on their end or some "counter"-revolutionaries' end), then there's no reason why they can't let capitalism take its course there much like it is in China. It is far more likely that communism would dissolve in a country like Cuba with capitalism running amuck there, than in a largely rural and developing nation like China.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yep, definitely agree with the last part of what you wrote. And yes, the Cuban government feeds their line about the US "starving the people" constantly.

 

If you happen to have or have access to a shortwave radio, listen to Radio Havana in the evening. It's pretty entertaining to hear their spin.

[cbacon 0]

Yep, definitely agree with the last part of what you wrote. And yes, the Cuban government feeds their line about the US "starving the people" constantly.

 

Gallup polls suggest half of the population believe the problems facing Cuba relate to the embargo.

 

And the embargo continues today because of Cuba's successful defiance, and this has always been the case despite the misleading pretexts of Soviet intervention or concerns over democracy.

 

Of course, my opinion of the situation is really that there's absolutely no reason for the embargo to continue, seeing as how both Cuba and the U.S. can benefit from it. If the U.S. wants some form of democracy to succeed in Cuba without initiating some sort of violence (whether on their end or some "counter"-revolutionaries' end), then there's no reason why they can't let capitalism take its course there much like it is in China. It is far more likely that communism would dissolve in a country like Cuba with capitalism running amuck there, than in a largely rural and developing nation like China.

 

It amazes me how a country that has installed and supported some of the worst dictatorships in this hemisphere could be so obsessed with overthrowing Castro. America must really, really care about the Cuban people. I wish it had shown the same concern for Haitians, Guatemalans, Chileans, Brazilians, Argentinians, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Dominicans..

 

If "democracy in Cuba" means allowing the people of Cuba to control their own destiny then I completely support it. If "democracy in Cuba" means giving everything of value in Cuba away to foreigners then I don't see it being any better than what they've got now.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Gallup polls suggest half of the population believe the problems facing Cuba relate to the embargo.

This is probably true, and it reminds me of an unintentional hilarious thought by a certain former conservative poster here from South Carolina who mentioned that "the embargo's such a lame excuse.. they can trade with damn near everyone else in the world, why is a lack of trade with the U.S. so suffocating?"

 

I'll leave that up to you guys.

If "democracy in Cuba" means allowing the people of Cuba to control their own destiny then I completely support it. If "democracy in Cuba" means giving everything of value in Cuba away to foreigners then I don't see it being any better than what they've got now.

I agree with you up to a certain extent- An entire localized economy, while it's all well and good and certainly preferable to the inundating commercialism we deal with here in the states, a country like Cuba would benefit from exporting its services while keeping their goods local, and being able to import a lot of things needed on the island.

[cbacon 0]

Oh, that I agree on. I was mostly referring to Helms-Burton and the embargo, which requires that nationalized property be returned to Americans.