Cuba

[Ray Zee]

if cuba had oil reserves would castro still be in power.

why havent we taken him out. hasnt he done pretty much alot of the things saadam has.

tortured his people
imprisoned ones that speak against him
had weapons of mass distruction(missiles and warheads)
consorted with our enemies
so on and so on.

[brad]

its funny even arthur schlesinger, jr. who was the major architect of cuba policy during kennedy administation admitted that he doesnt understand why there is still an embargo against cuba because none of the reasons for the embargo are still in effect.

basically he just said we still have the embargo because (he didnt know). heh

[MMMMMM]

Castro should be taken out sooner or later. He hasn't elevated state-sponsored torture to quite the art form that Saddam did, and he hasn't executed as many, but he's still a no-good iron-fisted tyrant who shoots poets and other intellectuals who dare to speak out. If he had lots of oil maybe it would have happened already

Now we finally have a President with the balls to do it, but it looks like he has other more serious matters to attend to for a while. However if we get another term of Bush followed by 2 terms of someone like Rummy it just might happen.

BTW Castro makes me sick, and it is disgusting IMO that he doesn't make all those Hollywood liberals sick too.

Someone I know once said that there are some people who don't deserve to walk the Earth. Castro is probably one of them. Saddam definitely is.

[HDPM]

Well yes, but of course we're not being consistent. The cuba straegy has degenerated into waiting for castro to die, since cuba just doesn't matter much to us any more.

[KJS]

Because S.Florida would have to absorb all the folks trying to get the hell out during any intervention.

KJS

[andyfox]

Of course we did try to take him out, with a keystone cops invasion and then with some three stooges inspired assassination attempts. It just doesn't matter much to us anymore because doing something about the fact that people are suffering is not really a policy for us unless, as Dick Cheney put it in his speech on Thursday, "it's a good investment."

BTW, at the National Archives in Washington, they have on display a letter written by six year old Fidel Castro in fair to poor English to Franklin Roosevelt, asking him to send him $5 because he had never seen real American money and because he (Castro) has so much respect for FDR. Maybe we should have sent him the five bucks.

[MMMMMM]

The reason it isn't a policy for us to do something automatically when people around the world are suffering is because doing so is very expensive (and sometimes dangerous). Thus when we act on such matters it is usually when it is also in our interest. We don't have unlimited resources, obviously.

Got any better ideas?

[nicky g]

"Castro should be taken out sooner or later. He hasn't elevated state-sponsored torture to quite the art form that Saddam did, and he hasn't executed as many. "

This is the understatement of the year. There is no comparison whatsoever. I doubt of Castor has been responsible for 1/100 of the deaths or imprisonments Saddam was, and far far far less than many US allies and proxy states in Latin America during the cold war, or for that matter the US-sponsored dictator he rightly overthrew. Castro should have gone a long long time ago but he is not in Saddam's league, even remotely, and it's absurd that the US keeps its boycott of Cuba running when it's willing to deal with the likes of China, Saudi, and Uzbekistan.

[adios]

Also, like it or not Castro, does have a legitimate claim to power in Cuba while IMO Hussein did not.

[MMMMMM]

I'm not clear on just how Cuba's political system is set up or was set up originally. Was Castro elected originally? And does he shoot or imprison those who call for free elections today?

[adios]

No he wasn't elected but he led a revolution to over throw another dictator. The Castro led revolution had wide based support among Cuban citizens.

[brad]

afaik both saddam and castro were put into power by cia/US, but true castros revolution was popular.

[HDPM]

Doesn't matter if the revolution was somewhat "popular." No communist has any rightful claim on any power whatsoever. That does not mean the prior government was legitimate, it just means Castro has no moral right to continue in power. No dictatorship or communist government should be allowed to exist. I don't care if 99% of the population wants it. The 1% of the people who wish to live as humans have the right to do so regardless of what some idiotic majority wants. And you can't live as a human being in a communist regime.

[andyfox]

You're right, it's very dangerous and expensive when we invade. But there are plenty of things we can and have done to help other people in need. Certainly our policy in Cuba, as HDPM pointed out, is to wait for Castro to die. And certainly, as Ray says, this is because it's not an economically important place to us. This is why the embargo has been in place for so long and why our policy towards Cuba, which chased Castro into the Soviet orbit, has not changed in forty years. Compare this with how our policy towards Hussein changed over time.

[Ray Zee]

hdpm,, this is one of the most important things ever said. thanks.

[Ray Zee]

if i remember right, castro gained support from many cubans and overthrew battista. he was a cruel dictator who with the blessing and support of the u.s.a. let our big corportations and casinos into cuba to help transfer its limited wealth to the north.
castro was much better and actually did many things to help his people. he was just misguided by the communist doctrine and went too far.
the embargo is mostly because the cubans in miami have alot of voting juice and keep it in effect. no other reason.