L.A. Times Editorial Favors Renewed US-Cuba Relations
HAVANA TIMES — The Cuba embargo, imposed over a half century ago, “has inflicted suffering on the Cuban people for generations and yet has notably failed to achieve its goal of ousting the Castros. It’s time to lift it,” states an editorial from Los Angeles Times on Sunday.
The influential daily noted that the nuclear conflict (the Cuban Missile Crisis) took place many decades ago and points to recent opinion polls showing that 60% of the US population favors normalizing relations.
A shift in policy is even supported by a majority of both Cuban-Americans and Latinos in Florida, said the editorial.
While noting that there are “real issues” to address including the continuing imprisonment of US citizen Alan Gross and human rights on the island, the Times stressed, “But there are sound political and economic reasons to support normalization.”
The daily further stated that the rift with Cuba puts the United States “at odds with many of our hemispheric allies and perpetuates the image of the US as an overbearing neighbor.”
It could also be argued that things started changing in the Soviet Union after the nuclear arms agreements were signed and after Reagan realised how counter-productive his Armageddon rhetoric was and started dealing with the Soviets on the basis of engagement and detente. But do you really think that forcing Cuba to collapse would have been a good thing? Russia fell into ten years of economic decline and was taken over by organized crime, prostitution and street violence. Yugoslavia collapsed into ethnic conflict and murder. Is that what you have planned for Cuba.
You are ignorant of the lessons of history.
As reported by Soviet dissidents after the fall of the USSR & their East Bloc satellite, detente was a bitter disappointment to them because it treated the inhuman Communist regimes as if they were legitimate governments instead of the criminals they were.
It was not detente that brought down the USSR: it was Ronald Reagan’s determination to counter the Soviet Union on every front. By fighting back against Soviet intrigue around the world, and by ramping up the arms race including Star Wars, Reagan bankrupted the USSR and brought about it’s collapse. Reagan was helped in another area by the wisdom of Pope John-Paul II who provided moral support to the Solidarity union in Poland. That’s what brought about the end of the Eastern European dictatorships, not detente and engagement.
Had Europe & Canada stuck to principles during the 1990’s instead of helping to bail out the Castro’s with tourism and nickel mining, Cuba would have been rid of their odious regime long ago.
At every crisis, the Castros seem to find a sucker willing to help them maintain their grip on power over the Cuban people. First the Soviet Union, then European & Canadian tourists, and then Hugo Chavez with cheap oil. And now, even the US is helping them by allowing billions in remittances to flow back to Cuba, into the pockets of the regime.
I appears to me that those who wish to maintain the embargo as a means of promoting democracy have forgotten the lessons of the detente policy in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s
Meanwhile in Venezuela, the people have had enough of Cuban interference in their country:
Photo of the Day – Venezuela: Cubanos go home!
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3ZmZEQvgac8/Uv9Ztla_kMI/AAAAAAAADDI/HoTcDX-m5FU/s1600/cubanosgohome.jpg
Given the recent editorials in the Washington Post and the New York Times as well, it is clear that the visibility of Cuban-related matters has risen in the public eye. This is ultimately a positive sign. This increased awareness of US policy will give Cuban democracy-fighters a platform to make their struggle better known. The Castro propaganda machine will open the door. However, the truth about Cuba and its lack of freedom and democracy will ultimately be what comes marching forward. Once more Americans hear about what life is really like in Cuba, more pressure will likely come to bear on the Castros to make real changes.
We can clearly see the Castro regime is putting a strong push on getting the embargo lifted lately. The Atlantic Council survey, with it’s widely criticized biases designed to elicit a given result is the keystone of this recent effort.
A common argument in op-eds like the one in the LA Times is that the embargo is out of date, but things have changed in Cuba. In fact, when we look at the reality, nothing has changed in Cuba. The same Communist dictatorship rules with the same brutality and lack of human rights as it has for 55 years.
What has changed is the perception in the US where there is a fatigue in caring about democracy and freedom in Cuba. If anything was revealed by the Atlantic Council survey, it is that a growing number of Americans don’t give a fig for democracy and freedom in Cuba, they just want to travel there, buy Cuban cigars and make a buck. The Cuban people be damned.