Candidate Barack Obama said that, as president, he would talk to anti-American dictators without precondition. He didn’t mention that he would also give them historic policy concessions without precondition.
His surprise unilateral change in the U.S. posture toward the Castro dictatorship came without even the pretense of serious promises by the Cubans to reform their kleptocratic, totalitarian rule.
The trade of Alan Gross, the American aid worker jailed in Cuba for the offense of trying to help Jewish Cubans get on the Internet, for three Cuban spies is understandable (we also got back one of our spies, and Cuba released several dozen political prisoners as a sweetener).
The rest of Obama’s sweeping revisions — diplomatic relations and the loosening of every economic sanction he can plausibly change on his own — are freely granted, no questions asked. It is quid with no pro quo.
After waiting out ten other U.S. presidents, the Castro regime finally hit the jackpot in Obama, whose beliefs about our Cuba policy probably don’t differ much from those of the average black-turtleneck-clad graduate student in Latin American studies.
Every dictator around the world must be waiting anxiously for a call or a postcard from Obama. The leader of the free world comes bearing gifts and understanding. He is willing to overlook human-rights abuses. And his idea of burnishing his legacy is to clinch deals with his country’s enemies.
Who helped negotiate the one with Cuba? Harry Truman had Dean Acheson. Richard Nixon had Henry Kissinger. Barack Obama has Ben Rhodes, the deputy national-security adviser who has what it takes to collapse U.S. policy toward Cuba and get nothing in return.
There is no doubt that economic sanctions are a blunt and dubious instrument, and reasonable people can disagree about their wisdom (I’ve gone back and forth about the Cuban embargo through the years). But dictatorial regimes hate them for a reason. All things considered, they want more economic wherewithal rather than less.
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8 comments:
All Obama did is bail the Casto's out. Of course we shouldn't expect the "stupid" Obama voter to understand any of this. They are intellectually inferiour.
I thought thats what dictators do? Help each other out? A one man world policy maker, defiant to ALL who oppose him. Thats the definition of a Dictator.
i know. and the embargo was working so well. Another 35 to 40 years and they would have caved in.
Who cares if the embargo was working or not, 6:37. This will end up like China. More jobs leaving the US shores and given to people who are forced to work their fingers to the bone for peanuts so the Castro's can continue to live like the billionaires they are on the backs of their Cuban slaves.
You are okay with that?
It's a bailout for Castro nothing more nothing less and don't you ever forget it 6:37.
We all know tupac and biggie ain't dead! Bring their tax evading asses home with her!
Obama gave away the US's only bargaining chip and got nothing in return.
NOTHING in return? Just wait until all the Democrat voters from Cuba flood into the US.
Cuba won't let them go. They are going to need the slave labor when US companies move there 3:46.
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