Bush coddles Castro, betrays liberty

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Meldor, et al.


The President of the USA has gone on national television and said that one of the (implied main, major) reasons for the war was the liberation of the Iraqi people.

That’s the WhiteHouse position. Believe it, don’t believe it. I don’t really care. That’s the White House position.

And BECAUSE that is the official position, it is disingenuous in the EXTREME to send Americans to fight and die for Iraqi liberty, but to send oppressed Cubans back to their homeland.

This suggests then, that the official White House position is….bull****e.

As you indicate the premise for invasion for liberation puts the US in a delicate position. Failing finding WoMD which prior to invasion was the most cited reasons for military action. Rumsfeld made it perfectly clear in his list of objecties that finding WoMD was paramount and that failure to abide by UN resolutions were the primary reasons and that liberation was almost a side objective.

The fact that the message has now become one of liberating Iraqi's is a very questionable one and wasn't what was originally portrayed as the message was one revolving around security to the US and not human rights policing.

Regardless if you beleive the original message and beleive teh intentions were to either eliminate ability for terrorists to aquire WoMD or moreover send a message to the local governements that the US will take action then the two actions (war and refusal to take illegals) are not in direct opposition to each other.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Og, I would agree with that statement in general, except that we have always made a special case for people fleeing from oppressive regiemes.

Not jews fleeing from Nazi germany, or people fleeing from right-wong dictatorships in Central and South America, or people fleeing communist dictators in China..but besides the yeah, everyone.

Given the Shrub's new, tougher stance, and the fact that he's put dictators "on notice" around the globe, and that he has used the "liberation" card in Iraq, it only paints him to be that much more of a phony when he ships other oppressed folks back home.

He put the "azxis of evil" on notice. You seem to forget the acrtobatics this admin. went thorugh pointing out why Iraq was a special case, and that war in Iraq did not mean war anywhere else.

And let's face it, we like ingenuity in this country. Anybody who can take a beat up Chevy truck and make a working boat out of it deserves to stay!

Nope, it does not.

And the fact that they got kicked to the curb only underscores the lie that the Bush administration really ISN"T in it to liberate anybody....unless it coincides with something else they want.

The only things I agree with,

GePap....why does that not surprise me?

Becuase you need to be reminded of the facts every so often?

[Ned]

If Castro is so popular in Cuba, presumably he would have no fear of elections. This is the primary demand the US today has regarding normalization. I also presume normalization will have to depend upon compensation for confiscated US property. However, if the Cuban regime truly became democratic, undoubtedly, the US would provide significant economic aid to undo the damage of 45 years of Castro.

[Velociryx]

Yep....that's just exactly it....and we all know that GePap is the keeper of all those impossibly complex facts...

Og: I agree with you on that....the White House initially played the liberation aspect down, but having come up empty handed in the search for weapons and such, they switch-hit and used liberation as the trump card.

Now, if they meant it (which of course, we all know they don't), then in this new era of boldly sending Americans to fight and die for the liberation of other countries, then it would be perfectly in keeping with that new mindset and admin. policy to let the Cubans come.

But of course, that's not what happened, and it underscores the point.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Oh...GePap...I didn't realize that China was a member of the Axis of Evil.

Nor Afghanistan, for that matter.

Perhaps they missed that fact....send them a memo and remind them, will you?

-=Vel=-

[Ramo]

Shrub's actions are wrong in this case, just as they are wrong when immigration authorities turn back people from places like Haiti or the Dominican Republic or Jamaica. Immigration barriers are unjustifiable assaults on fundamental human rights, and ought to be abolished.

It's important to note that outside of dealing with Cubans, our asylum policy is absolutely awful. Not only do we tend to outright dismiss asylum applicants during genuine humanitarian crises (i.e. Haitian immigrants in '91), we tend to subject them to detention for long periods of time - years even - while the INS bureaucracy sorts everything out (and for 33 countries, this detention is automatically mandated by the Justice Dept.).

[Dom Pedro II]

GePap,

So you're saying that this sort of stuff doesn't happen elsewhere in Latin America?

That Brazil is this barbarian society while Cuba on the other hand is the wonderland of honesty and integrity? A Shangri La of the Caribbean??

Please, if those people were poor enough to flee for economic reasons, then they're poor enough to be killed without anyone knowing or caring...

Can you prove to me that they are alive and well? I doubt it... nor can I prove that they've been shot.

But not a single word you've said should lead me to believe that things are ANY different in Cuba than they are in Brazil.

It wasn't policy to do what was done people who were arrested.

And trust me, if these sort of things happened in Cuba before the Revolution... and after the Revolution... and ten years after the Revolution... you can be sure that even if it isn't official policy, it is STILL going on there.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
If Castro is so popular in Cuba, presumably he would have no fear of elections.

They have elections. You just have to be a Communist to stand in them about the local level and no one bothers to run against Castro because it would just be a waste of time. Castro's just gonna win.

Dom Pedro, you talk about Brazil being a democracy in the 1970s. That's not true. Between 1965 and 1985, it was a military dictatorship. There was no democracy. Brazil wasn't the worst country in the Southern cone, but it sure tried.

There is a world of difference between the military dictaorships sponsored by the US in Latin America and the political dictatorship of Cuba. No one except rabid anti-Castroists accuses Cuba of having death squads, at least not since 1959, when about 500 murderers and torturers got their just rewards. The death penalty is rarely applied in Cuba, and only in very special circumstances, like when a general was caught smuggling drugs through Cuba into the US. Even the U.S. State Department under Reagan didn't claim Cuba was killing its own people. Nor do the claim it today.

South of Canada, there is only one country that hasn't had death squad activity since the 1950s, and that Cuba. Even the U.S. had death squads in the 70s and 80s, though in the 70s it was only in the Indian resverations, and in the 80s it was only in Puerto Rico. There were reports that Guatemala and El Salvador sent death squads to Los Angeles in the 80s to get political refugees, and we know Pinochet sent a death squad to kill the former Chilean ambassador in Washington, D.C. in 1976.

[Dom Pedro II]

Look at the thousands killed under Pinochet.... Columbia... Haiti... Dominican Republic... Central America...

If you don't think people were dying around you in Panama, it was probably because you weren't looking. Or maybe Panama was lucky. I don't know.

But what I do know is that very few (if any) Latin American countries can claim that they have only a moderately corrupt military or police force.

I see no reason to see Cuba as different.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
It wasn't policy to do what was done people who were arrested.

Actually it was.

[Dom Pedro II]

Chegitz, I garbled a few things in that...


Yes, the military dictatorship came to power in 1964, and it did not return to a democracy until after we had left in 1985... we left just as the transition was being made.

But the anonymous killings by police continue under the democracy.

And even in the 1970s, we didn't elect the President, but we did elect Senators and representatives to our Congress. We did elect local representatives, which is much more than you can say for Cuba.

[Dom Pedro II]

Actually it was.

Condoned, yes. But official policy, no.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
If you don't think people were dying around you in Panama, it was probably because you weren't looking. Or maybe Panama was lucky. I don't know..

Neither Trujillo nor Noreiga was much into killing their opponents. They would, however, get beaten, possibly tortured, have their lives disrupted. Occassionally people would be killed. Remember, 90% of the population lived in the Canal Zone, under U.S. administration. That couldn't act too outrageously. It's one thing to murder all leftists and those who associate with them in Argentina or Uruguay and Brazil with the CIA looking over their shoulder and telling them how its done. It's another thing altogether to do it where the U.S. is legally in charge (not that the media would have paid much attention).

[Ned]

You know, Che, if Castro really wanted to normalize relations with the US, all he would have to do is set Cuba free. Is this asking too much, given, as you say, the fact that Castro would be elected in a free, multi-party election?

[Dom Pedro II]

I'm not talking about slaughtering dissidents...


What I'm talking about is what happens to people when they are taken into custody... the top leaders don't order it, but sh*t happens... people get hurt. Killed sometimes.