Cuban Embargo: Stupid idea or failed policy?

[Arrian]

You cannot have fee and fair elections if the country next door is trying to destroy you

I'm anti-embargo, and I think our government's actions vis-a-vis Cuba have been despicable. This, however, doesn't fly. It may be harder, I'll grant. But that line is just an excuse for the old dictator to remain in power (or hand it off to his brother). Which, of course, is one of the reasons I'm anti-embargo...

-Arrian

[SlowwHand]

Nothing mandates that one country trade or aid another.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian
I'm anti-embargo, and I think our government's actions vis-a-vis Cuba have been despicable. This, however, doesn't fly. It may be harder, I'll grant. But that line is just an excuse for the old dictator to remain in power (or hand it off to his brother). Which, of course, is one of the reasons I'm anti-embargo...

-Arrian

Well, you are anti-embargo, but the US is not. Perhaps you are not even anti-communism per se, but the US is. So, yes, it's an excuse.

[Arrian]

Not one I find valid. I tend to take a dim view of presidents for life. Even if there are extenuating circumstances. Sorry.

-Arrian

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Nothing mandates that one country trade or aid another.

I think the doctrine of Free Trade does...

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian
Not one I find valid. I tend to take a dim view of presidents for life. Even if there are extenuating circumstances. Sorry.

-Arrian

No need to apologize, but you aren't Cuban. The fact is the Castro is not the enemy. He is the leader of the revolution. The US is the enemy.

[Sprayber]

The embargo has always been there because the US goverment hated Castro for a number of embarassing things. The two goverments need each other to renforce their own selfish ends.

It does amuse me however how some in the US looks to Castro as some romantic figure who only does bad things because the evil US gave him no option. It's about power plain and simple. Those who elevate Castro to some heroic status are doing a great diservice to the Cuban people. Cuba will be better off when the Castro's are gone. They don't have to do the bidding of the US in order to have freedom.

[Kidlicious]

There's no need to elevate him to hero status. He's achieved that on his own. Also, he doesn't need any excuses.

[Patroklos]

They fought a revolution. Isn't that enough?

I always thought those 250 odd years worth of elections were superflourous as well.

Communism at any cost

Kid

[Pythagoras]

Embargos and/or sanctions seem morally questionable in general. What seems likely to happen in a despotic regime is that those in power will monopolize the few remaining resources, maintaining their lifestyle at the expense of those at the bottom of the social ladder. Instead of altering the political landscape of the country in general, it seems more likely that you will reinforce those in power, since they now dominate the nations wealth and native resources. Before the enforcement, you had external influences in the form of trade/culture/etc that allowed others to obtain wealth outside of the main despotic line of power and therefore be able to challenge the ruling party.

[Wezil]

I can see this is going nowhere (and I'm not in for that ride today).

Originally posted by Kidicious

There's a difference between opposed to the government and opposed to certain policies of the government. If people in canada were considered opposed to the government just because they opposed cetain policy you might think most of them were opposed to the government as well.

Surely you jest? Can you not see the difference? The political opposition in Canada wastes money in Ottawa. The political opposition in Cuba is removed (one way or another).

They fought a revolution. Isn't that enough? The enemies are still very powerfull. As Castro has stated, "I stay in power because the US tries so hard to remove me"

The war is meant to be continuous...

Call a vote. Ballots not bullets. The sad fact is commies are allergic to ballots but have no problem with bullets...

Good point. There is not much opposition to Cuba, just the hard line capitalists.

You are deliberately obtuse. There are Cuban political refugees around the world and well documented cases of human rights abuse. There is considerable opposition to that regime.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Arrian
I'm anti-embargo, and I think our government's actions vis-a-vis Cuba have been despicable. This, however, doesn't fly. It may be harder, I'll grant. But that line is just an excuse for the old dictator to remain in power (or hand it off to his brother). Which, of course, is one of the reasons I'm anti-embargo...

-Arrian

Do you think it was wrong for FDR to be a president for life?

I think it's easy to try and say Castro just wanted power for himself, but the reality is the U.S. is trying to destroy the revolution in Cuba. You need to place it within the general context of U.S. Latin American relations. Five years before the revolution, the U.S. overthrew the elected government of Guatemala. Since then, 200,000 people have been murdered by their government. Six years after the Cuban revolution, the U.S. invaded and overthrew the elected government of the Dominican Republic. The U.S. had its hands in military coups in: Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and elsewhere. Altogether, maybe as many as half a million people were killed by the actions of our government and their friends in Latin America. That doesn't include torture, imprisonment, and general misery, as well as the wasted lives of people who weren't able to carry through with programs to aid the poor.

The government of Cuba, alone of all the progressive left wing government, survived. Alone, Cuba was the only country in Latin America in the 80s that the U.S. state department reported did not have death squads. This wasn't just a matter of who was in power or the U.S. government acting despicably. This was a matter of survival for tens of thousands of real human beings. Nor have we stopped interfering with the Caribbean and Latin America. The CIA is believed to be behind the 2004 coup in Haiti. There is a lot of evidence that the U.S. was behind the failed coup against Chavez. Our troops have been aiding the military in Columbia, which has the worst current human rights record in Latin America!

Cuba is a society under siege, which faces an existential threat. Most Americans (I'm not saying you) believe that the brutal and murderous Israeli occupation of Palestine is justified. The Cuban government is no where near as violent or viscous as Israel, and the threat it faces isn't Qasam rockets and suicide bombers, but B-52s and the U.S. Marines. It's not an idle threat, either.

[Wezil]

Oh geez. Another one.

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Some Americans are opposed to our government. Embargo us.

I'll send you on the same course wrt freedom as Kid.

The U.S. has political prisoners and millions of economic prisoners, more than any country in the world. Clearly you must embargo us until we are free.

Who? Names of a few please.

Canada accepts political refugees from all over but not from the US (some have tried). I suspect you are playing fast and loose with the definition.

There are more than ten million Mexicans in the U.S. Clearly you must embargo Mexico.

You are playing with the definitions. Economic migrants vs political ones. And no, not all cuban refugees are political but I suspect very, very few of the mexican ones are.

Cuba is a country under siege. Thousands of terrorist attacks have been carried out from the United States, including an invasion. You cannot have fee and fair elections if the country next door is trying to destroy you. The U.S. government spends many millions in many countries in order to interfere with their internal democracies.

See my reply to Kid about the war being continuous. The regimes biggest dangers are from within. The Cuban people will eventually bring an end to this, not the US.

In any event, Cuba is considerably more democratic than you know. Cubans, for example have the right to recall politicians they don't like, and they exercise this power fairly regularly. It may not be multiparty democracy, but the Cuban people have a fair amount of control over their government.

Great. You can have the **** in bag A or the *** in bag B. Nice choice Che.

[Patroklos]

You know, despite Western Europe being between a far more threatening hammer and anvil for the better part 50 years they managed to allow elections just fine.

Commies and their excuses

[chequita guevara]

Perhaps because the USSR never tried to invade Western Europe, whereas the US had not only invaded Cuba several times, but has been allowing its soil to be used to base terrorist attacks for fifty years. Western Europe was far less threatened than you think, and they did far more to political dissidents than you think. The French, military, for example, tried to assassinate Sartre. Being French, they failed.