That frank assessment from Rep. Barbara Lee, D-California, has resonated loud and clear from the island of Cuba -- 90 miles from the southernmost point of Florida -- to the halls of Congress.
For the first time in nearly 50 years, relations between the two nations, which has a history steeped in tension, have seemed to ease a bit.
And that was no more apparent than this week, as a delegation from the Congressional Black Caucus traveled to the communist country on a fact-finding mission, with plans to deliver a report to the White House.
Obama's Editorial Endorsements: including Washington Post, Fidel Castro, Richard Lugar, Chuck Hagel, & more!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-s-Endorsements-The-by-Stephen-Fox-081016-633.html
I hope you take a few moments to share your insights in a comment here and at OpEdNews, which then becomes a vital part of a larger dialogue.
Thanks, Stephen FoxFounder, New Millennium Fine Art Santa Fe NM
Early in the Democratic primaries, Sen. Obama was slammed by Republicans and other members of his party for saying at a debate that he would meet with leaders like Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (watch the video here).
"Keep your friends close but your enemies closer." -- Michael Corleone, The Godfather: Part II
Now, I'm not suggesting Sen. Obama, if elected, nominate a fictional mafia boss as his secretary of state, but there's a lot to be said for following his creed. Heck, it worked in the Cold War when the United States and Soviet Union were in regular contact.
Critics of meeting with leaders of countries with whom the U.S. does not get along contend that such encounters will only embolden our enemies. How? Many of these leaders are not popular with their subjects--except for when they spew anti-American rhetoric (Chavez, being a prime example). Wouldn't a meeting with the U.S. president than undercut the other leader's credibility with his people?
Finally, as for Castro, look at how effective not meeting with him has been. It's clear that a shift in strategy could only help the United States achieve its policy objectives with Cuba.
From: www.blog.bekeh.com
In the last few days, we have witnessed a significant moment in the history of the people of Cuba. Fidel Castro voluntarily resigned as the President of Cuba and his younger brother, Raul Castro was elected by the Cuban National Assembly to replace him. While many people will argue about the significance of this moment given that power is passed from one dictator to the next, I still believe the end of Castro's administration is significant. Fidel Castro for many years carried himself as a demigod. Everyone in the island was his subject and he crushed all forms of opposition. This development in Cuba is significant because Raul Castro is less charismatic than Fidel and he has taken softer positions in recent years. There is no doubt the presence of his brother, Fidel would continue to influence most of the decisions he makes. He has clearly pledged in his acceptance speech that he would continue the revolution and seek Fidel's advice. Raul who is 76 has a short time as President of Cuba compared with the close to fifty years the people of Cuba have been oppressed. It is also early to conclude that Raul would not overturn the policies of the brother and make some history for himself.
The following is the statement made by Barack Obama concerning the resignation of Cuban President Fidel Castro:
Today should mark the end of a dark era in Cuba's history. Fidel Castro's stepping down is an essential first step, but it is sadly insufficient in bringing freedom to Cuba.Cuba's future should be determined by the Cuban people and not by an anti-democratic successor regime. The prompt release of all prisoners of conscience wrongly jailed for standing up for the basic freedoms too long denied to the Cuban people would mark an important break with the past. It's time for these heroes to be released.If the Cuban leadership begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change, the United States must be prepared to begin taking steps to normalize relations and to ease the embargo of the last five decades. The freedom of the Cuban people is a cause that should bring the Americans together.
Today should mark the end of a dark era in Cuba's history. Fidel Castro's stepping down is an essential first step, but it is sadly insufficient in bringing freedom to Cuba.
Cuba's future should be determined by the Cuban people and not by an anti-democratic successor regime. The prompt release of all prisoners of conscience wrongly jailed for standing up for the basic freedoms too long denied to the Cuban people would mark an important break with the past. It's time for these heroes to be released.
If the Cuban leadership begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change, the United States must be prepared to begin taking steps to normalize relations and to ease the embargo of the last five decades. The freedom of the Cuban people is a cause that should bring the Americans together.
Barack Obama has issued the following statement in response to the news that Fidel Castro is stepping down as President of Cuba:
Americans wake up this morning to a New Day, a day without (Fidel) Castro as leader of Cuba. It’s downright revolutionary. I suppose there will be few readers old enough to remember Cuba without Fidel Castro. For those who do remember, it was a Cuba quite different from the Cuba which Americans see from afar today, wasn’t it? Oh, yes, many solid American-built cars built way back when can still be seen on the streets of Havana today thanks to the embargo the US has imposed and enforced on the island.
How did this remarkable event of Castro leaving power come to pass? Did the embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba finally work? Well, unfortunately not. Old age merely took its toll on Fidel and he now goes into what will surely be a short-lived retirement on a tropical island, all without having to leave home.
For those who need a little refresher on just how long Castro held on to power in Cuba, he became its leader back in January of 1959, under the Eisenhower Administration (remember them good ol’ days; I don’t). He ruled Cuba through Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter (yes, it would seem that I know my chronology of US presidents pretty well, but am I forgetting anyone?). Oh, yes, that’s right, then there were the two terms of Reagan, followed by one of Bush I, the Clintons (both of them for 2 terms), and most of Bush II’s sad-to-say two terms, as well. All of that amounts to nearly fifty long years of suffering for the Cuban people above all.
I like these blogs because they make it easy for a person to express his or her opinion and for readers to reply, whether in agreement or disagreement, or totally off the subject if they like. So, please do. I’m at a loss here. Is there anyone out there who can explain what the purpose of the economic embargo on Cuba is? Is it to make Fidel and his cohorts in power suffer personally? If so, I doubt that has been achieved. Is it (now I should say “Was it”) to oust Fidel from power? If that is the rationale for it, is there anyone out there who can tell me with a straight face that it has worked?
Nothing seems to have worked. Even exploding cigars and a whole slew of other clandestine tactics couldn’t do the job. Worse than the other measures taken to provoke regime change in Cuba, I would contend that America’s less-than-legal embargo on Cuba effectively maintained Fidel Castro as Cuba’s dictator rather than dislodged him.
Apart from wide-spread suffering on Cuba itself, one mustn’t underestimate the importance the embargo and hostile US policy toward the island have had on US and world history in the long years it’s been in place. After all, as just one memorable example illustrates, it all came down the Cuban-exile community bitterly wanting to get back at the Clintons and the Democrats for an apparently “soft” policy on Cuba with the Attorney General having ruled that the boy Elian Gonzalez had to be sent back to the island that ensured (if, indeed, the results were what we’ve been told they were) that George W. Bush “won” in Florida, the state on which the whole 2000 election hinged. By then, though, it all should have been a mute point. How could the fate of one little boy have such a huge impact on history? Perhaps it is because America's policies with respect to Cuba were and still are misguided in the first place.
Between the infamous 2000 election and George W. Bush taking the reigns of power in Washington, I was tempted to write a letter as an FOB (that’s “Friend of Bill” if you don’t remember or are too young to) encouraging Clinton to lift the embargo then and there, as by that point, there was nothing left to lose. I wonder if he might have paid any attention to such a letter. Dunno. But, I can imagine he got others along the same lines from other concerned Americans and nothing changed.
The tiny, but enormously influential Cuban-exile community in Miami has held American foreign policy hostage long enough. Fortunately, Barack Obama doesn’t seem to owe it anything, especially as the agreement of ALL of the Democratic candidates was that the votes of Florida’s delegates to the Democratic Convention won’t be counted because Florida (and Michigan, too) violated Democratic Party rules for the 2008 nominee selection process. Also, with Obama’s Movement for Change sweeping America, it’s highly unlikely that the General Election results will all come down to Florida this time around (and, by the time Obama could implement his program for change, he’ll have already taken the oath and given the Inaugural Address anyway – ah, what a glorious day that will be!).
The time to lift the economic embargo on Cuba has come and, in fact, came a long time ago. The embargo has only resulted in deprivation for the vast majority of the Cuban people (the Castros and other high officials of the regime excluded, of course), and the raising of the Cuban people’s ire and that of many peoples throughout Latin America against the US and its policies. If the embargo was ever legal or even if it ever made any sense (both of which I believe is, at best, dubious), it would have been during the Cold War, which supposedly ended nearly twenty years ago.
Barack Obama would seem to understand better than most the folly of the US embargo on Cuba, given his public statements on the issue, as reported by the Washington Post in its article “Obama Calls for Easing Cuba Embargo” on August 21, 2007. Obama may not be in favor of the evidently “radical” concept of lifting the embargo entirely and restoring full diplomatic relations with Cuba as might best enable it to become the free, democratic nation Americans would like to see it become, but he goes farther than any of the other candidates, Republican or Democrat, be they has-beens or in the race now. As the Post article states, “None of the other top presidential candidates have sought to ease the restrictions.” Come to think of it, though, Bill Richardson has also publicly encouraged rethinking on the Cuba question (see his article, “A New Realism”, in the January/February 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs), and, if I recall correctly, Mike Huckabee even talked favorably of easing restrictions (although he has since changed his mind because his previous thoughts on the issue were based on supporting rice growers in his home state of Arkansas, and now that he's on the national stage, such a posture wouldn't be appropriate in the Republican party). Well, it would seem that others have been jumping on Obama’s bandwagon, whatever their motives … and who says we don’t know where Obama stands on the issues?
To lift the embargo on Cuba or at least “ease the restrictions” fits hand-in-glove with Barack Obama’s aim (and the aim of his supporters like me) to rebuild America’s moral standing in the world. Such an action could also amount to wresting a major and all-too-long-running US foreign policy decision from a small special interest group and replacing it with one rooted in common sense and benefiting Americans at-large, the people of Cuba and America’s relations with its Latin American neighbors, in general.
Please, if you have an opinion en favor or en contra of what I am saying here, or otherwise, I would welcome it. Most of all, I desire an answer to the fundamental questions of this issue. What is the purpose of the embargo on Cuba? And, if that purpose was to dislodge Castro’s Communist regime, what evidence is there that the embargo has been effective? And, what are the implications of insisting upon a failed embargo policy for the post-Fidel Cuba and America’s relations with Latin America?
The time to fundamentally change America’s relationship with its island neighbor 90 miles south of Florida has finally come. Better late than never, I suppose.
Go OBAMA ’08!
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Thank you,
Lisa Beyer
Precinct Deputy Captain in Las Vegas Precinct 6475
Why I Support Barack Obama for PresidentMYBO ProfileMYBO BlogMySpaceMySpace BlogFacebookLinkedIn ProfileSouthern Nevada for Obama TestimonialSouthern Nevada for Obama - A Grassroots Campaign Effort
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