Macker tells us that Elian Gonzalez joins Cuba’s Young Communists
The Clinton administration sealed Elian’s fate as property of the Cuban Communist state the moment they sent him back to Cuba. Children in Cuba belong to the state. Period.
Alek Boyd has been visiting Cuba and believes that the US should lift the embargo:
Remove the embargo-rug under Castro’s feet, and Cubans will start thinking “hang on a minute, how come we’ve suffered this tremendous ordeal owing to the embargo, and it turns that it has been lifted and yet we continue living in hell?” The current restlessness is likely to expand like wild fire.
Alek proposes,
The US has an historic opportunity now: call upon Raul to negotiate an end to the embargo, whereby sanctions will be lifted provided a set of conditions — such as freeing all 300+ political prisoners, make recently signed civil and political rights treaties into law*, allow for free and transparent elections to take place, lift travel bans, etc.– are met.
I’m cool with that.
The outcome may be predictable
The Cuban regime, still ruled by Fidelistas, is likely to refuse.
But that may depend on a large number of other variables, such as, would China try to influence the Cuban regime’s decision?
Here is where Alek and I disagree:
The US should lift the embargo nonetheless,making a lot of noise about it, for it stands to regain lost leverage, respect and credibility, putting its many critics to shame.
I don’t see how the US will gain credibility by lifting the embargo unconditionally.
Alek may get his wish, however. Erick Holder, who is in Barack Obama’s vice-presidential candidate selection team was the Deputy Attorney General who insisted on seizing Elian without a court order:
Napolitano: Tell me, Mr. Holder, why did you not get a court order authorizing you to go in and get the boy?
Holder: Because we didn’t need a court order. INS can do this on its own.
Napolitano: You know that a court order would have given you the cloak of respectability to have seized the boy.
Holder: We didn’t need an order.
Napolitano: Then why did you ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for such an order if you didn’t need one?
Holder: [Silence]
Napolitano: The fact is, for the first time in history you have taken a child from his residence at gunpoint to enforce your custody position, even though you did not have an order authorizing it.
Of course, Holder sustains that Elian was not taken away at gunpoint, too. Tom Blumer wants to know,
Someone should ask Barack Obama if he is at all bothered by Mr. Holder’s inability to even recognize when someone is being taken at gunpoint, and how, among all the possible vice-presidential selection committee candidates out there, Mr. Holder was still deemed so deserving. Don’t expect that question any time soon.
The Obama team would surely consider that kind of question “a distraction.” Of course, as Castro’s Boy Pawn
Just for the record Fausta: Cubans inside Cuba are the ones picking up the tab. This is an issue where those suffering the consequences of the embargo have to have their say. As stated in my post, it makes no sense whatsoever to keep an embargo when cash-only trade between Cuba and the US is increasing, when most of the foodstuff consumed in Cuba comes from the US.
The US will indeed regain credibility by lifting the embargo unconditionally, for it has no means of forcing anything on Raul, and like it or not regular folks in Cuba have been victimized by the Castros because of it. I am not saying that Castro wouldn’t have had, had the embargo not been imposed, I am simply pointing at the obvious: if you take it away, what excuse will Raul give to Cubans?
My wish is that politicos start acting pragmatically. Pandering to a bunch of expats for electoral reasons is extremely unfair on Cubans inside Cuba. They should be asked; people may learn a thing or two by actually going there and seeing what’s happened.
At the same time, Cuba has traded with the rest of the world, with neither riches nor liberties accruing to the average Cuban. The hotel in Cuba with a European partner/owner pays the Cuban government dollars for its Cuban employees. The Cuban government pockets the lion’s share of the dollars, and pays the Cuban employee a pittance in pesos.
For those who are interested in learning about what a half century of Castro’s rule has done to Cuba, I strongly suggest they read Renaissance and Decay.
I find it ironic that a half century ago, Fidel claimed that the cause for the backwardness of the Cuban economy was the great involvement of the US in the Cuban economy. Today, Fidel and his stooges claim that it is the LACK of involvement of the US in the Cuban economy that is holding Cuba back.
In 1960, Cuba’s life expectancy was 8 years ahead of Latin America (64 versus 56)> Today, Cuba’s life expectancy is 5 years ahead of Latin America ( 78 versus 73).
For those living in comfort who put down the Cubans in Miami, I strongly suggest that they live in a totalitarian state before they further criticize the Cubans in Miami. BTW, I am Anglo.
Here is a photo of Elian with a picture of Che.
OTOH, I would love to go to Cuba and recite Renaissance and Decay from the sidewalk.