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China is really no longer a true communist nation; it is more a market-socialist economy run by the Communist party.

All this really means is that the Communists have adapted to augment their income with trade from the west ... so they can continue indefinitely.

They are still a communist led, one party nation. A totalitarian government.

I believe that our current "engagement" policy with the PRC will prolong their totalitarianism rather than end it. Now they have source for wealth and finance that doesn't run dry and they are using it for ends that will prove dangerous and destructive to our national interest. We should approach them as Reagan did the Soviets IMHO.

Dragon's Fury - Breath of Fire

FRegards.

Do we engage the despot and strengthen his regime, thereby institutionalizing communism? Or do we, as President Bush proposed this week, circumvent Castro and directly engage the Cuban people to foment freedom?

I would assume that this propagandist believes that allowing mail to be sent to and from Cuba as 'engaging the despot'.

Of course China is 1,000 times more sinister and more dangerous than Cuba. Cuba is under embargo because there's a bunch of very noisy hyphenateds in Florida who are still dreaming about intalling their own corrupt regime to replace Castro's.

When was the last time Cuba knocked down one of our spy planes?
When was the last times Cuba held any of our military personnel hostage?
When was the last time Cuba made us apologize to them for knocking down our plane?
When was the last time Cuba dismantled one of our spy planes then reqiired us to have Russia pick up the pieces of that dismantled plane and bring the remains home?
When was the last time Cuba demanded a storage fee for that same downed aircraft and we paid it?
When was the last time Cuba went into the home of one of it's citizens and killed one or more of their children because they had too many, or forced an abortion because the family had reached their quota of children?

If everyone thinks the embargo against Cuba is justified because they are a communist country, and not just because of political lobbying by the anti-castro groups, fine I agree with that but let's embargo ALL the communist countries regardless of political lobbies and corporate interests.

Cuba is 90 miles from the keys. So what? It could be 9000 miles considering the actual threat we have from the cuban military. It is a straw man argument. China has nukes, and Cuba doesn't. Cuba is nothing. That is why it doesn't matter what we do there, but we keep saber rattling.

We could have gotten rid of Castro if we really wanted, but we don't. He is more convenient as a red cape to distract the bulls. Castro has been in power during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II administrations. None of these guys could get him? Please.

Side note. The Miami Cubans are nuts. They are irrational. They throw hissy fits en masse at the drop of a button, and they have dreams of returning a Batista style government to Cuba.

The reason that Castro was able to seize and keep power is because of the abuses committed by Batista and his followers. Cuba was a country run by the mob. I am so glad that Castro has held on long enough that the original gangsters that fled Cuba are either dead or too old to do much harm when communism falls in Cuba.

There will be a democratic Cuba, and it will piss off the Miami crowd to no end.

If boycotting hasn't weakened him in 40 years, how will engagement strentgthen him? And so what, he's old. None of this crap makes any sense given the "quality" of the other people we deal with. We got left at the dance 42 years ago and we're still mad. Bad basis for policy decisions. When the Soviets faded out, we should have made a move.