Posted on 05/24/2003 9:52:29 PM PDT by Luis Gonzalez
In the 1980s, while employed by a major U.S. air carrier, I took advantage of my access to worldwide travel and visited many unique locations. Among the locations off the beaten path I visited were Eastern Europe and the island of Cuba. At the time, both were under control of the slowly crumbling Soviet Union.
In Eastern Europe, I traveled to Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. I found the people very friendly and welcoming - in spite of the "U.S. military buildup" that President Reagan had overseen since his election in 1980. I also found CNN in my hotel rooms. Reagan had lifted the ban on travel to these countries, and the number of Americans traveling there and establishing bonds with the people was growing every year.
I came home to my hotel one afternoon and found the maid with her three children in my room watching CNN as she cleaned the room! They were very curious about life in the United States and our way of life. By the end of my stay, we'd become well acquainted and I left them with some of my American clothes.
The night the Berlin Wall fell, I watched it in awe from home as did many Americans. Though many claimed that it was the Reagan military buildup that had led to that historic moment, I believe that his relaxing the rules of travel to Eastern Bloc countries was just as significant. I also credit CNN with helping educate those living under Communist oppression that our way of life was so much better than what they were experiencing.
I also visited the island of Cuba with two friends in 1988. Though we were only 90 miles from the United States, we felt that we'd gone back in time to a strange place. Yes, the cars were old '50s vintage Chevys and Fords, and the people were somewhat friendly, they lacked the warmth and curiosity that those in Eastern Europe had shown. I guess it's because we were an oddity - tourists from a hostile country which bans travel and commerce with their nation.
There was no CNN in our hotel. People we spoke with had no idea of life in the United States except for baseball. They believed that we were this powerful nation that would not help them in any way, so their only choice was Castro and his Soviet sponsors.
Fifteen years later, little has changed. Sure there was Elian Gonzales and his crazy Miami relatives who grabbed headlines trying to keep him from his father, but that only inflamed relations between our countries. Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998, but his arrival and visit was trumped off the U.S. newspapers and television news shows by the breaking of the Lewinsky saga, so the Holy Father's trip went unnoticed.
For more than 40 years, Fidel Castro has ruled the island nation after a revolution against the corrupt Baptista regime. He is now facing his 10th U.S. president and remains strong as ever. Lately, Castro has done some foolish things, and how does our government respond? By hardening its stand against him, which only continues to hurt his people. Expelling Cuban diplomats from the United States. Basically, doing all the things that have failed for more than 40 years.
In April 2000 when he was still a retired general and doing the speaker's circuit, I had the opportunity and honor to be a presenter at a corporate conference where Colin Powell was to be the keynote speaker. Privately off stage, then later in the general session, I asked his thoughts on Cuba. He responded that our policies had failed for four decades and we should take a new approach in the new century.
I wish he could convince his boss of that. Unfortunately I fear that President Bush - mindful of his close call in Florida in the 2000 election -- is playing to the banana Republicans along 8th street in Miami: the Cuban immigrant population. He had hardened his stand and our policy, just as trade agreements were being put in place between our countries.
If he were to issue an executive order striking down the ban on personal travel to Cuba, the Castro regime would fall within months. With thousands of friendly American tourists descending on the island, its inhabitants would come to know us as the kindly, good natured people that we are. They could learn from us of about our way of life, and begin to yearn for the same - without having to navigate a rickety raft through shark infested waters. CNN may even make it to hotel TV sets.
My mother always said you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. I believe the way to catch the Cuban people and to make them our friends and long for our way of life is to have them experience our personal sweetness, not be embittered by our angry antagonistic attitude towards one man that negatively impacts a country of 8 million.
Paul LeBon, author of "Escape from Voicemail Hell," is a Highland Village-based freelance columnist. Contact him at plebon@attbi.com.
BTW, Luis, don't expect the Cuban people to rise up against Fidel. It isn't worth the slaughter the old ghoul would inflict in his final madness before plummeting into Hell.
The second thing is the fact that the overwhelming majority of jailed dissidents are also black.
Castro's Cuba discriminates against blacks, it always has.
Elian was a gift from God at Thanksgiving.
Clinton and Reno perpetrated an evil act when they sent that kid back to the prison island.
Only when Castro is dead will freedom and tourists return to Cuba.
I am a strong proponent of treating Cubans the same way we treat Haitians.
The moment that we invade Cuba, overthrow the ruling dictator, and set-up a democratic government, just like we did in Haiti, I will tell all those Cubans complaining about the difference in the treatemt of the two countries to pipe down.
:0)
If this is what you call a successful policy one can only wonder what an unsuccessful policy would be.
Sometimes it almost seems like those that claim they hate Castro most almost want to keep him there for some stupid reason.
If getting rid of Castro isn't the primary goal, what is?
How many would return to Cuba if Castro were to fall and Cuba were to become free? What would you personally do?
The U.S. is not, normally speaking, in the business of overtly overthrowing foreign governments unless the actions of those governments run contrary to either U.S. security, or U.S. interests. Cuba has on three different ocassions done just that, under three Democratic administrations: the placement of Soviet nuclear warheads on Cuban soil, the Mariel boatlift, and the 1994 boatlift. Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton.
Castro obviously knew better than to pick fights with the Republican Party because of its strong ties with the Cuban-Americans in the U.S., as any single one of thoise incidents under Reagan, or Bush would elicit an immediate and swift armed response by the Pentagon.
The goal of the U.S. government should always be the protection of U.S. citizens, their interests, and their safety, and as such, I can understand why we have yet to invade Cuba to overthrow Fidel Castro.
I haven't lost sight of the goal at all, as an American, my concerns are for this country first and foremost. As a native of Cuba, I hope and pray that the people in the Island that gave me my passion for freedom, will one day rise and overthrow the shackles that bind them, with help from no outsider who would then lay claim to their hard-won independence.
When I say VIVA CUBA LIBRE!, I mean free from everyone, not just Fidel Castro.
Add up the years, Bill.
I born in Havana and lived in Havana in 1958. However, I'll be 50 next year and I remember just as much of 1958 in Havana as you remember about when you were 4 years old.
One of my uncles landed at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 but the 20-something year old stud of 1961 is pushin' 70 now.
Unfortunately, the "grown ups" that lived in Cuba prior to Castro are in their 70's, in their 80's or already dead.
For those of us Cuban-born that grew up in the U.S., we now have our roots, our childhood memories, our businesses, our law and medical degrees, our CPA licenses, our U.S. military service, our other careers and our American-born kids who have trouble speaking Spanish if they can speak Spanish at all right here in the U.S.A.
For us, even if Cuba is free tomorrow, we will stay home and home is right here. "Los viejos" (the old folks) will be needing assisted living care in the coming years and they're not going to fly off to Cuba and leave the grandkids.
Imagine, Luis, Abuela threatening to get on a plane and move back to Cuba........
"Pues, si. Me voy a montar en el avion para Cuba y vivire en mi casa en el Vedado."
"Oye, Mami. Si vas a estar hablando como una vieja loca, te tendremos que meter en un nursing home igual que hacen los americanos."
Once retirement age comes, yeah, it would be interesting to have a winter retirement home in Cuba. I can't imagine retiring in some snowbird old folks community in Arizona and Miami is getting too crowded and too expensive as are all Big Cities in the U.S.
However, once my generation gets to that age and some of us think of maybe having a retirement home in Cuba, we won't be trying to recreate Havana in 1958.
We will be trying to recreate Miami at that Golden Moment when we were no longer recently arrived Cuban refugees in dire economic straights, after we had worked hard and had started to earn the Big Bucks and before the Central American and South American immigrants flooded into Miami and crashed our private party. ;-)
Less and less every day. The ones who woukd gio back are the last arrivals, maybe. The first to arrive here are for all intents and purposes gone. Buried on foreign soil.
"What would you personally do?"
I won't go back, not to live anyway, my sons were born here, this is their home. My parents perhaps would buy a place there, to visit, spend holdays, and vacation, but they have six American grandchildren that they would never leave permanently.
Leaving the place you call home is difficult. It's hard-breaking to do it twice in one lifetime.
"I wonder if the reason that the U.S. hasn't overthrown Castro is that it could weaken their hand against the Chinese re: Taiwan."
I told you that your post made me think. I hope you don't mind my calling someone whose opinion I respect greatly to "knock this idea around" sort of speak.
Now, I am more concerned than before. Chicom involvement in Cuba would be the perfect chess move to counter American involvement in Taiwan...don't you think?
At this point, I truly think that current US/Chicom commercial ties are the only thing stopping that from happening. Plus the fact that MAYBE, the Chinese fear the drain on their economy.
If this is what you call a successful policy one can only wonder what an unsuccessful policy would be....sakic
The American embargo against Cuba will not topple Fidel, sakic. The rest of the world trades with Castro so it deprives him of nothing that can't be bought on the open market.
The one argument that I have heard in favor of the embargo is that it deprives Castro of the opportunity to forge an unholy alliance with American Big Business.
As it is right now, Castro offers Canadian and European businesses in Cuba workers for $400 U.S. per month. Castro pockets that money and pays the Cuban worker 400 worthless Cuban Pesos a month that are worth about 8 U.S. Dollars. In Cuba, the only stores that are adequately stocked are called "Diplotiendas". They are more expensive than American supermarkets and accept only.....U.S. Dollars.
So, Castro is essentially running a "Rent-A-Serf" opperation down in Cuba.
Castro earns a $392 U.S. profit for every Cuban worker he hires out to a foreign company.
In return, the foreign company will get a good worker that will show up on time (or else), will do a good job (or else), will not be unionized and will require no payment for benefits.
Once Castro's "Rent-A-Serf" business becomes bed partners with American Big Business, the status quo in Cuba will be engraved in granite.
That would be "an unsuccessful policy ".
The bottom line about regimes that are heavilly armed and not squeamish about using those arms against their own people is that such regimes can only be toppled by force of arms.
In Cuba, Phillipines-style People Power will not work. Cotton shirts and machetes are no match for APC's and AK-47's as the Chinese students at Tiennemen Square found out.
In Cuba, the current regime will fall when the Cuban Army decides that it will allow it to fall or when, as in Iraq, some outside military force decides that the Cuban Army will be eliminated.
Any other factor is totally irrelevant to the fall of the Cuban Communist regime.
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