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Cuba Libre’?
Townhall.com ^ | December 18, 2014 | D.W. Wilbur

Posted on 12/18/2014 8:48:15 AM PST by Kaslin

So who benefits the most from this new ‘relationship’ between the United States and Cuba? Aficionados’ will soon be able to smoke fine Cuban cigars without having to smuggle them into the U.S., but beyond that what exactly has the U.S. gained by Barack Obama’s diplomatic overture towards the brutal communist dictatorship in Havana?

The Caribbean island has been locked in the 1950’s for decades as the rest of the world moved into the twenty-first century. But while trapped in the past Cuba has certainly been involved over the years in current events, and usually not in a particularly positive way.

Cuban DGI intelligence officers provided assistance to the North Vietnamese in conducting interrogations of American POW’s during the Vietnam War. Interrogations that were far more brutal than the EIT’s used by the CIA to interrogate captured al Qaeda terrorists.

The island nation has served as a proxy for the former Soviet Union at hotspots around the world, confronting and sabotaging American interests in Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere. Cuba has been a willing partner in any endeavor to undermine American influence wherever that may be.

There will certainly be some positive results beyond access for Americans to good cigars and salsa, including an opportunity to open Cuban markets to American businesses. The release of American hostage Alan Gross, a victim of the brutal and repressive Cuban regime who was being held by Cuba on trumped up charges is a positive step, and all Americans join his family in welcoming him home.

Will Cuba moderate their long history of anti-American rhetoric in Central and South America? Will they end the decades of torture and imprisonment of Cuban citizens for doing nothing more than yearning for the freedom taken for granted just ninety miles away in the United States? Seems unlikely under the Castro leadership.

In the long term this decision could bode well for both countries. Barack Obama gets to poke a finger in the eye of Vladimir Putin in return for Putin’s adventurism in the Western Hemisphere, something the president must be savoring. And American influence with our neighbors in Central and South America may be improved without Cuba undercutting our arguments for freedom and free markets at every turn.

Time will tell whether this will be viewed as Barack Obama’s one successful move on the foreign policy front during his presidency, or just another miscalculation on the part of his national security team by releasing three nasty Cuban DGI agents, who may go right back to work for Cuba exporting revolution uninhibited in our own back yard.


TOPICS: Cuba; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: 0bamaspitehouse; barack0bama; castrobrothers; cuba; fidelcastro; marcorubio; nicaragua; venezuela
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1 posted on 12/18/2014 8:48:15 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Bottom line of the article: It could go either way.


2 posted on 12/18/2014 8:51:42 AM PST by Paladin2
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To: Kaslin

Clown Prince nobama continues his brilliant foreign policy of loving our enemies and damning our friends. What a clown.


3 posted on 12/18/2014 8:51:44 AM PST by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: Kaslin
They have their Castro Brothers, we have ours'.

And there's a greater than zero chance, one of them could be in the White House.

4 posted on 12/18/2014 8:53:37 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: Kaslin

Problem is that it’s really difficult to justify our historical policy towards Cuba when we were perfectly willing to have normal relations with China, USSR, etc.


5 posted on 12/18/2014 9:01:41 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: dfwgator

Hate to sound like a dummy, but who are the two guys in the photo?


6 posted on 12/18/2014 9:07:31 AM PST by holyscroller ( Without God, America is one nation under)
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To: Sherman Logan

As long as the Castros live, we should do no business with Cuba.


7 posted on 12/18/2014 9:07:40 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (Rip it out by the roots.)
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To: hal ogen
OBAMA EMBRACE THE CUBAN GENOCIDE REGIME

Obama and Raúl Castro thank pope for breakthrough in US-Cuba relations.

Pope Francis, before visiting The Holy Land boasted to be himself the “Che” of the Palestinian people.

A Marxist leaning Pope blessed the Marxist American president embrace of Castro's genocide communist regime condemning the Cuban enslaved people to eternal damnation. On the deal Castro liberated an American illegally imprisoned in Cuba in exchange for the freedom of three Cuban spies serving prison terms in U.S. and the normalization of relations with a country that occupied for decades a top position in the list of the State Department ‘s terrorist countries.

The Cuban regime tried to obliterate New York and Washington with a nuclear attack during the October Missile Crisis of 1962. “In November 1962, the Castro brothers’ and Che Guevara’s agents had targeted Macy’s, Gimbels, Bloomingdales, and Manhattan’s Grand Central Station with a dozen incendiary devices and 500 kilos of TNT. The Holocaust was set for detonation the following week, on the day after Thanksgiving.” (Humberto Fontova)

Castro has been a strong ally of Islamic terrorism. Cuba continues to serve as a base for coordination and mutual support among transnational terrorist organizations. At Tehran University he stated to the thunderous applause of students and faculty, "The imperialist king will finally fall,” (AFP, May 10, 2001). Immediately afterward the Iranian Press Service proudly proclaimed that "Iran and Cuba reached the conclusion that together they can tear down the United States.” (IPS, May 10, 2001).

According to World renown and highly respected American investigative journalist and author, Claire Sterling, : “All of the world’s emerging terrorist bands in the 1970’s were indebted to the Cubans and their Russian patrons for that honeycomb of camps around Havana. None could have started without rudimentary training, and those who didn’t train in Cuba were trained by others who did.” (“The Terror Network, The Secret War on International Terrorism.”)

As reported by Sterling, “Castro was training the advance guards of the coming European fright decade – Palestinians, Italians, Germans, French, Spanish Basques – and forming guerrilla nuclei in practically every Western hemisphere state south of the American border. As far back as 1962, Castro’s camps were taking in 1,500 Latin American guerrillas a year. . ‘Any revolutionary movement anywhere in the world can count on Cuba’s unconditional support,’ declared Castro at the 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Havana”. It was then and there that the international terrorism network was consolidated under Castro’s leadership.”

It is suicidal turning a blind eye to Castro, a deadly enemy at 90 miles south of Key West that does not hide his hatred for U.S.

After the restoration of diplomatic relations comes the end of the embargo.

To complete Obama’s betrayal of the American people, with the normalization of relations comes the opening to Cuba of the American and International bank credits that will sustain the Cuban regimen passing to the American taxpayers the same heavy burden that helped to bankrupt the Soviet Union.

When The FBI Tracked Terror-Suspects—Literally!

Humberto Fontova | May 10, 2013

http://townhall.com/columnists/humbertofontova/2013/05/10/when-the-fbi-tracked-terrorsuspectsliterally-n1592705

8 posted on 12/18/2014 9:07:58 AM PST by Dqban22 (Hpo<p> http://i.imgur.com/26RbAPx.jpg)
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To: dfwgator

BOTH are ‘Greater than Zero’.............


9 posted on 12/18/2014 9:08:50 AM PST by Red Badger (If you compromise with evil, you just get more evil..........................)
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To: Kaslin

Who benefits?

The Communist Party of Cuba’s elite, and the revolutionary movements they sponsor in Latin America.

The drop in oil prices is hitting Venezuela harder than almost anywhere else, and they have been subsidizing the Cuban regime. The Cuban communist regime needed an emergency bailout to avoid collapsing like the Soviet Union.

Since Raul took over, they have been restructuring to be like China - about a dozen generals are taking ownership of the State industries, so they will be the billionaire oligarch politburo members after the Castros die.

There will be no human rights or democracy, and the regime will be resourced to spread dictatorship in Latin America, and operate their spy rings in the USA.


10 posted on 12/18/2014 9:09:04 AM PST by BeauBo
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To: holyscroller

Julian and Joaquin Castro, Julian is the former mayor of San Antonio, and current HUD Secretary, and there’s a good chance he’ll run for POTUS in 2016.


11 posted on 12/18/2014 9:09:06 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: dfwgator

He will be the defender of benghazi’s VP candidate


12 posted on 12/18/2014 9:10:03 AM PST by morphing libertarian (Defund , sue, impeach. Overturn Obamacare, amnesty.)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

Possibly. Can you explain why, when we were perfectly happy to do business with Stalin and Mao?


13 posted on 12/18/2014 9:16:07 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: holyscroller

I think they’re film producers and if memory serves me right they’re kind of down on conservatives.


14 posted on 12/18/2014 9:16:43 AM PST by jmacusa (Liberalism defined: When mom and dad go away for the weekend and the kids are in charge.)
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To: Paladin2

It will go one way, it will allow the commies to give benefits to the masses and stay in power longer


15 posted on 12/18/2014 9:21:01 AM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: Kaslin

The Crippled King is Legacy Building

Obama looking to bolster his credentials with communists and ultra-lefties.

How long before he announces a a few hundred million dollar$ in foreign aid for Cuba?
(or will it be billion$?)

And another billion dollar$ or so for Venezuela?


16 posted on 12/18/2014 9:24:37 AM PST by Iron Munro (D.H.S. has the same headcount as the US Marine Corps with twice the budget)
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To: Kaslin

Given the state of the island’s automobiles perhaps Obama can institute Part 2 of “Cash for Clunkers”.


17 posted on 12/18/2014 9:25:34 AM PST by Charlemagne on the Fox
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To: Kaslin

Does any country other than the US still observe sanctions against Cuba? Normalized relations with the rest of the world doesn’t seem to have had any transforming value in Cuba, so it will be interesting to see what happens when the great and powerful Oz to the North lets Cuba back onto the playground. In the practical world, normalization may be so insignificant it may be indistinguishable from times before normalization, except for the cigar industry.

Maybe Obama is planing to throw a Latin Spring, since Arab Spring worked out so well. We can sic the idiot Kerry on them.


18 posted on 12/18/2014 9:29:58 AM PST by pallis
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To: Kaslin

Cuba Libre?....mentira!


19 posted on 12/18/2014 9:42:18 AM PST by petro45acp (Grubbers "stupid" electorate is starting to look very much like Romney's 47%. Just sayin...)
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To: Sherman Logan
Neither Stalin nor Mao had foreknowledge of a planned assassination of an American president.
20 posted on 12/18/2014 9:50:22 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (Rip it out by the roots.)
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