Tag: embargo

Now *there’s* the willfully-obnoxious Cuba regime we’ve grown accustomed to!

(Via NTCNews) It’s so nice to see that some people keep up with the old traditions…

Cuba rejects OAS membership, official says

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) — Cuba will not rejoin the Organization of American States, even though the multinational organization has lifted the 47-year-old suspension of the country’s membership, a Cuban official said Thursday.

Ricardo Alarcon, president of the National Assembly, made the announcement to reporters. Former Cuban President Fidel Castro had said earlier this week that Cuba had no interest in rejoining the 35-nation group.

…the tradition in this case being the charming Let’s humiliate the President of the United States that Castro has turned into an art form.  This particular version was pretty good, for a given value of ‘good:’ the White House traded any restrictions on future readmission* and recognition, a certain amount of backpedalling in front of the rest of the OAS, and quite possibly the state of Florida in the 2012 elections for… well, nothing at all.  Continue reading Now *there’s* the willfully-obnoxious Cuba regime we’ve grown accustomed to!

End of the Cuba Embargo?

Very possibly. From Fausta:

Cuba: U.S. Embargo to End?

The Fifth Summit of the Americas is coming up next week, on April 17-19 in Trinidad-Tobago. The Summit’s theme is “Securing Our Citizens’ Future by Promoting Human Prosperity, Energy Security and Environmental Sustainability.” It will be interesting to watch what the Obama administration has planned for the Summit regarding Cuba.

As readers may recall, last February the Lugar Report concluded that “progress could be attained by replacing conditionality with sequenced engagement, beginning with narrow areas of consensus that develop trust,” and recommended changing US policy towards Cuba. Following the report, in March the omnibus spending bill changed travel restrictions on American citizens with family in Cuba to once a year, and last week the Wall Street Journal reported that President Obama plans to lift U.S. restrictions on Cuba, allowing Cuban-Americans to visit families there as often as they like and to send them unlimited funds.

Continue reading End of the Cuba Embargo?

The Cuban situation about to get depressingly worse?

It can always get worse.

If you saw the CBC members’ visit to the Castro regime and winced (I’m sorry, but I can’t describe what happened there without using the word ‘slobbering’), I’m afraid that I have bad news for you: there may be more provocations to follow. Via Kausfiles, a reminder about how this regime operates:

…whenever it looked as if Cuba was on the path to rejoining the world, Mr. Castro has done something to derail its progress. Recall that he relentlessly battled Mikhail Gorbachev over perestroika and glasnost. Mr. Castro warned that these changes would be the Soviet Union’s downfall — evidently missing the point. In a new, flattering documentary about Cuba’s leader by Oliver Stone, ”Comandante,” Mr. Castro dismisses Mr. Gorbachev as a man ”who destroyed his country.”

Or consider what happened in 1996, after the Clinton administration and Cuba had settled on migration and drug interdiction accords. Mr. Castro (after months of warnings) shot down two planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue, killing four people. The result was the signing of the Helms-Burton Act, which tightened the embargo. Did Mr. Castro know that Congress would react this way? Of course he did.

Continue reading The Cuban situation about to get depressingly worse?