Obama Warmly Legitimizes Cuban Dictatorship

Cato ^ | December 24, 2014 | Nat Hentoff

[george76]

I have long been reporting on Castro-ruled Cuba and, indeed, was there not long after Fidel Castro had taken over the country. What became clear, as the number of Castro’s political prisoners increased, was that his revolutionary Cuba was a dictatorship, like the regime he had ousted.

After I wrote that, a member of his administration rebuked me for my rank ignorance.

I responded by saying that he knew that if I were a Cuban in Cuba, I would be in prison.

Later, at the United Nations, I was one of a number of reporters interviewing Che Guevara, the young, dashing Latin American revolutionary who had acquired fans among many American college students.

Sitting by his side that day was a translator; we had been told he could not conduct an interview in English.

I asked him: “Mr. Guevara, can you see at any time in the future when there might be elections by freedom of choice in Cuba?”

Without waiting for the translator, Guevara burst out laughing, saying: “Aqui? In Cuba?”

I kept reporting — often using sources from within Cuba that I cannot, for their sake, name — details about the impact of the dictatorship. For example, kids who heard their parents criticize Fidel were required to inform the authorities.

...

“The opportunity for Cuba to normalize relations with the U.S. has always been there, but the Castro regime has never been interested in changing its ways.

“Now, thanks to President Obama’s concessions, the regime in Cuba won’t have to change.”

I can still hear Che Guevara laughing at my question about the future of free elections there

[catfish1957]

Obola basically calls the past 9 POTUS' polices and actions wrong.

It's getting more and more difficult for him to hide his socialist stripes.

[catfish1957]

polices = policies

[Tupelo]

Nat Hentoff is a very very rare breed.
An honest liberal. Damn few of those around. Plus he is consistent.

[shove_it]

I just heard on the local news here in Central Florida that Suntan Charlie Crist is bucking for USA Ambassador to Cuba. That commie paradise is the perfect place for moonbat Charlie. I searched for a link to the story but it apparently is just a rumor at this point spreading on the social media sites.

[I want the USA back]

0 admires the communist regime. It’s his ideal. He hates this country even more than the castros.

[Ann Archy]

And Nat is pro-life!

[Ann Archy]

Obama’s Heroes ARE the CASTRO BROTHERS!! He hopes he can attain dictatorship! He’s gaining a lot of ground!

[sport]

Gaining hell! He has it. Who will oppose him? Who has opposed him? Congress? The Courts? The military? The States? The People? Until successfully opposed, he is the dictator.

[The Sons of Liberty]

Obama Warmly Legitimizes Cuban Dictatorship

Cuban exiles may scream and moan now, but will vote solid dem in 2016; of course the GOP-e is just "dem light" now.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Last time I looked Che Guevara was still dead and the Castros were old men. Cuba is changing and we need to help it along.

In a couple of years The Donald will be building a new Trump resort and casino on the beach in Havana and there will be all kinds of new business, modern goods and services, people will have jobs. We squeeze out Russia and Iran. Its all good.

[Dqban22]

Dreamers or useful idiots ... Obama offered the terrorist Cuban regime the sun, the moon and that the American taxpayers will become the new Castro’s sugar daddy that will keep afloat his regime, and keep the torturing political prisoners full throttle, in exchange for nothing!!! Raul Castro daughter calls dreamers those who think that the American flow of taxpayer money to the Island will change a bit the Stalinist regime.

[zeestephen]

Hentoff will be 90 in June.

I can remember reading articles he wrote for Playboy in the 1960’s (yes, I really did read the articles, too).

He is an old fashioned Libertarian, and he supported the ACLU and several other Hard Left institutions from that era.

I have a lot of respect for his courage, because when he began to criticize the Left later in his career, most of his friends and professional colleagues just walked away from him.

In spite of his public views on abortion and Castro and Islamic terrorism, he still has a lot of very unkind things to say about Conservatives.

In some ways Hentoff reminds me of the now dead Christopher Hitchens who often enraged the Left in the latter part of his life.

[zeestephen]

The only Cuban exiles who scream about Castro these days are the original exiles from the 1960’s, most of whom traced their ancestors to Europe.

Almost all the Cuban exiles since 1980 have Hispanic or African heritage, and they are rock solid Democrats, as you pointed out.

[Dqban22]

Obama and the Castro brothers are birds of a feather.

The Cuban Archipelago
By Jamie Glazov On December 26, 2014 In Daily Mailer,FrontPage

Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl.
—Che Guevara, Motorcycle Diaries

President Obama’s recent move to cozy up to Communist Cuba is a crucially important moment not just diplomatically, but as a moral one in regards to human rights, dignity and justice. As we witness a Radical-in-Chief throwing an economic lifeline to a barbaric tyranny, it is our duty and obligation to shine a light on the dark tragedy of the Cuban Gulag — and to reflect on the unspeakable suffering that Cubans have endured under Castro’s fascistic regime.

The rest of the history

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/jamie-glazov/the-cuban-archipelago/print/

“During those years, with the purpose of forcing us to abandon our religious beliefs and to demoralize us, the Cuban Communist indoctrinators repeatedly used the statements made by some representatives of the American Christian churches. Every time a pamphlet was published in U.S., every time a clergyman would write an article in support of Castro’s dictatorship, a translation would be given to us, and that was far worse for the Christian political prisoners than the beatings or the hunger. Incomprehensible to us, while we waited for the embrace of solidarity from our brothers in Christ, those who were embraced were our tormentors.” Armando Valladares

[Dqban22]

OBAMA AND CASTRO, A PACT IN HELL AMONG COMRADES

After the dismembering of the Soviet Union and the bankruptcy of Venezuela, comrade Obama made this generous offer to Castro: from now on, the American taxpayers will be the sugar daddy that will keep afloat the Cuban Stalinist regime.

Does it make sense to sell someone whose record shows that his/her debts are never paid back?

Cuba is an economic black hole not because of the U.S. trade embargo, but thanks to Castro’s adoption of a brutal Stalinist regime that does not allow any kind of freedom, personal or economic, and for 56 years he has maintained a “Socialism or Death” attitude without any room for compromises or changes. In fact, after Obama’s generous offer, Raul Castro demanded the unconditional surrender of the U.S., - the Communist regime will not soften a bit their tyrannical subjugation of the Cuban people.

In a country investment risk survey made by the magazine “Euromoney”, Cuba was ranked 183rd place among 187 countries, even below Somalia. (a onerous position that Cuba still enjoys) “The Financial Times” reported in June 30, 1995, “Why then, investors may ask, should they bother with Cuba in a world replete with opportunities and more welcoming governments?” Cuba is a country where there is not a rule of law, where the executive, legislative, judicial and the press, are solely on Castro's hands. Foreign investors are, as everybody else in Cuba, at the mercy of the whims of a tyrant whose laws frequently change overnight.

Canada, Spain, Mexico, France, England, Italy, Japan and 150 other nations have maintained wide open commercial relations with Castro for 56 years, and after the demise of the Soviet Union they tried to prop up the regime with additional investments under the pretense that by the interaction of commerce and tourism from western democracies the Cuban dictator would modify and liberalize the regime resulting in the return of democracy to Cuba. Reality couldn’t be father from their assumptions. Those foolish enough to get into Castro’s bandwagon followed the same path to bankruptcy, as did the Soviet Union.

Castro is a compulsory buyer who not only has defaulted on all his international debts, but he also encourages all the Third World nations to also repudiate their debts. Now, those countries are desperately trying to embark the U.S. in the Cuban Titanic and the American taxpayers to rescue their ill-advised investments.

The powerful Spanish financial group, Endesa, with projects in Cuba of over $100 million dollars, discontinued its association with Castro and sued the regime at the Chamber of Commerce of Paris for $12 million for breaking contractual agreements. The Spanish Guitar Hotels group also liquidated its investments in Cuba.

There is a long list of foreign business failures due to Cuba’s centralized Stalinist economy. You cannot throw good money after bad in Cuba’s economic wastebasket. Cubans problems are not derived from the U.S. embargo; it is the lack of freedom!

Cuba’s international credit is nil after Castro stopped payments on his 12 billion dollars debt to the Paris Club of European Banks. He also owes over 3 billion dollars to Japan, about $1.5 billion to Argentina, and several billions to Spain, and to all the other business partners.

Canadians, Spanish, Mexican, English, French, and investors from other countries went to Cuba attracted by Castro’s offer of cheap slave labor, a country without labor problems where workers do not even have the right to strike. In fact, whoever invests in Cuba cannot hire a single worker. They have to pay up on front to Castro $300 dollars per worker every month, and the Cuban regime pays the worker 300 Cuban pesos, the equivalent of $15 dollars a month. That means that in order to be able to hire a worker, a foreign investor has to give Castro a bribe of 2,000% up front, income which finances the repressive apparatus that keeps the Cuban people under feudal bondage conditions.

Those foreign investors caught in Castro’s scam want that the U.S. and the American taxpayers to assume the Soviet Union’s role of maintaining Castro’s regime to the tune of 6 billion dollars annually, hoping that they will be able to recoup some of their ill advised investments. The Cuban people repudiate all those investors and tourists that have exploited them in partnership with the Cuban tyrant.

Cubans are discriminated in their own country. They resent the apartheid system forced upon them that do not allow Cubans to enter the beaches, restaurants and hotels that are reserved for the tourist and the government elite. The ill feeling is not against the Americans but against those foreigners that invest and are involved in the slave and prostitution trade in Cuba. Open Western trade and credits to Castro was proven a total failure. All that infusion of people and money did not result in an iota of freedom, democracy or economic development to Cuba and its people. Their approach of helping Castro through commerce and investments was the one that failed not the U.S. embargo. After all, these nations also deal with dollars and they produce and provide Castro with anything we produce.

Should the American taxpayers finance a terrorist country whose leader has pledged repeatedly to destroy us?

This is the time to strength the Embargo to enforce a democratic change in Cuba. American tourists and investors should be patient. At the end, they will receive the good will and the rewards for being one of the very few countries that remain in solidarity with the Cuban people’s plight for freedom and democracy during the most tragic period of Cuba’s history.

Since the U.S. commercial embargo and the open trade policies adopted by the Western democracies have failed miserably in bringing any favorable results for Cuba’s return to freedom, democracy and a regime that respects the human and civil rights of the Cuban people:

Shouldn’t our question rather be, isn’t about time to consider a worldwide blockade against Castro’s (as the one against the South African apartheid regime) since 56 years of free trade with over 150 nations failed miserably to restore freedom and democracy to Cuba.