BREAKING: Cuba To Be Taken Off State Sponsor of Terror List By President Obama

Townhall.com ^ | April 14, 2015 | Katie Pavlich

[Kaslin]

Just four short months after "normalizing" relations with Cuba and just days after meeting with Dictator Raul Castro in Panama, President Barack Obama will reportedly strip the country of its terrorism sponsor status. 

It was just last year when the Center for Security Policy publishing the detailed connection Cuba has to Venezuela and Iran in its support for terrorism around the globe. It should be noted that Iran is the world's most prolific state-sponsor of terrorism through Hezbollah, the world's largest terror organization responsible for more American murders than any other group before 9/11/2001. 

Iran, Cuba and Venezuela have developed a close and cooperative relationship against the U.S. and in support of terrorist groups and states. The three regimes increasingly coordinate their policies and resources in a three way partnership aimed at counteracting and circumventing U.S. policies in the Middle East and Latin America. Within this relationship, Cuba plays a strategic role in terms of geography (proximity to the U.S.), intelligence gathering (both electronic eavesdropping and human espionage) and logistics.

Further, Cuba is still harboring terrorists and violent fugitives convicted of murder in the United States. More from Henry Gomez: 

But is Cuba still a state sponsor of terrorism? Have the Castro brothers changed their minds about the role of violence in bringing about the Latin America they’d like to see?

During the 2000s, the State Department has continually renewed Cuba’s status as a terrorist state on the basis of some unchallenged facts. The Castro brothers continue to harbor international terrorists from Spain’s Basque separatist group ETA and Colombia’s Marxist rebels FARC, as well as American domestic terrorists from groups like the Black Liberation Army.

Nothing has really changed on this front. It’s estimated that 70 U.S. fugitives are being harbored by Cuba, including Joanne Chesimard (AKA “Assata Shakur”), a convicted cop killer.

Apologists for the Castro regime try to argue that Cuba does not meet the criteria of state sponsor of terrorism via technicalities. They insist that the Basque terrorists in Cuba are a matter for Spain to resolve bilaterally with Cuba, and that the FARC terrorists don’t count because Cuba is hosting peace talks between FARC and the Colombian government, and that Chesimard doesn’t qualify as a terrorist because she didn’t kill a civilian, conflating a police officer with a member of uniformed armed forces in a declared war.

Needless to say, the straws they grasp at paint no more of a flattering picture of the totalitarian dictatorship they defend, which is in its sixth decade.

Even if Cuba is removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on a technicality, even if Cuba’s tactics these days are less obvious, the uncomfortable fact is that neither the Castro regime’s ideology nor its goals nor its leaders have changed since they day the Reagan administration put them on the list.

Convicted cop killer Joanne Chesimard has been hiding in plain sight in Cuba for years. In light of the new "normalization," when asked recently if she would be extradited back to the United States to finish her prison sentence Cuban officials said they have the "right" to protect "persecuted" fugitives. 

Cuba said Monday that it has a right to grant asylum to U.S. fugitives, the clearest sign yet that the communist government has no intention of extraditing America's most-wanted woman despite the warming of bilateral ties.

Chesimard was granted asylum by Fidel Castro after she escaped from the prison where she was serving a sentence for killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973 during a gunbattle after being stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Asked if returning fugitives was open to negotiation, Cuba's head of North American affairs, Josefina Vidal, told The Associated Press that "every nation has sovereign and legitimate rights to grant political asylum to people it considers to have been persecuted. ... That's a legitimate right."

"We've explained to the U.S. government in the past that there are some people living in Cuba to whom Cuba has legitimately granted political asylum," Vidal said.

In the end, Obama's relationship with Cuba has little to do with diplomacy, but instead has everything to do with the iconic Marxist dream and obsession his far left supporters have held for decades. It's finally coming true.

This post has been updated with additional information. 

[Diogenesis]

"The ONLY terrorists today are the Tea Party
and conservatives. Let's set the IRS after them ... again."

[manc]

Can he just do this or does he need Congress?
I know he needs Congress for funding of an embassy etc but to take them off the terrorist state!

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

“IPSE DIXIT!”

[Steely Tom]

Meh.

Nations can be taken off the list, nations can be put back on the list.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

TEA party to be added.

[M Kehoe]

Not surprising for a Marxist. But think about it, Fidel and Raoul have colostomy bags, and Ramirez doesn’t have the experience butchering lots of people. Not to mention Cuba can’t project power past Havana.

Imho.

5.56mm

[Parley Baer]

Iran to get nuclear weapons.

[FlingWingFlyer]

This doesn’t mean that they can’t sponsor terrorism anymore. It only means that Barry Soetoro took them off da list.

[HeartlandOfAmerica]

Just reading the clip, Venezuela and NK occurred to me as the next enemies of America that Obama the America will re-fang. Anyone who hates America is good in his book.

[Gritty]

So, when are the Russian nuclear missiles going back into Cuber?

[Iron Munro]

Can he just do this or does he need Congress?

When did King Obama need the approval of congress?

If he seeks their approval you can bet it is because he wants a fall guy when things go bad.

[ColdOne]

WH: Cuba not provided support for international terrorism in past 6 months, given assurances, will not support acts of terrorism in future.

https://twitter.com/rConflictNews/status/588079869491339264

[knarf]

I’ll agree with it ONLY for the trade off of putting the residents of the white mosque ON the list ... at the top !

[StoneWall Brigade]

FUBO!

[manc]

Good point.

[sport]

Does that surprise you?

[manc]

Last 6 months, you can’t even make this up anymore.

Hope Cruz overturns everything this fairy has done and lets the grown ups run the country.

[jobim]

THE NEW CUBA POLICY: BREAKTHROUGH OR BAILOUT?
Open Letter to Congress

President Barack Obama’s New Cuba Policy is a big win for the repressive Communist regime in Cuba and for the Castro brothers who still rule the island. The regime, faced with the possible loss of its Venezuelan financial lifeline, will receive, under the President’s policy, a major U.S. diplomatic and economic boost.

This without having to take any credible steps to democratize the country or to give up its outrageous demands, including the return of the U.S. Naval Base of Guantanamo and compensation for the alleged multibillion dollar losses incurred by Cuba as a result of the U.S. embargo.

This is a one-sided policy, which circumvents the 1996 LIBERTAD Act and other statutes, ignores the views and sacrifices of the Cuban dissident movement, puts U.S. security at risk, and further erodes America’s reputation as a champion of human rights and freedom.

• NORMALIZING U.S. RELATIONS WITH CUBA, under current conditions, will embolden the Castro regime to continue intensifying repression. Several dozen political prisoners were recently released, but 8,889 peaceful dissidents were arrested and rearrested in 2014—close to 40% more than in 2013.
• REMOVING CUBA FROM THE LIST OF TERRORIST STATES will reward the Castro regime for smuggling 240 tons of heavy weapons to North Korea, training and equipping Venezuela’s repressive forces, offering Russia’s Putin an espionage listening post in Cuba, and harboring dozens of fugitive terrorists and criminals, including one of the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted Terrorists, Assata Shakur. Cuba is the only “state-sponsored of terrorism” nation to openly harbor a fugitive on the most-wanted terrorist list.
• INCREASING U.S. TRAVEL TO CUBA UNDER THE CASTRO-MANIPULATED PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE PROGRAM will benefit the military, which owns all of Cuba’s hotels and tourist infrastructure.
• SHIPPING TELECOMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY AND HARDWARE TO CUBA, without assurances of affordable public internet access and an end to censorship, will help tighten the government’s control of information available to Cubans. • OPENING ACCOUNTS IN CASH-STRAPPED CUBAN GOVERNMENT BANKS will expose U.S. capital to the same politicized financial institutions that froze $1 billion of foreign deposits in 2009.
• GRANTING EXPORT CREDITS TO THE CASTRO REGIME, which has reneged on its international debts and is now virtually insolvent, will pose inordinate risks to U.S. taxpayers, who ultimately will shoulder any losses.
• LIFTING THE U.S. EMBARGO, as requested by the President to Congress, will channel the dollars of American tourists and investors to Cuban government enterprises, which control the economy, assign Cuban workers to foreign companies, and keep 92 cents of each dollar of every worker’s salary.

We urge Congress to oppose unilateral concessions that bail out the failed and oppressive Castro regime. Unless and until fundamental human rights are respected in Cuba and a path to freedom is clearly charted in accordance with the LIBERTAD Act of 1996, the U.S. should ramp up economic pressure on the dictatorship and increase support for the pro-democracy dissident movement.

Signed by,
Elliott Abrams – FMR Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America and the Caribbean; FMR Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Democracy
Emilio Alvarez-Recio – FMR VP Worldwide Advertising, COLGATE-PALMOLIVE
Lew Amselem – FMR Deputy U.S. Representative to the Organization of American States
Sebastián Arcos Cazabòn – Political prisoner, dissident, Associate Director, Cuban Research Institute, FIU
Jorge Blanco – FMR President and CEO, AMEX NICKEL CORPORATION
John Bolton – FMR U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; FMR U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations
Everett Ellis Briggs – FMR U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, Panamá and Portugal; FMR President of the Council of the Americas and Americas Society
Frank Calzon - Executive Director, Center for a Free Cuba
Nestor T. Carbonell – FMR VP International Government Affairs, PEPSICO
James Cason – FMR U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay; FMR Chief of Mission U.S. Interests Section, Havana, Cuba
José R. Cárdenas – FMR Acting Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. Agency for International Development
Beatriz Casals – Founder, Casals and Associates and Principal, Global Ethics Advisors.
Eduardo Crews – FMR President, Latin America, BRISTOLMEYERS SQUIBB
Graciella Cruz-Taura – Associate Professor, Latin American Cultural and Cuban Studies, Florida Atlantic University
Mary Curtis Horowitz – President, Transaction Publishers
Rosa Maria Cutillas – civic leader
Miriam and Mario de la Peña – Parents of Mario M. de la Peña, one of four pilots murdered by Cuban warplanes in international airspace in 1996. One of the spies exchanged by President Obama was serving a life sentence for his role in those murders.
Rafael de la Sierra – FMR VP International Coordination, WARNER COMMUNICATIONS (now Time Warner)
Jaime Daremblum – Director, Center for Latin American Studies, The Hudson Institute, and former Ambassador of Costa Rica to the United States
Eugenio Desvernine – FMR Senior EVP, REYNOLDS METALS
Paula Dobriansky – FMR Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs and FMR Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs
Carlos M.N. Eire – T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies, Yale University
Enrique Falla – FMR EVP and Chief Financial Officer, DOW CHEMICAL
Luis Fleischman – Editor, The Americas Report
Sara Marta Fonseca – Spokesman, Cuban National Resistance Front, Havana, Cuba
Steve Forbes – Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Forbes Media
Jorge Luis Garcia Perez (Antunez) – Secretary, General, Cuban National Resistance Front, former Cuban political prisoner [17 years in prison], Placetas, Cuba
Michael González – Senior Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
Edward González – Professor Emeritus of Political Science, U.C.L.A.
Emilio González – FMR Director, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Department of Homeland Security; FMR Director for Latin America, National Security Council.
Alexander Guerrero – Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Medical Ethics and Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania
Orlando Gutierrez Boronat – Secretary General, Cuban Democratic Directorate
Basilio Guzman – former Cuban political prisoner [22 years in prison]
Dennis Hays – FMR U.S. Ambassador to Guyana; FMR Director of Cuban Affairs, State Department
Philip Hughes – FMR Executive Secretary, National Security Council; FMR U.S. Ambassador to the Eastern Caribbean.
Sylvia Iriondo – President, Mothers Against Repression
Michael Ledeen – Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; FMR Special Advisor at the National Security Council, State and Defense Departments
Alberto Luzárraga – FMR Chairman, CONTINENTAL BANK INTERNATIONAL
Mel Martínez – FMR U.S. Senator; FMR Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Alberto Martínez-Piedra – FMR U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala
Sergio Masvidal – FMR Vice Chairman, AMERICAN EXPRESS BANK
Nancy Menges – Editor, The Americas Report
Alberto Mestre – FMR President for Venezuela, GENERAL MILLS
Roger Noriega – FMR U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere; FMR U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States
Robert O’Brien – Treasurer, Center for a Free Cuba and business leader.
Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo – Visiting Writer, Brown University
Roger Pardo-Maurer – FMR Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere Affais, Defense Department
Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera – President, Rosa Parks Civil Rights Movement, Placetas, Cuba
Joaquin P. Pujol – International Economist, former functionary, International Monetary Fund
Ana Rosa Quintana – Latin America Foreign Policy Analyst, The Heritage Foundation
Otto Reich – FMR U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere; FMR U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela
Tomás P. Regalado – Mayor of Miami, Florida
Antonio G. Rodiles – Director, Estado de SATS, Havana, Cuba
Ruben Rodríguez-Wallin – FMR Chairman and CEO, BACARDI
Enrico Mario Santi – William T. Bryan Professor of Hispanic Studies, University of Kentucky
José Sorzano – FMR Deputy U.S Ambassador to the United Nations; FMR U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council
Rebeca Sosa – Commissioner of Miami Dade County, Florida
Armando Valladares – FMR U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission
Ray Walser – FMR U.S. Foreign Service Officer; FMR Director for Latin America, The Heritage Foundation

[hosepipe]

IS whitewashing CUBA racism.?.......