Posted on 04/14/2015 1:59:06 PM PDT by 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.
Last 6 months, you can’t even make this up anymore.
*************
You ain’t seen nothing yet. The next 19 will make the last 6 months look tame. The storm is just beginning; things are going to get a lot worse.
*Sigh* Tagline change from 15 to 16. It seems I’m doing this every week now.
Let’s see. The new realignment:
North Korea can do what they want.
Iraq can do what they want.
Venezuela can do what they want.
Pakistan can do what they want.
Egypt can do what they want.
Syria can do what they want.
Russia can do what they want.
China can do what they want.
Iran can do what they want.
Cuba can do what they want.
Zer0 can do what he wants: Play golf.
Israel cannot do what they want.
The check boxes grow by the hour.
The list exist to distribute political spoils amongst the crony class. It is about punishing domestic political oppenents by restricting their economic liberties and rewarding allies with exceptions and exemptions.
If a state is our enemy then declare war and impose equal restrictions on all US citizens and companies such as a complete embargo. Short of that leave us free.
Why should the political class be free to travel to Cuba but not me?n why should the World Foodbank be able to deliver food to Cuba but not Blue Bell dairies?
Dear President Obama:
Go to Hell.
Go directly to Hell.
Do not pass Go.
Do not collect 2 trillion dollars.
Yea he will do everything to pass his far left agenda and praise himself after.
We need Cruz, someone strong and will stand on social and foreign policy as well as fiscal.
I honestly think he is the only one who can overturn all of this madness and stick it to fairy boy .
Its going to be a lot worse than just pushing his far left agenda. We could survive that eventually but what’s coming from abroad is far worse. Its open season on the U.S.
Doesn’t matter. .Boehner and McConnell will whine and roll over anyhow.
if the republicans were working for us, and actually had a spine, they would draft a NOTICE that declares the acts of this _resident unlawful, and that Cuba WILL be placed back o n the list as soon as a republican takes office, and sanctions WILL be reinstated on Iran
According to Barry’s speech the other day, the cold war has been over a long time, and all this stuff happened before he was born so it doesn’t matter.
Isn’t just great having a community organizer as POTUS?
Raul Castro died a few days ago. Sadly not the Cuban Raul Castro though, former AZ Governor Raul Castro (D), who quit part way though his term to be Jimmy Carter’s Ambassador to Argentina. He was the oldest living former Governor, that honor now belongs to former IN Governor Edgar Whitcomb (R).
A humongous Not
Any bets that if Ø succeeds in this, he’ll close and give Guantanamo back to the Cubans? This may already have been posted but it came to mind as soon as I read this post.
No bets necessary as you can count on it
I always thought that was a peculiar resignation for not exactly a top-notch diplomatic posting. Castro had previously served as an Ambassador prior to his becoming Governor. It set in motion the rapid turnover in the Governorship, which passed to Secretary of State Wes Bolin, who promptly died, and then next to Attorney General Bruce Babbitt. Babbitt struck me as a dullard, and I found it odd how he managed to hold the office for close to a decade (perhaps Castro’s resignation saved the Dems from losing the office in 1978).
Curious to note that Bolin, who had been Sec of State since 1949, had ever-decreasing margins of victory (and he, along with Castro, barely won in 1974, by just 1%). Had Bolin’s GOP opponent won, it’s probably Carter would’ve left Castro in place. I see that Evan Mecham was the nominee in 1978, but Babbitt was able to handle him. Of course, when he finally won 8 years later because of a Democrat fracture, the RINO establishment and the Dems conspired to trump up phony charges to run him from office. He was far too honest and straightforward a Governor and as such, had to be eliminated.
I wrote to the now-oldest Governor Whitcomb (who gave up politics completely to move to a rural locale). He had been a WW2 POW of the Japanese and had me try to phone some old guy here in town who had been in the camp with him (what was bizarre was that Whitcomb had told him a phony name when they were in the camp). The old man seemed about as disinterested (or perhaps puzzled) as can be when I relayed to him what Whitcomb told me to tell him.
I don’t know why he had me do it and not do it himself, since I was cold-calling some poor old guy that may or may not have had a real visceral reaction to what he was told. I was supposed to get a signed photo from Whitcomb for performing the deed, but I never did get one after writing him back to tell him I did what he asked. *shrug*
But Obama’s name is still on the list, right?
BREAKING: Charles Manson To Be Taken Off the FBI Ten Most Wanted List By Bozo The Clown...
Castro must have preferred being an Ambassador, only ran for office since a Republican was in the White House.
Whitcomb sounds like a weirdo, bizarre tale. Still it’s cool to be given a task by a former Governor.
Exactly. Why not just release all ax murderers after 6 months?
Is Anyone paying attention to all this insanity?
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