Posted on 03/23/2002 5:37:38 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Jimmy Carter said Friday that he will travel to Cuba sometime this year -- a trip that would make him the highest-ranking former U.S. official to have visited the island since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959.
''We are making plans now and, as we have said, we have been invited to go to Cuba and we intend to go,'' Carter said during an interview with CNN. ``But I'm not prepared at this point to give our goals and the names of people that will go or when we will go because we haven't really made those plans yet.''
The trip could have significant impact on U.S. policy at a time when the Bush administration is under increasing pressure to shift strategies and open up to the Castro regime. While many members of Congress have visited the islands, Carter would be the first former president to travel there since the Cuban revolution.
Carter told CNN that the Bush administration may not like the fact that he's going but likely won't stand in the way. ''I expect to get their tacit approval, not their blessing,'' he said. ``We can't go, obviously, without the permission of the government. My understanding is that they will give that approval.''
REACTION
Cuban Americans reacted swiftly to Carter's announcement.
Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, said his organization welcomes the trip -- if Carter intends to tell Castro to leave power.
Garcia said, however, that if Carter intends to promote better relations with Castro, the influential exile organization would oppose the trip.
''If he is going the way he went to Haiti [in 1994] to tell [Haitian military leader] Gen. Raoul Cedras to leave, then we welcome his trip to Cuba if he is going to tell Fidel Castro to leave,'' Garcia said. ``However, if he's going to give legitimacy to a 43-year-old dictatorship, then I think it would be unfortunate.''
While Carter declined to outline his objectives in Cuba, he indicated to CNN's Judy Woodruff that his intention was to improve relations between Cuba and the United States -- not to deliver an ultimatum to Castro.
Carter indicated support for easing the embargo and allowing U.S. citizens to travel freely to the island, though he spoke strongly in favor of democracy on the island.
VISION FOR ISLAND
''As you probably would remember, when I was president, I departed from my predecessors and unfortunately my successors, in lifting all travel restraints on American citizens to go to Cuba almost immediately when I was president within a few weeks,'' Carter said.
``And I also established interests sections, which is one step short of full diplomatic relationships between Havana and Washington. And those interest sections with staffs representing our countries have never been closed.
``So I think the best way to bring about democratic changes in Cuba is obviously to have maximum commerce and trade and visitation by Americans and others who know freedom and to let the Cuban people know the advantages of freedom. That's the best way to bring about change and not to punish the Cuban people themselves by imposing an embargo on them, which makes Castro seem to be a hero because he is defending his own people against the abuse of Americans.''
I am sick to death of buttheads like Carter, Jesse Jackson, Farrakhan, et al sticking there noses into foreign policy. In my apparent naivete, I was under the impression that these activities were considered treasonous.
Sometimes I wish they'd give it to him, on condition that he SHUT UP and GO AWAY.
--Boris
Don't feel bad, I voted for George Wallace.
In many ways Carter's inept administration set the precedents of the problems we have now: The never-ending war in the Middle East, 09/11, U.S. appeasement to foreign globalists, and a perceived weakness of the U.S. by our enemies. Not to mention the creation of unconstitutional, money-wasting domestic departments such as the Education, HUD, and NEA.
Clinton may have been immoral and evil, but he was so in a competent way. Carter, the man truly had peanuts for a brain, if it wasn't for him there probably would never had been a Clinton.
Second he was spouting about majority rule in African countries. Last time I looked, the African countries such as South Africa and Rhodesia are now run by dictators who take land from the legal owners. The countries are now lawless lands with a destroyed social infrastructure, with no hope for investment capital. Nothing but poverty is in these folks future thanks in part to Peanut Head and his ROTTEN THEORIES!!
He should have always been a carpenter, but NEVER should have been President. May he go to Cuba, and be made to stay in the poverty his policies and suggestions produce; by the way he should definitely take that liberal wife of his with him. Amy too.
Rats, I exceeded my quota.
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