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.''
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
It's worked so well with the ChiCom!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
You may also want to stop by post #14 and talk about old times.
What a pathetic loser this guy is.
A Commie in Commieland
I know you have made a life crusading against this guy, but perhaps that has blinded you to the other ways of dealing with him.
What makes you think that Castro would have allowed any sort of "relations" to exist?
Not only that, but how do you justify continued relations with a regime that stole billions of dollars in property from US citizens?
You may think it's OK to legitimize dictatorships via "relations", but I don't.
Prospective investors should ask, what purchase power can people have whose average salary is less than $7 dollars a month?
Castro has been very candid by repeatedly maintaining that he will never allow in Cuba any changes that may threaten his Stalinist scheme, much less to allow the free enterprise system. Don’t count on the protection of any law that favors foreign investment- in Cuba, nothing, according to Castro, is irreversible. Those who think they are going to reap quick profits in partnership with Castro, sooner rather than later, will find that they will loose their investments.
The Cuban regime is economically, ideologically and morally bankrupt. Those who have been helping to keep afloat the Cuban tyrannical regime for over four decades will pay dearly when Cuba is liberated and return to the rule of law under a democratic government. The American taxpayers should not allow to be charged for unwise business deals made by corrupt companies.
Clinton was the first social diseased president.
Isn't attempting to politically influence mentioned under the definition of terrorist in the "Patriot Act"?
At last! Finally we have a winner. Someone who knows why we actually have an embargo on Cuba in the first place.
This is the difference between Cuba and China, which the ignoramuses keep scratching their heads about.
A bit of history for the chronologically disadvantaged:
1. The U.S. supported Castro in his toppling of the strongman regime in power at the time. We welcomed Castro as a hero.
2. It was only after consolidating power that he took off the wraps and exposed himself as a murderous communist dictator.
3. We still tried to do business with him until he nationalized the guts of his nonfarm economy, which was owned primarilly by American citizens and American businesses.
4. Despite diplomatic efforts, the sh*t-hook wouldn't compensate the rightful owners for stealing their property.
5. We put an embargo on Cuba in response to the criminal acts of the Cuban regime; which could have been lifted at any time in the last 40 years, by Castro's own act of justice in making amends for his larceny.
It was only incidental that he was a communist. We did not impose the embargo because he was communist. We imposed it because he was a criminal bastard.
6. El Caca has chosen not to do the right thing and as a result has chosen to inflict the embargo on his own people just as Saddam has chosen to impose hardships on his own people.
7. At any given moment both Castro and Saddam have the opportunity to end the embargoes on their countries, in fifteen minutes, at no cost to themselves or their countries' security.
8. They refuse to do so because they are mere psychopaths who would gladly sacrifice their people's welfare for irrational insane egotisms.
To accommodate such scum is beneath us and beneath the aspirations of the people they abuse. Of course, that means it's right up Carter's alley.
Whatever respect I had for Jimmy Carter vanished when he went to North Korea. Clinton wouldn't even see him when he got back.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.