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 expect Jimmy is going down there to work on some peanut deal.
He doesn't want to be caught with his pants down.
Well, he dreams about it but that's as far as it goes.
Or so he says. There's a thought in there somewhere.
First, Fidel Castro is a security menace for the U.S. Cuba is a terrorist regime pledged to destroy us with advance chemical, biological and cyber-warfare capabilities and the will to use them against us. Castro nexus with every kind and shape of international terrorism is well documented, from the Islamic, to the Spanish, ETA, the Colombia FARC, the Peruvian Shining Path, to eh Puerto Rican Macheteros to the most famous of Castro's operatives, Venezuelan Carlos El Chacal.
Castro reaffirmed his alliance with the “axis of evil” in May of 2001 when after visiting the Meca of Islamic terrorism, Iraq, Libya, and Iran, he assured Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameni, that “Iran and Cuba can defeat the U.S. hand in hand….we are today eyewitness to (America) weakness, as their close neighbors.” Later, at the University of Tehran he proclaimed to thunderous applause, “the imperialist king will finally fall ... Iran and Cuba reached the conclusion that together they can tear down the United Sates.” Was this a premonition of the 9/11, or was Castro already informed of the incoming attack.
At the time, Castro counted with two sophisticated spy bases that were an invaluable source of intelligence for the Islamic terrorists, one built by the Russians, the other by the Chinese. These bases are able to intercept every kind of phone and electronic communications of the U.S. and also had the capabilities to interrupt such communications. President Putin visited Cuba a few months before and emphasized the extraordinary importance of the Cuban spy base for the Russian intelligence services.
Isn’t it remarkably, that right after the 9/11 attack, in October 2001, President Putin, without consultation with the Cuban regime, decided all of the sudden to close such an important base, and in spite of the tantrums and opposition of Fidel Castro, after several delays, was dismantled and returned to Russia. According to Castro, what was not returned to Russia was burned in site. President Putin unexpected actions point to the direct relation between Al Qaeda, Castro and the attacks of 9/11; and Putin evidently wanted to leave not doubt that they were not part of Castro/Bin Laden actions.
Although the Russian base was dismantled, Castro still counts with a more up to date Chinese base and is able maintain his cyber-warfare capabilities.
In the realm of the chemical and biological capabilities for the production of weapons of mass destruction, Castro counts with dozens of advance laboratories and about 3,000 of experts trained in the Soviet Unions and East Germany for that purpose. Castro sold to Iran one of his most advanced research centers. Why Iran needed such a laboratory at 90 miles from us? In Afghanistan the Al Qaeda had in a cave a laboratory for the production of anthrax and other biological and chemical weapons. We American should not ignore Castro’s public menaces, he means business and during the Missile Crisis he proved his willingness to use it if it note were that the control was in Soviet hands.
Second point to consider is it a sound business practice to deal with Castro? For 43 years more than 150 countries have been dealing with Castro and in their desperation are now trying to push the American taxpayers in Castro’s economic black hole. Castro has defaulted in all his international debts while encouraging other Third World nations to do likewise.
Cuba is an economic black hole not because 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 42 years he has maintained “Socialism or Death” without any room for compromises or changes.
In a country investment risk survey made by the magazine “Euromoney”, Cuba was ranked 183rd place among 187 countries, even below Somalia. “The Financial Times” reported on 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 the rule of law, where the executive, legislative, judicial and the press, are solely on Castro's hands. Foreign investors are, as every body else in Cuba, at the mercy of the whims of a tyrant whose laws frequently change overnight.
In the liberal mind there is a masochist vein that they need to be nurtured. Castro burned Americans repeatedly and now they are feverishly anxious to be burned again. Remember that when the Europeans were enthusiastically pouring billions of dollars into the Soviet Union oil pipeline, President Reagan opposed any American money going to that project. The Europeans sustained enormous loses in all their dealing with the Soviet, Reagan stand firm by the American interests. Reagan was right and the softhearted American liberals (a.k.a. socialists) who supported the aid to the Soviet Union were wrong.
To assume that the interaction with Americans in Cuba would bring about changes toward more freedom and democracy is the most idiotic assumption that most people commonly incur because they have never lived under a totalitarian Stalinist regime and Castro’s sympathizers controlling the Western media intoxicate them.
A significant part of the world is NOT controlled by dictators. China is controlled by a Party, and the titular Head of State changes with some regularity.
They suck, but they are not really dictatorships in the sense of a omnipotent head-of-state.
I am talking about the Saddam Husseins and Fidel Castro's of the world. Not really a lot of them out there.
The main difference between a place like China, the old USSR and Cuba, is that the seat of power would change with some regularity, and according to semblance of parliamentary procedure.
All the talk about Castro's death is about who he is most likely to be his chosen replacement. Kim Jong Il left his son in power, Castro could possibly do the same.
These are evolving monarchies.
It WAS a Rabbit. Miss Marple has caught the Sultan in a rare error. It was a rabbit in the Chatahootche river that gave Ole Jimmah such a fright!
I have no idea what is meant by this sentence.
Your use of the word "appeasement" betrays a fallacy in your thought process. No one here proposes such a thing. Doing business and influencing the economy and people of another country is far from appeasement. It coule even be consider subtle sabotage of that country's government. You could stand to read some of the books about our opening of relations with China.
Here are a few random relpies. The ranking of Cuba economically should not be a factor in the governmental policy. It is a decision to be made by businesses and tourists. Your argument is a catch 22 can't trade with them because they are too poor, they are poorer because we don't trade with them.
Please give the date of the last Cuban attempt at an attack on the US. You probably worry about an ant knocking you over at the park. You can't be serious?
Your reply while is has interesting information gives no reason to single out Cuba over any of the other evils one we currently trade and engage in group hugs with. It is time to realize that we can't let our hatred get in the way of common sense.
Get a freaking grip, we are not dealing with boyscouts here.
There are dictators, kings, despots, and whatever in the world who have tortured, taken property, and picked there nose that we do business with regularly. becayuse we have a plan that includes accomplishing a greater good.
I suppose of Castro the III were king of Cuba you'd be arguicng from your senior's bed that we just have to continue the boycott. It's time to declare victory and change the approach which has been a failure for 41 years before they become a client state of another evil empire to the east.
I think theres a good reason for this. Eventually their excess leads to their ruin and one the road there no one will offer them good council.
Who want's to oppose the Furher and bring a death sentance down on themselves?
A dictatorship encourages yes men, and punishes the free thinkers who would otherwise be able to council and save them.
What's been a failure?
The US has been very successful at not trading with Castro!
You keep arguing as if the supposed "embargo" was some sort of offensive foreign policy whose goal was to bring Castro down.
That's simply not true, that's Fidel's spin, and you seem to either be completely buying into it, or trying to sell it.
The boycott or "embargo" or whatever you wish to call the fact that the US does not trade with Cuba, is a direct result of Fidel Castro's illegal seizure/theft of billions of dollars of property owned by American corporations and citizens.
Your attempt to legitimize Mr. Castro's crimes against American citizens by rewarding him with access to the US market, and a way out of his current economical disaster via access to much needed (seldom honored) credit (all at the expense of the American taxpayer), is nothing more than a re-hash of all the usual propaganda from Fidel's useful idiots.
This was the very beginning of my active interest in politics, as unfortunately Carter was the person I voted for, back in my misguided youth. I foolishly held Nixon's pardon against Ford, and therefore voted for Carter.
As a result of my vote (and I am certain many votes for Carter similar to mine) we lost the Panama canal, Iran was given over to nut-balls and the Shah was betrayed, we didn't go to the Moscow Olympics, and those soldiers died in the desert. I also had to endure four years of Amy, Rosalyn, Billy, and asorted worthless people, including Warren Christopher.
This taught me the foolishness of single issue voting, and I will never, ever make that mistake again.
The goal is to get a foot in the door in Cuba and see where the exposure to capitalism and culture leads, as we have done in other countries. Your head-in-the-sand approach does nothing more than make the US irrelevant in a country that is 90 miles from us. It is the failure to have any kind of influence, especially since the fall of the USSR, that is idiotic.
I don't listen to Castro's spin or buy it. I am motivated by what is right for the US and indirectly the people of Cuba. If you can get beyond your blind hatred you might realize the stupidity of this hands off appraoch and let reason carry the day.
I addressed the property issue earlier. You can keep bringing it up if you want, but you'd be much more interesting if you'd read carefully and move the discussion along.
I agree we should have dealt with this 40 years ago. I remember the Monroe Doctrine and believe we had the moral upper hand to go in and take the guy out. But we didn't.
The question on the floor is what to do now in 2002. A rebublican president is the one who can lead on this issue and do it right. Just as was done in China by a republican years ago.
Quit selling yourself short.
Whaddyathink Freepers? Carter, Clinton and 3 as yet named Socialists for Elian???
Goals:
1.) Implemnt Communist Manifesto
2.)Make Bush look bad
3.)Get picture in papers
People:
Ramsey Clark
Gloria Steinem(Golly, I've never balled a dictator)
Captain Dan Rather
Ted Turner
John Gotti (Me and Fidel got a lot in common)
Red Davis
Democratic Socialist Caucus
Rest to be announced.
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