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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Post subject: Diplomacy triumphs over belligerence |  |
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It won't please fundamentalists or warmongers, but breakthroughs like this make the world a safer place:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/17/us-cuba-diplomatic-relations-obama-raul-castro
| Quote: | Obama and Ral Castro thank pope for breakthrough in US-Cuba relations
Barack Obama and Ral Castro have thanked Pope Francis for helping broker a historic deal to begin normalising relations between the United States and Cuba, after 18 months of secret talks over prisoner releases brought a sudden end to decades of cold war hostility.
The two presidents spoke simultaneously on Wednesday to confirm the surprise reversal of a long-running US policy of isolating Cuba, detailing a series of White House steps that will relax travel, commercial and diplomatic restrictions in exchange for the release of Americans and dissidents held in Havana. |
US relations with Iran, while still strained, are also better than they've been in 35 yearsvital at a time when the two countries are fighting against Islamic State aggression. The world needs a good deal less of the old cold war mentality and more leaders willing to negotiate. I hope whoever replaces Obama in two years' time is paying close attention right now.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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The only people this won't please are die-hard loonies from a precious century. The idiotic failure of the United States to find a way to get on better with its nearest island neighbour for so many decades has been an ongoing embarrassment, and has cost both countries uncountable billions of dollars in trade which would have been of great benefit to both sides - especially Cuba, which is a poor country trying hard to improve itself, but also the United States, which is normally a country only too pleased to do business and make a dollar.
Stand-fast a few die-hard loonies in the USA - and I do mean a few - the whole world will greet this with a sigh of relief and, in private, a sad shaking of heads in the knowledge that any normal country with a grain of sense would have done it 30 or 40 years ago.
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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1061
Joined: 06 Sep 2013
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| So will this mean Cuba can now export all their classic cars? |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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In today's Conversation,
| James G. Hershberg, Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University wrote: | The action by President Obama to move toward the normalization of US-Cuba relations is long overdue. The US ruptured ties with Cuba in early January 1961, under President Eisenhower, not only in the context of the cold war with communism and the Soviet Union but in the run-up to the Bay of Pigs invasion. That invasion, by anti-Castro Cuban exiles armed, equipped, organized, trained and financed by the US government (i.e., the CIA and Pentagon), had been approved in principle by Eisenhower in March 1960 but was carried out under the new president, John F. Kennedy, in April 1961.
That operation failed disastrously; and contrary to claims by some, its far from likely it would have succeeded had JFK ordered direct air support which he refused to do. Castros armed forces and militia far outnumbered the invaders.
The Kennedy administration concentrated on trying to organize and strengthen Cubas diplomatic, political, and economic isolation in hopes of weakening Castros regime. The administration hoped he could be overthrown and/or his survival would be such an economic burden to Moscow that it could not be sustained. The Kennedy administration combined those measures with covert operations (code-named Operation Mongoose) and continued assassination plotting. Despite exacerbating Cubas myriad economic failures, the range of US anti-Castro efforts failed to cause his downfall and instead helped him to pose as a nationalist defender of the island against the Yankee colossus to the north.
And the freeze continues
LBJ scaled back the covert anti-Castro campaign after JFKs murder, but he and his successors until today left the essential diplomatic impasse in place, despite a few furtive, abortive efforts to overcome it through secret exchanges that were derailed for various reasons. (These took place under Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, against the backdrop of detente with the Soviet Union.)
For more than two decades after the cold war ended with the collapse of the Soviet empire and then the USSR itself in 1989-91, the policy persisted. This was not due to any evident success in helping Cubans obtain greater freedoms or inducing Fidel Castro (or his brother) to institute reforms. Quite the contrary. It was simply due to US domestic politics, that is, the perceived influence of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami and south Florida to swing elections. Yet for some years, amid generational shifts, that community has become far less monolithic in its rigid opposition to normalizing relations, and the political consequences far less clear.
From the start, the policy of non-recognition echoing the idea promulgated by Herbert Hoovers Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson in refusing to recognize the Japanese puppet state in Manchuria in the early 1930s reflected a mistaken notion that simply transacting normal diplomatic business with a government that controlled its national territory (for better or worse) conferred some sort of moral approval of its conduct. If it did, the US probably wouldnt recognize scores, if not more, of other countries. Like sanctions, non-recognition can be a device for striking poses on the domestic or (less important to US politicians) international stage, rather than a practical policy.
Now, however, when US-Cuban relations truly normalize, we will finally get a test of what some analysts think will be a process far more likely to produce positive change for the Cuban people.
Rather than relying, through inertia, on an anachronistic and increasingly ineffective policy of isolation, let Cuba be flooded with US ideas, products, dollars, and tourists. It worked wonders for helping to end the cold war (as I learned by visiting the Soviet Union and its East-Central European allies in 1988-91). Lets see if the new reality can enhance prospects for a peaceful transition as well in Cuba. |
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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| Cuban exiles aren't so sure. They see Obama as a traitor, but if Cuba opens up to the USA then Communist Totalitarianism will die a hell of a lot faster than the previous status quo. I'm kind of torn on it, because it reeks of bowing down to dictators but may be more effective than the current 'silent treatment'. |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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Wokko, I don't think that's entirely fair. A few years have gone by, but he was more-or-less democratically elected by his people and although not all that popular he remains generally accepted as their leader. He recently lost his Senate majority in the mid-term elections but is nevertheless an effective and well-respected leader around the world, and will always be remembered as the first-ever black President. Hardly a dictator.
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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lol! I was confused, then I smiled  |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Oops. Too much data. |
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London Dave 
Jete jedna pivo prosm
Joined: 16 Dec 1998
Location: Iceland on Thames
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| Diplomacy over belligerence? Sense over stupidity I think. |
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watt price tully 
Joined: 15 May 2007
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Kinky Freidman has been to the Whitehouse for dinner with both Bill Clinton & also with G Dubbya on separate occasions.
With Clinton & others, he took out a cigar ( he's always got a cigar) & there was a hush amongst the dignitaries as he was about to light it up:
Kinky said words to the effect that:
Don't worry Mr President, while this might be a Cuban cigar don't see this as me supporting their economy, see it as me burning their fields. 
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“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
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watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
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| Post subject: Re: Diplomacy triumphs over belligerence | |
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| David wrote: | [b]It won't please fundamentalists or warmongers, but breakthroughs like this make the world a safer place:
....... |
However in the same vein, I believe your advice to Neville Chamberlain wasn't one of your finest efforts David. 
_________________
“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
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Culprit 
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| It's a pity nothing will come of this. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Post subject: Re: Diplomacy triumphs over belligerence | |
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| watt price tully wrote: | | David wrote: | [b]It won't please fundamentalists or warmongers, but breakthroughs like this make the world a safer place:
....... |
However in the same vein, I believe your advice to Neville Chamberlain wasn't one of your finest efforts David. |
I know you're probably joking, but I reckon the Chamberlain analogy gets wheeled out way too often. There's nothing wrong with dealing with even the worst rogue states, so long as you're not trading away long-term independence or security for short-term peace. By and large, diplomatic isolation causes far more harm than good.
_________________
All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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so, how long will it take before Cuba is over run with Maccas, Starbucks and Burger Kings?
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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