CUBA

Talking truth in America and about America:

• President Obama’s December 2014 announcement that the US would restore diplomatic ties with Cuba, the tiny Communist island nation 94 miles off the Florida coast, reversed a 50-year old policy. That policy was designed to pressure Fidel Castro to improve his treatment of Cuban citizens, who are poor and lack fundamental freedoms.
• In the months leading up to the restoration of diplomatic ties, there was growing evidence that the Cuban economy was worsening, or , in plain English, the embargo and pressure on Cuba was working.
• Instead of warming to America’s offer to re-establish diplomatic relations, the Cuban government issued a list of demands related to the ongoing embargo which only Congress can lift.
• Since diplomatic relations were restored, the Cuban government has told the West that it will not in any way improve its abysmal treatment of Cuban citizens.
• Cuba’s internal response to America’s restoration of diplomatic ties was to crack down on dissidents.
• Every man, woman and child who has ever tried to cross the 90 plus miles of water between the US and Cuba seeking a better life has done so in one and only one direction:  from Cuba to the US.  Why is that? Because Communism creates misery for all but the elite rulers.
• Fidel Castro, first and long term brutal Communist dictator of Cuba, whose people are hungry and poor, has a net worth of $900 million.
• His brother and current Cuban dictator Raul Castro has a net worth of $100 million.
• Fidel and Raul Castro are dictators who imprison and torture political opponents at will; there is not a shred of objective evidence to indicate this aspect of their governance has changed with the onset of the Obama administration’s diplomatic normalization initiative.
• The Obama Administration re-established diplomatic ties with Cuba, and the Castro brothers achieved normalization with the US without changing.  So why would they ever change?  How does this benefit ordinary Cubans?
• Standing for freedom and human rights has been a touchstone of American foreign policy for decades and decades.  What happens to the condition of humanity when tyrannical dictators are legitimized by America?