Can anyone explain our DEAL with Cuba to me?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve listened to and read many debates about Cuba and Castro. It all boils down to the facts that Cuba is a communist country controlled by a killer who is mainly interested in self power, wealth and feeding his own ego.

The standard of life there is low, mortality high, they are being kept in an era close to the 1960s, jobs are scarce, housing is scarce, sanitation is poor, food supplies are poor, wages are low and life is cheap. However – they can all read. They just can’t use the web, own computers, speak their minds, enjoy civil or human rights or listen to anything but State sanctioned television programs and, outside of the tourist areas, don’t even have a regular supply of electricity.

America has gone in and wiped out dictatorships all across the glob for less provocation than is obvious in Cuba. Castor has done his best to embarrass, humiliate, ridicule and criticize America without the slightest worry of retaliation – aside from the fact that Cuba is smaller than Florida.

The US Coast Guard turns back freedom fighters they catch sailing to Cuba, even if they are Cubans themselves. Cubans who touch American soil may stay, but other nationalities can find themselves booted back to where they came from.

We don’t make any money from Cuba, and they don’t have anything to trade except cigars and I suspect that no matter how good they are, they’re not worth enough to create a major profit picture for US investors.

Americans sneak over to Cuba via Jamaica by pretending to be Canadians, buy proscribed things and sneak them back into the States. Still, not much money there. Cuba, however has two financial bases. One the peso and one the US dollar. The US dollar is the strongest one.

While there are sanctions there, US companies like Bell and AT&T have gone over there to negotiate business deals. (It will be a cold day in hell before anything like mass murder, oppression, war, revolution, and general national corruption EVER prevent American Big Business from going over someplace and wrangling out BUSINESS deals for a profit.)

So, what stopped Kennedy in the Bay of Pigs? The Nukes are gone from Cuba, so what keeps the US from listening to the cries of half of the places population – currently living in Miami – from pulling a Dessert Storm and turning Castro into so much hamburger?

I’m puzzled. Any ideas?

CAREFUL! We don’t want to learn from this!(Calvin and Hobbs)

2

The rest of the world would have one more reason to hate America. It is probably a bad idea. About as bad as China attacking Taiwan. In any case, what would the US gain?

3

There’s this little something called “national sovereignty.” You may have heard of it. We are a country which recognizes the right od the the people to rise up and overthrow government if that government is intolerable to the people. Cuba’s is a revolutionary government. We have no business deciding for Cuba what government it shall have. We may not like Castro. We may not like Communism. We are free to express that in the community of nations. But we are a nation supposedly bound by law, and we should not be interfering in the internal sovereignty of another nation by military force.

4

Unless it’s Yugoslavia (probably, unfortunately, not the last time we’ll do something likke that).

5

I don’t believe the United States has militarily conquered and occupied a complete country of any significant size since WWII. Longterm economic invasions have proved much easier, without requiring body bags.

The most common policy for the last 50 years has been containment: do what you can to stabilize the situation, then wait a few decades for the problem to fix itself. So far that worked well in the former USSR and East Europe, didn’t work in Vietnam, and the US is still in the waiting stage for China, Cuba, Korea, Kuwait/Iraq, and Kosovo/Serbia. (Recently word leaked out that the U.S. had approached Vietnam about cooperating with our China containment policy, which upset China somewhat).

Cuba was seen as a real threat for “spreading revolution” throughout South America in the 1960s, and the U.S. participated in putting down leftist revolutions throughout the continent. Today, Cuba is a feeble joke. Castro currently has enough popularity to rally the masses, but the situation in the country is very similar to the USSR under Brezhnev–the people are getting tired of shortages, lines, etc. It’s hard to imagine how communism will outlast Castro.

Time is on our side. Just over 10 years ago Albania was the most strident anti-US country in the world. After the communists fell, it quickly became one of our best buddies.

6

What is it with long-winded, self-sustaining OP’s here lately? Isn’t this supposed to be a Q&A forum, that is, someone asks a question, and the Teeming Millions leap forward to provide insight and answers?

The U.S. is not going to invade Cuba mainly because, as part of the outcome of the missile crisis in 1962, JFK promised ‘no invasion.’ That promise holds to this day. We don’t trade with Cuba because Eisenhower, in his second term, declared a trade embargo with Cuba, and that is still in effect.

Forty years ago, Castro was a remarkably simple man. Today, Castro is a remarkably simple – and rich – old man. If you look up “failure” in a reasonable dictionary, you should find a picture of Castro’s Cuba. But you will NOT find a picture of Fidel. He has ridden his country’s decline to the point of IMMENSE personal wealth. He is rich, he is protected, and his ‘people’ are poorer today than they ever thought possible forty years ago.

Also, don’t underestimate the political power of U.S. sugar-cane growers, who have what you might call a vested interest in seeing Cuba excluded from the North American sugar market.

I don’t know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free…

T

7

You know, I had a sneaky feeling that JFK’s promise might have had something to do with that, but I did not think that subsequent presidents had to follow a previous president’s unwritten word.

Plus, it is pretty common knowledge that we have helped topple dictatorships in many nations with ‘covert’ operations but Castro – as stupid and single minded as he is, remains. It is also known that when he dies, his son is going to take over and it is said that his son is more blood thirsty than he is.

What gets me is that we often give assistance to countries asking for our help, which Cuba has, but now we even turn back boatloads of Cubans headed back to their native country determined to foment rebellion or try to kill Castro. THAT little part there doesn’t make much sense because we can still keep the JFK promise while allowing displaced Cubans to go back and fight for what is rightfully theirs.

I mean, Castro’s army can’t be all that good and probably is as corrupt as hell so boatloads of Freedom Fighters infiltrating the masses might actually be able to dispose of him.

And what is this crap with Bell Telephone and AT&T going over there? Once we slapped on the sanctions, about a dozen European nations started sending in boat loads of tourists and establishing some form of trade with Cuba. Plus, I’ve already heard that several major businesses are keeping a ‘friendly’ contact with Castro to get a foot in the door as soon as the sanctions fall and start grabbing up the rights to develop various businesses there. (Friendly contact usually means they ship him goods he’s not supposed to get from us.)

I got to thinking about it because a ‘mysterious’ caller phoned into a talk show – the Love Doctors at 92.7 WZZR – (I’ve posted their web address before here) when their daily discussion concerned Cuba. It turns out that the caller, who refused to identify himself was that high ranking Cuban military man who few here in the 60s in a stolen jet. He did not identify himself because he has loved one’s in Cuba who Castro will make pay for anything derogatory or too sensitive he might say. He was Castro’s right hand man. He talked extensively about the conditions in Cuba today and how Castro went from Freedom fighter to oppressive Dictator and ‘betrayed’ the revolution and then promptly had many of his loyal, original followers, who did not agree with this, killed.

He pointed out that no matter what news reports might say abut Cuba, the people live in abject poverty, oppression, with very limited resources, almost no real freedom and they have to watch what they say. He stated that the Cuban courts are a joke and people can be arrested on trumped up charges, found guilty if the ‘government’ wants them guilty and executed with no recourse.

People there have a housing shortage, so if you get married, you move in with your folks. Jobs are limited to tourist and government jobs, with few selections and once you get one, that’s it. No changing around. It was mentioned that the Cubans have a higher literacy rate than here in the States – which they love to promote – but much less stuff to read and freedom of speech is squashed along with the access to most information and general knowledge of the world beyond.

I mean, we went into Korea, Vietnam, dabbled in Africa, dropped in on Iraq and Iran, made our presence known in Panama, leaned on Haiti, dropped in on Yugoslavia, visited Turkey, dropped into South America and ran here and there for the United Nations enforcing International Laws.

Somehow, Cuba seems to have been missed in all of that.

All because of a promise? I don’t think any legislation was passed concerning it.

See, I’m old enough to recall the ‘great revolution’ with Castro, where Jane Fonda and a bunch of sympathizers went over to harvest the cane fields. (She certainly picked all the wrong causes back then.) I never have been fond of the Cuban music or style (but they have some HOT women)! but it has always puzzled me why we could kick the ass of Japan, Germany, fish France and Italy out of disaster and not even turn one hair gray on Castro’s head.

CAREFUL! We don’t want to learn from this!(Calvin and Hobbs)

8

I think the US record here is just a little mixed: overthrow or help overthrow dictators sometimes, tolerate them other times , install them other times.

Cuba is no more authoritarian than a number of other countries with which the US treats as allies (Saudi Arabia) or engages (China).

What is unfortunate about Cuba is that what keeps Castro in power is bullying and sanctions (from the US - virtually no-one else has them). With trade and open relations Cuba would have become richer and Castro’s hold untenable.

Why this attitude? Partly pride at Cuba’s proximity, partly a willingness on the part of some of the emigre population to do anything to prevent reform, because they think they can take the place (and its assets) over if Cuba is unreformed when Castro dies.

Why not invade? Any land invasion is very hard . And because a significant proportion of the population would resist: say you can’t stand Clinton (just a stab in the dark) - does this mean that you would welcome an invading army. Of course not. Indeed, this just reinforces my point - can you imagine how that would unify public opinion?

9

There is an unmatched duality of policies being pursued:

Cuba - we’ll rout the evil wicked commies by refusing them access to our trade;

China - we’ll rout the evil wicked commies only by extension of access to our trade.

Yeah, I realize this is an apples and oranges comparison. One is a tiny island nation with zip to offer besides cigars, sugar and 1950’s automobiles, while the other is (what?) about 1/3 of the world’s population, and if we don’t get in that market, somebody else will.

Part of the thought that has driven our continued engagement with China, despite it’s nonexistent attitude towards human rights, is the thought that ongoing and increasing ties, most effectively built and maintained throught the pursuit of commerce, encourage, in fact demand, increased communication. A proliferation of channels of communication can serve only to introduce more people and their ideas into the conversation, thus threatening an authoritarian regimes control of the flow of information.

Conversely, the thinking behind the strangulation of Cuba seems to be that, to allow trade, we’d be allowing that populace to see the coming of a materially satisfying existence that would sustain Fidel’s dictatorship. Would the concomittant information and cultural exchange not also weaken the tyrant’s hold?

10

I read in a relatively recent TIME magazine that the USA decides who to invade by the advantages they will get by doing so.
As beatle mentioned, Cuba has nothing to trade, so there is no advantage to invasion. However, there are advantages to not invading but having the trade embargo. Any ship that has been to a Cuban port may not enter an American port for 6 months afterwards. So no one would want to trade with Cuba, and America can sell more of its sugar.
BTW, when the East Timorese asked for help when they voted for democracy, America told Australia that since they were Australia’s neighbours, it was Australia’s duty to help them. Don’t you love double standards?