Moderator’s Note: Loopydude, please don’t imply that another user is on your ignore list.
This is going by memory , but Clinton was the first president in a really long time, that was in the process of normailizing relations with cuba, right up until the cuban airforce blew some light plane out of the air for making propaganda speeches or something back in 94.
But I can’t remember em making any comments about regime change.
Declan
More updates. From http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Israel-Iran.html:
And from http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-un-israel.html:
Who can place this quote for me? “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”
Sorry! Didn’t know that.
You really do want to make me work, don’t you?
Ok, I found this which referenced this. Aperently it was additional sanction Clinton enacted to allow people to sue companies doing business in Cuba. Not a direct mention, I admit.
I did find this from the Miami Herald "*The top State Department official for Cuba policy, Michael Ranneberger, told the participants after Remirez left that ``the deplorable human rights situation’’ in Cuba was one more reason not to reconsider lifting the longstanding embargo on trade with the island.
There is some wishful thinking that the administration wants to get out from under the embargo, and that's not true,'' Ranneberger said. We’re interested in more people-to-people contact, not with the Cuban government.’’*"
Although he also allowed:
"*Several participants at the conference, including representatives of telecommunications and energy companies, pressed Ranneberger on why U.S. policy allowed extensive trade with China and Vietnam, despite their poor human rights records, and blocked doing business with Cuba.
Ranneberger said there was an important difference: China was much further along in economic reforms, allowing outside companies to provide salaries and benefits directly to workers – something Cuba refuses to do. And he said ``the simple reality’’ is that Congress supports the embargo.*"
Just for completness, this is a summary of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (Libertad) of 1996 I believe this is the act mentioned in my first cite.
By the end of his administration, Clinton had taken a soft tone towards Cuba. *As President Clinton prepares to leave office he is taking a more philosophical view of Cuba. He told CBS, “I’ve often wondered whether he [Castro] and the people in America that don’t want any change in relations are in some sort of unconscious dance with each other, because as long as that embargo is there, he’s got an excuse for the failures of his regime.” *
This chronology suggests that Clinton suspended the rights to sue under teh 1996 act several times.
In 98 Clinton told NewsHour this: *JIM LEHRER: All right. Has the time come maybe for the United States to also bury some economic and political hatchets with Cuba?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, I think that our previous policy, the one that we have now and the one we have had through the Republican and Democratic administrations of keeping economic pressure on and denying the legitimacy of the Cuban government has been a good policy. I have made it clear from the day I got here that we would be prepared to respond to a substantial effort at a political or economic opening by Cuba, and we have, as you know, a system for communicating with each other. Nothing would please me greater than to see a new openness there that would justify a response on our part, and I would like to work on it. And I think Mr. Castro knows that. I’ve tried to proceed in good faith here. *
The Pope’s visit to Cuba was what sparked the questions, but in Jim Lehrer’s usual fasion, he managed to get some good comments from Clinton on the subject. These statments are not as strong as Bush’s. And the fact that he suspended litigation rights so often certainly might mean that he in fact was less hard line toward Cuba. But I think they also show that he was in agreement with the previous administrations that the embargo and refusal to recognize the Cuban government was the right policy.
I ran accross this odd little site purporting to be a clearinghouse for Cuban information as it pertains to US elections. It doesn’t seem to have much Clinton stuff, so just FYI.
Yes, it states quite succintly that no evidence is available to prove a link between Iraq and 9-11. It also states pretty clearly that Iraq was involved in international terrorism in one form or another for a long time. If you would really like me to quote passage and verse, I’d be happy to. I took your short responses to indicate that you did not want to belabor the point. It is, after all something of a hijack.
As it turns out, I disagree with Squink and agree with you in regards to Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
[Post #76 this thread.](What, do you link to giant tomes like this just to distract people? Have you anything better to throw at us, by way of a smokescreen, or are you as weak as squink in a debate?)
Well, I am not happy with what Clinton did here…I.e., he capitulated some to the pressure of the wacko anti-Castro people, and probably at least in part for political reasons with an eye toward Florida. However, you have to recognize the climate that existed after the incident of those planes getting shot down. Note this:
It was only after the bill’s backers agreed to several compromise provisions that Clinton signed it. One of those provisions was this one:
And, as one of those articles notes, Clinton subsequently used this provision at least once…I don’t know what he did after that.
Personally, I’d be much happier if Clinton refused to compromise at all. But, I think this is a very different role, of at least trying to moderate the will of Congress somewhat, than what Bush is playing.
“In one form of another” is the key phrase. Do you think the American people would want to spend a few hundred billion dollars and at least 1000 lives to topple Hussein because he grandstands in the Arab world by giving money to the families of suicide bombers in Israel after-the-fact?
That wasn’t the only charge. But as a matter of fact, Yes, I do. I realize that the choice was not spelled out so clearly. But probably many Americans favored war with Iraq simply because they favored war with Iraq. They don’t particularly care the he was not implicated in 9-11. They don’t particularly care that he never carried out a significant terrorist attack on America. They did consider his regime a threat.
To be clear, I am not saying they are right. Just answering the question about the American people.
Re: Clinton and Cuba.
I think what he did was pretty statesmanlike. He supported a policy vocally and through enforcement efforts because it was politically necessary. However, where he could exert influence he was able to alter the course significantly. He didn’t normalize relations. In fact he said that wouldn’t be a good idea. I did not find one, but I would be surprised if he ever gave a speech in Miami in which he did not repeat the past policy of witholding normalized relations until significant progress is made in Cuban reform. But that is just good politics. Can’t allow the Republicans to think they own Florida.
I imagine you could get Bush to make positive statements about normalizing relations if you included provisions about political reform there.
Let’s try to get this thread back on Iran. There are three problems:
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According to Rumsfeld, Iran is supporting the insurgency in Iraq. I haven’t seen any solid proof yet, nor has anyone outside the Bush Admin asserted or acknowledged the same.
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Iran is developing uranium-enrichment technology which it might use to make nuclear weapons.
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New one: According to the Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, “Iran has replaced Saddam Hussein as the world’s number one exporter of terror, hate and instability.” No specifics given, and maybe it’s flat wrong; but that Sharon would say this is a sign of things heating up, even by MENA standards.
Will any of these factors lead to a war between the U.S. and Iran?