China has a youth literacy rate of 99% and 99.4% have access to electricity.
I still agree that Costa Rica would be a much better model.
Other than being a blatant violation of international law, you mean?
Awww, shminternational shlaw!
I don’t think that we would actually invade, but I would be shocked if there weren’t a few CIA guys sitting around drinking Havana Club and waiting for the moment so that a couple of people get killed here, a car wreck occurs here, documents don’t get delivered there, so that a U.S. friendly successor (at least nominally) takes over.
Then Americans can smoke Cuban cigars and drink Cuban rum for about 6 months and realize that they are no better than cigars and rum anywhere else in the world. Sort of like Coors beer used to be for the East Coast.
Hmm… I must have misremembered. I remembered an article from James Fallows in which he was discussing modern China and he mentioned how despite a booming economy, most Chinese were still peasants and I thought he said most of the villages lacked electricity, but I must have misremembered.
Since when did the U.S. government, cough - Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Iranian coup by Eisenhower, cough - care about international law?
Which of those…cough cough…violated ‘international law’? And how did they violate it, such as it is? How would any of those be similar to a unilateral invasion of Cuba?
I don’t claim that they are similar to an invasion of Cuba. Isn’t invading a country without provocation (Iraq, Grenada, Panama - none of those governments posed any threat to the U.S.) or overthrowing a legitimately elected government (Iran - because their newly elected government was supported by the USSR) against international law?
If not, they should be.
You tell me…you made the…cough cough…claim. AFAIK, none of the things you mentioned violated ‘international law’.
An invasion of Cuba right now, unilaterally, however pretty clearly would. Not that this is the reason it’s a stupid idea, but it’s the point you decided to make so was just asking you to back up your statement.
At this point, I think it boils down politically to a grudge–a petty, meaningless grudge.
Relations should’ve been normalized and sanctions lifted at least 20 years ago.
[QUOTE=Jamie Gillis]
Okay, I’m going to play devil’s advocate.
How about a U.S. invasion to totally destroy any chance of a communist regime continuing in Cuba? A democratic government could be put in place with far more ease than, shall I say, Iraq.
And it would make the spirits of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Reagan very happy. GHW Bush would probably leap from his wheelchair in glee, too. I could see only President Carter as critical. (I’m not sure what President Clinton would think and I don’t care about GW Bush’s opinion - sorry.)
What would be the real world and political outcomes if we invaded?
I’m not advocating this. I’m just saying “what if…”
P.S. I’m well aware that most of the world - except perhaps the U.K. government - would not support such a move.
[/QUOTE]
Your real name doesn’t happen to be John Bolton, does it?
See: Pigs, Bay of.
How much, to the round hundred billion, would such an invasion cost? What would be the benefit of such an invasion? To depose a communist dictatorship? Uh, isn’t it a bit late for that?
As for opening Cuba to American investment, you guys do know that Cuba is already open to Canadian, Mexican, French, British, Australian, Russian, Indian, Brazilian, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Venezuelan, Colombian, Argentinian, Chilean, Saudi Arabian, Turkish, and on and on investment?
Yeah, Florida is right across the strait. Yeah, American tourists would bring in money. But Cuba already has trade and tourism and normal relations with every other country in the world except America. The notion that American corporations and gangsters would take over Cuba the second we lift the embargo is nonsense. Investment in Cuba is controlled by the Cuban government, and they have all the investment they want.
The famous classic cars from the 50s of Cuba aren’t because Cubans can’t trade with the United States. After all they could buy cars from Japan or Germany. Other poor third world countries aren’t lacking for shitty new cars. The reason these old cars are kept running is because Cuban citizens aren’t allowed to buy private cars. But they were allowed to keep private cars they owned at the time of the revolution. And so aging rustbuckets are kept running by any means necessary because once your car dies for good, you’re never going to be allowed to get another.
That said, there is almost no constituency in the United States for normalizing relations with Cuba. No Democratic president is going to touch it, because there’s no upside. Once Castro is dead, then I suppose some Republican president of the future might decide the business interests of America would be served by normal relations. But the impact on America will be very minor. Cuba is a tiny country with a tiny economy, and even outside the embargo we have massive trade barriers against sugar to subsidize American sugar and corn agribusiness. There aren’t any American businesses looking at Cuba and thinking of the billions of dollars they could earn if only the embargo were dropped.
Cubans themselves have regularly argued that dropping the American embargo would be a huge boon.