The Cuban Embargo has continued for 40 years. Is he gone yet?
Really, who is more incoherent at this point? The State Department of the goofy guy with a cigar?
And if he dies in office, does the US Government claim credit?
There’s a way to challenge a dictator–take our ideas and our cash to him. How long do you think people would tolerate their standard of living with gringos vacationing there in vast numbers?
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. It isn’t about Cuba, it’s about Florida.
Um, Cuba already gets quite a bit of “gringo” tourist traffic, mostly from Canada and western Europe. (Hey, it’s beautiful and it’s got the cheapest prostitutes in the Carribean!) Somehow, this has not shaken the secret police’s grip on the populace.
I don’t contest that the embargo has been a failure (and cannot be made into a success at this point), but let’s not kid ourselves: “constructive engagement” isn’t going to dislodge Castro and his thugs any more than it did P.W. Botha.
It isn’t constructive engagement I’m arguing for…in fact it is destructive engagement. The best way to spread capitalism is to practice it. It isn’t to engage Castro, it is to subvert him. Right now US policy gives him someone to struggle against. Take that away and he is a just a ranting lunatic.
Yeah, what AP said, just like those Chicoms.
While I agree with lifting the embargo (it hurts the Cuban people way more than Castro), the reason you cite isn’t exactly correct. Jamaica gets a ton of Gringos. Mexico gets a ton. Even Costa Rica gets its share. All of these countries are still poor. While not as poor as Cuba, they’re still much lower than the US and a lot of developed world.
I think it was Kos who had the story of a Salvadorian woman he knew that had a middle class job but wanted to come to the US to be a nanny because the money was so much more.
Just because we engage does not mean that their standard of living will improve.
The second step would be to end sugar subisidies….
Doh.
I think their standard of living will improve–whether to that of the United States or not is a different issue. The limiting factors will be the degree of political and economic reform that Cuba would undergo and the degree to which markets would open. Cuba would be in a better position than many countries because it has a solid group of literate workers and some capital available in Miama–assuming the loons didn’t try and relive the Batista “glory days”