Reply #17: Nothing for pandering Dems candidates to be concerned about eh! [View All]

Bush Bashes Cuba: The 2004 Election Must be Nearing
October 15, 2003

It's a tired old horse, but the Bush administration never tires of beating Cuba with its bully stick whenever the political opportunity arises. That's what President George W. Bush did with his announcement last week of a laundry list of tough new measures to clamp down harder on the U.S. embargo on Cuba.

These would include a crackdown on illegal travel, more thorough inspections of people and shipments going to and from Havana and the stemming of an "illicit sex trade" surrounding Cuba's tourism industry. Bush says his tougher line is "intended to hasten the arrival of a new, free, democratic Cuba." And if Bush truly believes that, he is smoking something more illegal than Cuban cigars.

… The Cuban embargo lost all validity a long time ago and retains only a vestigial function as a relic of the Cold War. But it remains a political evergreen as long as presidential candidates feel they need to pander to South Florida's Cuban-American voters.

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpcub153495457oct15,0,1956811.story?coll=ny-editorials-headlines

This is the wrong time to close doors to Cuba
October 15, 2003

The departure of a freighter from the Port of Corpus Christi loaded with hard red winter bound for Cuba represents the best future for U.S. relations with Cuba, not the tightening of travel restrictions to the island nation announced this week by President Bush.

… The White House announced that the Department of Homeland Security would be instructed to increase surveillance and increase its questioning of the few thousand Americans who each year travel to Cuba under the exceptions allowed by the embargo. Many Americans, however, also get to Cuba illegally by going through third countries. Homeland Security, under the new guidelines, will start cracking down on this end-around, a nice repressive move that would be admired by any thug nation intent on restricting the free travel of its own people. Say, like Cuba.

Would it be too crass to say that there is a certain amount of politics here? Well, no. The tightened restrictions no doubt play well with the get-tough-with-Cuba crowd in Florida and New Jersey, key states in the 2004 presidential elections.

http://www.caller.com/ccct/editorials/article/0,1641,CCCT_840_2348772,00.html

Restrictions against Cuba not answer
Oct 15, 2003

… Unfortunately, the president said one of the first steps would be to step up enforcement of existing restrictions on the communist regime, including trade embargoes and a ban on tourism by Americans.

That is exactly the wrong approach to bringing freedom to the island nation, which has suffered for many years under the economic restrictions. These restrictions are hurting the people of Cuba, not Castro, who simply uses them to propagandize his people about how uncaring America is toward Cuba.

Freedom and democracy for Cuba lie along a different path, one which seeks to encourage free trade and the infusion of American ideals. Trade restrictions and tourism restrictions should be lifted rather that enforced.

http://yumasun.com/artman/publish/articles/story_7744.shtml

October 14, 2003
Foster dialogues about democracy in Cuba

The most logical way to bring about a country's yearning for democracy is to expose greater numbers of its people to the freedoms Americans enjoy. Permitting more Americans to travel to Cuba, in addition to letting more Cubans visit America, would go a long way toward this end. And besides, what kind of preparation does America need for a democratic Cuba? Existing trade agreements and diplomatic practices already work successfully throughout the world. Let them be models for a post-Castro Cuba.

http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/all-editorial3oct14,0,581942.story?coll=all-newsopinion-hed

Tue, Oct. 14, 2003
Sen. Norm Coleman is wrong about Cuba

We, too, have visited Cuba for significantly longer periods than Coleman's weekend trip. We believe that engagement — trade and travel, and real dialogue between Cubans and U.S. citizens — is far more likely to have an impact on the situation than is continuing our current failed embargo. We have met with members of religious communities, academics, ordinary citizens and both Cuban and U.S. government representatives in Cuba.

In fact, continuing current U.S. policy seems more like cutting off our nose to spite our face than anything else. Minnesota farmers, travel agents and business people are losing opportunities; and researchers, academics, and ordinary citizens from Minnesota and across this country are being denied the opportunity to visit Cuba and draw their own conclusions about the country, simply in order to continue an embargo that no one else in the world supports. That's not improving the human rights situation.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/opinion/7005262.htm

Bush wrong to target Cuba travel
October 14, 2003

This is wrong in principle. Absent compelling reasons of national security, clearly not at issue in hapless Cuba, Americans should be free to travel wherever they want.

… Bush says he will instruct the Department of Homeland Security to increase its questioning and surveillance of American visitors to Cuba and "target" those going through third countries. So this is what Homeland Security is for? To monitor a free people's movements? Say it isn't so.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion/article/0,1299,DRMN_38_2345111,00.html

Travel, trade, not another crackdown, can aid Cuba
Tue Oct 14, 2003

The Bush administration's reasoning for tightening travel restrictions to Cuba needs a reality check.

... Illegal travelers to Cuba (about a third of the roughly 200,000 Americans who visit annually) aren't propping up the Castro regime. Most of the dollars that end up in Cuba come from Americans largely, Cuban-Americans who travel there legally and from people in the U.S. who send legal "remittances" of up to $1,200 a year to family members and friends. The State Department reports that those remittances total $800 million to $1 billion annually.

If Bush is serious about fostering change in Cuba, he will end both the restrictions that keep most Americans from traveling to Cuba and the long U.S. economic embargo. The vast majority of Cubans I've met during reporting trips to the island long for a better life there. Many even say the Castro government could do a better job. But most of them like most Americans are patriotic. They rally to support their government in the face of the United States' decades-old effort to topple Castro.

Even many of the dissidents and so-called independent journalists I've talked to in Cuba oppose the embargo. While it offers false hope to the aging vanguard of anti-Castro Cubans in South Florida, the embargo holds little promise of ever actually dislodging the island's communist government.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=679&ncid=742&e=14&u=/usatoday/20031014/cm_usatoday/11900585

Top Senate Democrat slams US crackdown on Cuba
October 14, 2003

WASHINGTON, 14 (AFP) - The US Senate's top Democrat rejected White House moves to tighten sanctions on Cuba, calling instead for a policy on engagement with the Communist-ruled island.

"I think that it's important for us to recognize that as we trade with China, with Vietnam, with countries around the world with whom we have disagreements, that it's equally as important for us to find ways with which to do it with a country 90 miles (145 kilometers) off our shore," Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said.

http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y03/oct03/15e5.htm