Bush Seeking Ideas for Regime Change in Cuba

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAN8SXEMLD.html

Bush Seeking Ideas for Regime Change in Cuba
By George Gedda
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Eager to please a key Florida constituency, President Bush directed his secretary of state and his Cuban-born housing secretary Friday to recommend ways to achieve a transition to democracy in Cuba after 44 years under Fidel Castro.

Secretary of State Colin Powell and Housing Secretary Mel Martinez will chair a panel that will "plan for the happy day when Castro's regime is no more and democracy comes to the island," Bush said during a Rose Garden ceremony.

"The transition to freedom will present many challenges to the Cuban people and to America, and we will be prepared," the president said.

Bush also said the United States would step up enforcement of existing restrictions against the communist regime, such as a ban on tourism by Americans, and crack down on the trafficking of women and children in Cuba. The United States also will launch a public outreach campaign to identify "the many routes to safe and legal entry" for Cubans who try to flee their homeland, he said.
"We'll increase the number of new Cuban immigrants we welcome every year," Bush added. "We are free to do so, and we will for the good of those who seek freedom." <snip>

Cuba is communist, so is China. Why no inflammatory rhetoric against China?

it as pandering? - will the media spin it as pandering in their reports?

The ABCNOTE bemoans how partisan and unaccountable the Democratic presidential candidates are being and how little the media are doing about it - perhaps the ABCNOTE will bemoan how partisan and unaccountable Bush is - always - and how little the media are doing about it?

Ya - right - the ABCNote is "fair and balanced".

elections are coming up..got to raise money for the party.

yeah, the last one went REAL well.

maybe they should revive those crazy 1960s CIA plots... LSD in Castro's corn flakes, etc.

order.

is not going to play well for the US in the long run. We make enemies each time we go through that... however, it's all the neocons seem to think about, and it seems to be spreading to other countries, like Russia and China.

People can be so very stupid. :-(

Can't be too long now.

The guy must be about a thousand years old by now. Pop a cold one and wait awhile.

lets hope the Bush family of thugs are also on their way out.

why don't you train up a bunch of cuban ex-pats, arm them, then drop them on the shore of cuba. Sure, you'll get a popular uprising in support (just like Iraq!) and pretty soon Fidel will be history.

Oh yeah...history. You flunked that, didn't you? Maybe a "gentleman's C", but that amounts to the same thing. So you might as well try the stregery I just suggested, since you're doomed to repeating the course anyway.

is this guy hung up on sex..i didn`t know cuba exported women and children..of course cuba should go back to the pre-castro days when the mob bought the government and women and children were sex toys for the rich americans...
oh yes this is really going to get the whitepowers and freepers all in a knot..

Where's Dr. Krevorkian (sp) when you need him?

I just can't believe the arrogance of this idiot. Just who in the hell does he think he is? King of the fucking world? Are we gong to conquer a country a year until the shit head is removed from office.

I have to believe he's just spouting off cause he's trying to raise money....of course, I didn't actually believe he'd go through with invading iraq either, so who knows.

He needs another war. The two that he started are a mess and his poll numbers are dropping. Cuba is close by, it'll be a cheap and easy war.
Good TV. Lot's of cheering n Miami.

People all over the world love Cuba. If millions marched to stop the war in Iraq - it's hard to imagine how many would march to defend Cuba!

I would be willing to go there and march on the Malecon. I can see millions from everywhere marching there, for Cuba and against B*.

or is it Hiel GEORGIE, whatever, you get my drift.

but here is part of the text. He looks weird when he was giving the speech...rather like a rambling thing with Spanish inserted here and there...strange effect.

Notice (bolded by me) his obsession with "sex trade" and "free elections"... not in Florida but in Cuba.

THE PRESIDENT: Hola. Sientese. Thank you for coming. Welcome to the Rose Garden. It's my honor to host you for an important policy announcement.

snip....

Last year in Miami, I offered Cuba's government a way forward -- a way forward toward democracy and hope and better relations with the United States. I pledged to work with our Congress to ease bans on trade and travel between our two countries if -- and only if -- the Cuban government held free and fair elections, allowed the Cuban people to organize, assemble and to speak freely, and ease the stranglehold on private enterprise.

Since I made that offer, we have seen how the Castro regime answers diplomatic initiatives. The dictator has responded with defiance and contempt and a new round of brutal oppression that outraged the world's conscience.

In April, 75 peaceful members of Cuban opposition were given harsh prison sentences, some as long a 20 years. Their crimes were to publish newspapers, to organize petition drives, to meet to discuss the future of their country. Cuba's political prisoners subjected to beatings and solitary confinement and the denial of medical treatment. Elections in Cuba are still a sham. Opposition groups still organize and meet at their own peril. Private economic activity is still strangled. Non-government trade unions are still oppressed and suppressed. Property rights are still ignored. And most goods and services produced in Cuba are still reserved for the political elites.

snip...

First, we are strengthening re-enforcement of those travel restrictions to Cuba that are already in place. (Applause.) U.S. law forbids Americans to travel to Cuba for pleasure. That law is on the books and it must be enforced. We allow travel for limited reasons, including visit to a family, to bring humanitarian aid, or to conduct research. Those exceptions are too often used as cover for illegal business travel and tourism, or to skirt the restrictions on carrying cash into Cuba. We're cracking down on this deception.

I've instructed the Department of Homeland Security to increase inspections of travelers and shipments to and from Cuba. We will enforce the law. (Applause.) We will also target those who travel to Cuba illegally through third countries, and those who sail to Cuba on private vessels in violation of the embargo.

snip...

By cracking down on the illegal travel, we will also serve another important goal. A rapidly growing part of Cuba's tourism industry is the illicit sex trade, a modern form of slavery which is encouraged by the Cuban government . This cruel exploitation of innocent women and children must be exposed and must be ended. (Applause.)

snip...


In addition to the measures I've announced today, we continue to break the information embargo that the Cuban government has imposed on its people for a half a century. Repressive governments fear the truth, and so we're increasing the amount and expanding the distribution of printed material to Cuba, of Internet-based information inside of Cuba, and of AM-FM and shortwave radios for Cubans.

Radio and TV Marti are bringing the message of freedom to the Cuban people. This administration fully recognizes the need to enhance the effectiveness of Radio and TV Marti. Earlier this year, we launched a new satellite service to expand our reach to Cuba. On May 20th, we staged the historic flight of Commando Solo, an airborne transmission system that broke through Castro's jamming efforts. Tyrants hate the truth; they jam messages. And on that day, I had the honor of speaking to the Cuban people in the native language.

snip...

De nuevo, Cuba libre. Thank you all. (Applause.)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/10/20031010-2.html

All this incoherent blabber about sex-trade during his :crazy: speech suddenly becomes crystalclear...a set-up for another war, like someone suggested, bombastic yet cheap.

...and doesn't care what happens to the world once he's gone?

and the f*ck'n moron invokes the name of Cuban hero Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. The Cespedes medal is awarded to those for outstanding civilian achievment in Cuba and was presented to Juan Miguel Gonzalez after returning home with Elian in June 2000.

<clips>

THE PRESIDENT: Hola. Sientese. Thank you for coming. Welcome to the Rose Garden. It's my honor to host you for an important policy announcement.

I'm proud to be joined by our great Secretary of State Colin Powell and a son of Cuba, a graduate of the Pedro Pan program -- (applause) -- Mel Martinez. (Applause.) I'm also pleased to be joined with other members who will be -- of my administration who will be charged with implementing policy. From the Department of Homeland Security, Under Secretary Asa Hutchinson is with us today. (Applause.) From the Treasury Department, Rick Newcomb, Director of the Office of Foreign Asset Control, is with us today. Rick, thank you for coming. (Applause.) Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Noriega is with us today. (Applause.) Y, por fin, from my staff, Envoy Otto Reich. (Applause.)

As well, we're honored to have distinguished members of the Congress with us, starting with the very capable and able Senator from the state of Virginia, George Allen. (Applause.) Bienvenidos, Jorge. (Laughter.) From the state of Florida, Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart. (Applause.) Y su hermano, Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart. (Applause.) Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. (Applause.) And Porter Goss. Thank you for coming. I'm honored you all are here. (Applause.)

The Secretary mentioned to me that Bob Dole is with us. Bob Dole is not with us.

One hundred and thirty-five years ago today, the struggle for Cuban freedom began at a sugar mill near Manzanillo. Carlos Manuel de Cespedas -- known as the Father of the Homeland -- led an uprising against colonial rule. Today, the struggle for freedom continues -- it hasn't ended -- in cities and towns of that beautiful island, in Castro's prisons, and in the heart of every Cuban patriot. It is carried on by brave dissidents like Oscar Elias Biscet, Marta Beatriz Roque, Leonardo Bruzon Avila.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/10/20031010-2.html

Drip, drip, drip...

<clips>

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In reaction to the speech by President Bush (news - web sites) today toughening restrictions on travel by Americans to Cuba, Sarah Stephens, director of the Freedom to Travel Campaign, issued the following statement:

"If President Bush wants to end the 'information embargo' to Cuba, he should stop preventing Americans from traveling to Cuba," Ms. Stephens said. "Americans are the best ambassadors we have for spreading information about the US to Cuba, and all he has done today -- by making it tougher to travel to Cuba -- is to continue the failed policies of isolating Cuba, economically and diplomatically, that have not worked for over 40 years."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=669&ncid=669&e=2&u=/031010/180/5j487.html

again. America needs a Regime Change. Bush is a
Megalomaniac. He gives new meaning to the expression, "loose cannon".
He is totally irrational! Seriously mentally ill.

The sooner the better.......

:kick:

Ding-dong!!

He could just lob a few missles into Havana. This would take care of the "trafficking of women and children" in Cuba and bring that glorious form of freedom that Bush adhers to.