Bush to Toughen U.S. Policies Toward Cuba

Bush to Toughen U.S. Policies Toward Cuba

By George Gedda
The Associated Press
Thursday, May 6, 2004; 12:56 PM


President Bush, declaring "we are working for the day of freedom in Cuba," took steps Thursday to end jamming of U.S. broadcasts to the island as part of a tough new strategy to hasten the demise of communist rule.

Bush decided to order deployment of military aircraft to transmit signals of the Miami-based Radio Marti and TV, an effort to end Cuba's jamming of U.S. government broadcasts. The measure was one of a number of recommendations in a report prepared by a government commission on Cuba headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
(snip)

"It is a strategy that says we're not waiting for the day of Cuban freedom, we are working for the day of freedom in Cuba," Bush said.
(snip)

The plan involves use of C-130's that will fly over international waters adjacent to the island. Operations are expected to begin in a few months.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6549-2004May6.html

Pandering to the Maimi Cubans again, eh? Is Dubya gonna call for an invasion of Cuba next?!

Osama? He's just soooo 2001.

With fidel, George gets to finally vanquish the Holy Grail of Republican bogeymen - Communism.

Not to mention locking up the Florida vote for keeps.

-as

...this "new" policy is to protect "human rights"! The chutzpah of this jerk? Hello-o-o-o? Does Guantanamo Bay-Camp Delta ring a bell, Mr. pResident?

,...that would turn off Bush!!! :grr:

Double down, triple down. Its gotta cash in ONE of these days. We already been committed for 40 years, whats another?

if we don't toughen sanctions, the king of cuba couLd waLtz right in here push us around. oh, and destroy with his stockpiLes of wmds.

with any country that he doesn't like.

I am tired of our country being a bully. We don't have the money or the troops to keep picking fights.

If His Chimperial Majesty was sure of re-selection, an invasion of Cuba would have been inevitable in 2005.

But fearing that he's just lost the war, and the election, Bush has moved Cuba ahead on the timetable. It has been a long cherished goal by the wackiest wackos in our nation to oust Castro and re-install the Batistas. They've been waiting for this for decades.

Bolton has twice publically claimed that Cuba is manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. Last year he claimed Cuba was behind the spread of West Nile disease.

These charges are absurd.

Anyone who opposes Castro knows that all they have to do is sit back and wait for him to die, which will be within a few years.

But the Bushistas want to get *their* people in where they want them to be, to control Cuba's economy in the future -- hence they are going to present this as an "imminent threat" to the US and escalate action. They have also been openly trying to start a confrontation by sending American right wing wackos to sow dissension and try to start an uprising. Castro struck back -- what else was he supposed to do?

Here we go again. They will rush us into Cuba -- because, like Iraq, all they have to do is start it to ensure that our nation is going to be stuck there.

US Presidential candidate lashes out again at President Hugo Chavez Frias

and

Kerry backs embargo and easing Cuba travel

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x518876

Ahh the suspense is killing me. Will Kerry be able to out Bush Bush?

That's what it looks like this contest is boiling down to. Kerry needs to differentiate himself from Bush, not agree with him. Where's the choice in that match up? If people want Bush-type approaches, they'll go with Bush anyway.

If this is for the swing voters, I hope that the Kerry campaign knows what it's doing.

for Cuba, life goes on as a commercial line has resumed between Alabama food producers and the Cuban food importer, Alimport:

Ag commissioner opens chicken sales to Cuba

05-06-2004

Over the past few days, Alabama Agriculture and Industries Commissioner Ron Sparks has successfully negotiated with Cuban officials to allow Alabama farmers to resume the sell of chicken to Cuba.

Sales were halted in March due to Cuban concerns of Avian Influenza in the United States. The move potentially could mean millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs for Alabama.

“All the work we put in over the past year and a half has paid off for the farmers of Alabama,” Sparks stated. “However, the work has just begun and the progress is just starting.”
Commissioner Sparks is leading a delegation in Cuba.
(snip/...)

http://www.cleburnenews.com/news/2004/cn-local-0506-0-4e06j0934.htm

by over-flying international waters close to Cuba is a ploy to draw fire. Will a US aircraft 'mistakenly' fly over Cuban territory hoping to draw a response? Hope the Cubans don't fall for this IDF trick.

I believe they already gave it a trial run in the 1990's, and Cuba failed that test.

Do you remember the Miami Cuban "exiles'" organization, "Brothers to the Rescue," ("Hermanos al Rescate") lead by José Basulto, who had worked with the CIA, was a Bay of Pigs vet, and had led terrorist raids into Cuba prior to organizing BTTR? They had been actually flying OVER Havana, dropping leaflets, even religious medallions, had even been witnessed personally by a visiting ex-Cuban Interests Section head, Wayne S. Smith.

They set up, and got Cuba to fire on them, and they lost 4 men in a couple of airplanes which Cubans say invaded Cuban air space, as well as some people in boats in the water, etc., etc.

This is an article printed in a U.S. taxpayer-supported Cuba news outlet concerning the event:

Basulto warned before first trip


By Gail Epstein Nieves . gepstein@herald.com. Published Thursday, March 8, 2001, in the Miami Herald

Even before Brothers to the Rescue founder José Basulto made his first known leafletting excursion over Havana in 1995, a U.S. aviation official warned Basulto that Cuba "might force him to land or shoot him down'' if he strayed into Cuban airspace.

Basulto responded, "Chuck, you know I always play by the rules, but you must understand I have a mission in life to perform,'' according to testimony Wednesday in the Cuban spy trial.

"Chuck'' was Charles H. Smith, a now-retired enforcement officer with the Federal Aviation Administration who testified about all the admonitions Basulto got prior to the Feb. 24, 1996, shoot-down that claimed the lives of four Brothers fliers.

Asked by defense attorney Paul McKenna if Basulto had heeded his warnings, Smith said: "Unfortunately, he did not.''
(snip)

http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y01/mar01/08e4.htm

riding old ladies around like donkeys.

I've no major objections to broadcasting aircraft besides the fact that I think that their operations should be paid for by the exile politicos and their admirers, but I strongly oppose the rest of the proposals like further restrictions on Cuban visitors, cutbacks on the numbers of visits Cuban emigres can make to the auld sod, and cutbacks on remittances.

My observation is that US government-sponsored broadcasting has taken severe damage to its credibility in the wake of Dubya's Big Sandy Adventure in Iraq.

U.S. Seeks to Subvert Succession in Cuba

41 minutes ago

By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - A presidential commission recommended Thursday that the United States take steps to subvert the planned succession in Cuba under which power would pass from President Fidel Castro to his younger brother, Raul.

The commission, headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell , said the United States "rejects the continuation of a communist dictatorship" on the island.

Bush directed that the spending of as much as $59 million over the next two years to help promote the goal of a democratic Cuba. As much as $39 million would help carry out democracy-building activities and support family members of the political opposition. Up to $18 million would go for evading Cuba's jamming of Radio and TV Marti, which are U.S. government broadcast operations tailored for Cuban audiences.
(snip)

Some members of Congress have said in recent days that Bush's designation of the Cuban commission and his May 1 deadline for its completion were geared to retaining Cuban-American support for the November elections. Without the support of that constituency in Florida in the 2000 elections, Al Gore would have been elected.
(snip/...)

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040506/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/us_cuba_040506211811

Whatever the intentions of the Boosh regime and the official blather out of Havana, I rather doubt that the broadcast aircraft are going to produce a bumper crop of right-wing Cuban dittoheads. The broadcasts might provide an alternate point of view, but the US, especially since the inauguration of George UU Bush and the invasion of Iraq, has lost a lot of the moral stature it had during the Clinton administration. I expect that the islanders will treat the broadcasts in much the same way DUers treat broadcasts from Rupert Murdoch's propaganda organs--a source for news items, but a clearly biased and not particularly trustworthy one.

Better to have Boosh regime apparatchikii occupied planning flying broadcasts than dreaming up ways to effect an air and naval blockade of Cuba.

when one of those planes falls out of the sky on its own accord, the Cuban Navy fishes the crew out of the Atlantic Ocean, gives them Cuban medical care, feeds them Cuban food and returns them to the United States unharmed?

Talk about a propaganda coup for Fidel!