U.S. will try to evade Cuba's jamming of broadcasts

What is he doing now?!?!

http://www.iht.com/articles/518674.html

WASHINGTON Declaring that "we are working for the day of freedom in Cuba," President George W. Bush took steps Thursday to bypass Havana's jamming of U.S. broadcasts there.
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Bush ordered deployment of military aircraft to transmit signals of Radio Martí and TV Martí, which are based in Miami. The move was one of a number of recommendations from a government commission on Cuba headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
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"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 at a meeting with commissioners in the White House. With all local media under state control, Cubans have little access to other information. The jamming began in 1990.
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The U.S. plan involves using C-130s to fly over international waters adjacent to Cuba. Operations are expected to begin in a few months.

more....



Bush Moves to Slow Flow of US Dollars to Cuba

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=E140EF39-F712-4673-89CA29B466F8BD3C

President Bush is moving to reduce the flow of U.S. dollars to Cuba and taking other steps to try to hasten the end of Fidel Castro's communist government in Havana. The steps were recommended by a study commission headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Mr. Bush said the United States will increase support for organizations supporting Cuban dissidents and take steps to reduce the flow of dollars to Cuba from tourists and remittances, as part of a tough new strategy to help Cubans become free of what he termed the "tyranny" of the Castro government.

At a White House meeting Thursday with members of the commission he ordered be set up last year, the President said the United States will not passively await a change in government in Cuba.

"It is a strategy that will prevent the regime from exploiting hard currency of tourists and of remittances to Cubans, to prop up their repressive regime," he said. "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."

more...


edit to add
It's all about the votes in Florida :puke:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=518907

With one eye on November's presidential election and the key battleground state of Florida, President George Bush yesterday promised a slew of get-tough-on-Cuba initiatives aimed at choking off Fidel Castro's supply of hard currency and enforcing the successful transmission of US-sponsored radio and television broadcasts.

snip>
The new measures, based on the recommendations of a special presidential commission on Cuba, did not go as far as some of the more extreme anti-Castro advocates - in Florida and within the Bush administration - had hoped. Mr Bush appeared to pull back from an earlier proposal to freeze all remittances sent to Cuba by the exile community for six months. Instead, he is now expected to endorse better policing methods so that the limit of $1,200 (£670) per family per year is more rigorously enforced.

Hardline anti-Castro advocates argue that the remittances are too often falling into the hands of the Cuban government, rather than the families for whom they are intended. Two weeks ago the idea of freezing the remittances was suggested in a newspaper article in Florida's Sun-Sentinel. The co-chair of the Cuba commission, the Florida Republican Mel Martinez, told the paper the administration was thinking of ending the remittances "because they are not helpful". But that idea went down badly with the younger, more moderate generation of Cuban exiles who came to Florida during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. They remain deeply attached to their families and see the remittances as a lifeline.

Mr Bush appears to have paid heed to an opinion poll published in the Sun-Sentinel, showing that this younger generation - which accounts for about one-third of Florida's Cuban vote - objects strongly to any policy that would jeopardise the flow of money or travel for family members to and from Cuba.

Sergio Bendixen, of the poll's co-ordinators, told Ann Louise Bardach, the author and Cuba expert: "If this administration cuts travel or remittances to Cuba, they lose the Cuban vote and the election".

states so we don't need to get cable to watch european news?

Lift the restrictions. Start free trade and allow open tourism.

What?
Can't do that?
Why not?
Nobody dies.
Building don't get blown up.

What? Gotta kill things and people to have freedom? Says you maybe.

What, do you think that American tourists bring magical freedom pixie dust? NOT!

Visitors from all over the world visit & tour Cuba, completely free to see anything in Cuba - including the Cuban elections.

Its the US government that denies freedom to its own citizens in that we can't just go to Cuba to see the place for ourselves.

What about the freedom of access to full universal health care for each and every citizen? America loses to Cuba on that battle of freedom. Education too.

Americans could learn a thing or two about freedom from Cubans in Cuba. But, we Americans are not yet free enough to go there.

Cuba. A new conflict in the making.

I bet in the years POS supposedly attended Yale he never even heard of Cuba.

The jerk probably was told of a country named Cuba only after he stole the wh and they gave him his orders.

F'in hypocrite.

we're not waiting for the day of Cuban freedom, we are working for the day of freedom in Cuba,"

The Cubans mostly prefer sado-masochistic kinds of pleasure. The kind of pleasures, American heroes in Uniform - women and men - are already offering to liberated Iraqis in prison and torture chambers that put the American sex-industry to shame.

If you think, women are still oppressed in the USA, just watch our most prominent brownshirt porn-actress in action in the liberated Iraq. Soon in a cinema near you.

As long as not all young Americans have tortured, raped and killed at least 30 oppressed victims of communist and other evil dictatorships all around the world, they shouldn't be allowed to marry or have sex in the USA.

There's so much work to do for Bush.

And Kerry can't listen, 'cause he has to liberate Venezuela and preper it to be liberated.

It's all about the votes in Florida and human stupidity reaching new levels,

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

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Don't want the Murikkans thinking they deserve free Health Care too!

Heck, the WH NEEDS that money for their War Machine!

Despite the US's 40 year-old embargo on Cuba, Cuba is progressing.

If the USA is any indication of the "success" of capitalism, it makes me ponder.

And re the airplanes over international waters,

I guess that it would be OK for Cuba, Canada, Russia, China, - anyone really, to fly up and down the US coasts and do the same thing?

Right -

They'd get blasted out of the sky

"National Security" and all

I've remembered this remark ever since I read it:

President Dwight D. Eisenhower told Admiral Arthur M. Radford, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a secret meeting. "If planes were flying 20 to 50 miles from our shores," Eisenhower continued, "we would be very likely to shoot them down if they came in closer, whether through error or not." (..)
(snip)

http://www.cndyorks.gn.apc.org/yspace/articles/spyplanes.htm

Ex-CIA operative, Cuban "exile" and terrorist, José Basulto has flown planes as part of his "Brothers to the Rescue" intimidation of Cubans, right over Havana, dropping leaflets and religious medallions.

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize he is also telling them that if he can get in and fly low over Havana dropping leaflets, he could just as easily be dropping deadly things, too. (In the '60's, he and other exile and CIA pilots did a lot of terrorism from the sky, machine gunning trains, hotels, dropping bombs, etc.)

On Monday, leaders of the Cuban American National Foundation joined another leading exile group, Brothers to the Rescue, in publicly challenging their loyalty to the Republican Party, and to the George W. Bush administration. Brothers to the Rescue announced last Friday that the group will renounce their political party affiliation from Republican Party to protest a U.S. decision to send 12 suspected hijackers back to Cuba. They said the move does not mean the group will support the Democrats, but rather that Cuban-Americans will vote for whoever supports their cause.

"We are becoming noncommittal," The group's leader, Jose Basulto said.
(snip/...)

http://www.nbc6.net/politics/2359512/detail.html

and replace it with one of his choosing. The report has just been issued. It will be a shock to anyone who has been aware of Cuba's superior health system and education system. You have to wonder what the hell this man believes he is doing. His butting into Cuba will NOT be welcomed:

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A. Overview
Cuba’s transition from the Castro regime to a democratic society with a free economy will be a challenging process. Meeting the basic human needs of the Cuban population involves the removal of the manifestations of Castro’s communism; the introduction of the values and practices of democracy and free enterprise; and the building of institutions and services that will improve the health, nutrition, education, housing, and social services available to the Cuban people.
The fundamental goal of any assistance to a free Cuba must be to empower the Cuban people to enable them to create an authentic democracy and free market economy. Empowering the Cuban people will mean improving their economic and social well-being, ensuring that adequate health and social services are provided, reconstructing a democratic civic culture through education and institution-building, dealing with the human cost of the totalitarian police state, and supporting the Cuban people as they cope with these issues and work to transform themselves.
Improving their condition will require dramatic reforms to ensure that democratic values and a civic culture return, that important democratic institutions — including private and faith-based organizations — are able to flourish, and that helping agents such as schools, clinics, and community centers respond to real needs and are accountable to the citizenry.
Some of the effort to meet basic human needs will involve immediate, short-term assistance to ensure that critical health, nutrition, and social services are addressed; that schools are kept open and provided with needed instructional materials; that housing emergencies are attended to; that comprehensive needs assessments and data collection are begun; and that food aid is distributed as needed.

Over the medium- and long-term, a variety of programs and services are identified that U.S. public and private sources can provide to the Cuban people, as a new Cuban government initiates the process of fundamental reform, establishing a rule of law, safeguarding human rights, and creating a new climate of opportunity. It is expected that such assistance will be available not only from U.S. Government agencies and contractors, but also from other international donors, international organizations and institutions, philanthropic foundations, non-profit expert organizations, and businesses interested in investing in Cuba’s future. Cuban-American and other U.S. citizens and organizations would be involved in these efforts.
Both short- and long-term issues will involve the work of many players and will need to be coordinated. The Cuban people are educated and, despite the repression of the Castro regime, have shown themselves to be remarkably resilient, savvy, and entrepreneurial. They will need the resources (including short- and long-term loans), technical assistance, and general support to enable them to improve health standards, manage the change to a market economy, and maintain and improve their infrastructure and services.
B. Seven Foundations for Action in Cuba’s Transformation
There are seven overarching principles that are so fundamental to a successful transition that they cut across all other actions and issues. They are:
1. All that is done must have the goal of empowering the Cuban people. Cuba must be free and sovereign, and the pride its people have in their culture, history and hopes for the future must be affirmed. Assistance proposed herein is illustrative. It will be up to the Cuban people through an open, democratic process to decide what assistance Cuba may seek from international sources.
2. The international community, especially organizations in the Western Hemisphere, can play a leading role in assisting the transition process. The U.S. Government can work through the Organization of American States and regional agencies, and with the United Nations and its agencies, and other organizations and individual countries.
3. Churches and other religious bodies have an important role in building a free Cuba.
4. The Cuban diaspora will want to take a role in helping the homeland. It might be useful to establish an umbrella organization to help coordinate diaspora assistance, such as a “Foundation for Assistance to a Free Cuba.”
5. U.S. and other assistance to Cuba should be coordinated to ensure it is managed effectively and provides help where it is needed most. The U.S. Government might consider creating a planning and coordination team before Castro’s regime falls, and, as appropriate, involve public and private sector donors including foundations, non-profit organizations, and corporations.
6. The United States and others should be prepared to help Cuba depoliticize its institutions and promote justice and reconciliation. The U.S. Government can assist Cuban efforts to eliminate profoundly politicized Castro-era textbooks, other instructional materials and media resources, as well as support the Free Libraries of Cuba network to enhance the physical presence of diverse materials and circulation of free ideas. Cubans may want to establish a justice and reconciliation process to address Castro’s crimes, identify regime victims, and assist the social healing process; they may request outside help.
7. The United States and the international community should enable the Cuban people to develop a democratic and civic culture, a free economy, and the values and habits essential to both. The U.S. Government could create the “Cuba Civil Society Education Project” to help provide the resources, training, and materials for education in democracy, civic values, and entrepreneurship at all levels. Radio and Television Martí can continue to provide transition information, support and information to civil society, and training opportunities for free Cuba’s journalists.
(snip/...)

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/32322.pdf
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