Charles Krauthammer: Obama’s Cuba strategy: Give them everything, hail breakthrough

www.jewishworldreview.com

National Post

Charles Krauthammer

There’s an old Cold War joke — pre-pantyhose — that to defeat communism we should empty the B-52 bombers of nuclear weapons and instead drop nylons over the Soviet Union. Flood the Russians with the soft consumer culture of capitalism, seduce them with Western contact and commerce, love bomb them into freedom.

We did win the Cold War, but differently. We contained, constrained, squeezed and eventually exhausted the Soviets into giving up. The dissidents inside subsequently told us how much they were sustained by our support for them and our implacable pressure on their oppressors.

The logic behind U.S. President Barack Obama’s Cuba normalization, assuming there is one, is the nylon strategy. Fifty years of containment didn’t bring democracy. So let’s try inundating them with American goods, visitors, culture, contact, commerce.

It’s not a crazy argument. But it does have its weaknesses. Normalization has not advanced democracy in China or Vietnam. Indeed, it hasn’t done so in Cuba. Except for the U.S., Cuba has had normal relations with the rest of the world for decades. Tourists, trade, investment from Canada, France, Britain, Spain, everywhere. An avalanche of nylons — and not an inch of movement in Cuba toward freedom.

In fact, one could argue that this influx of Western money has helped preserve the dictatorship, as just about all the financial transactions go through the government, which takes for itself before any trickle-down crumbs are allowed to reach the regime-indentured masses.

My view is that police-state control of every aspect of Cuban life is so thoroughly perfected that outside influences, whether confrontational or co-operative, only minimally affect the country’s domestic trajectory.

So why not just lift the embargo? After all, the unassailable strategic rationale for isolating Cuba — in the Soviets’ mortal global struggle with us, Cuba enlisted as a highly committed enemy beachhead 90 miles from American shores — evaporated with the collapse of the Soviet empire. A small island with no significant independent military capacities, Cuba became geopolitically irrelevant.

That’s been partially reversed in the last few years as Vladimir Putin has repositioned Russia as America’s leading geopolitical adversary and the Castros signed up for that coalition too. Cuba has reportedly agreed to reopen the Soviet-era Lourdes espionage facility, a massive listening post for intercepting communications. Havana and Moscow have also discussed the use of Cuban airfields for Russia’s nuclear-capable long-range bombers.

This in addition to Cuba’s usual hemispheric mischief, such as training and equipping the security and repression apparatus in Venezuela.

No mortal threat, I grant. And not enough to justify forever cutting off Cuba. But it does raise the question: With the U.S. embargo already in place and the Castros hungry to have it lifted, why give them trade, investment, hard currency, prestige and worldwide legitimacy — for nothing in return?

Obama brought back nothing on democratization, a staggering betrayal of Cuba’s human rights crusaders. No free speech. No free assembly. No independent political parties. No hint of free elections. Not even the kind of 1975 Helsinki Final Act that we got from the Soviets as part of detente, granting structure and review to human rights promises. These provided us with significant leverage in supporting the dissident movements in Eastern Europe that eventually brought down communist rule.

If Obama insisted on giving away the store, why not at least do it item by item? We relax part of the embargo in return for, say, Internet access. And tie further normalization to serial relaxations of police-state repression.

Oh, what hypocrisy, say the Obama acolytes. Did we not normalize relations with China and get no human rights quid pro quo?

True. But that was never a prospect. The entire purpose was geopolitical and the payoff was monumental: America walked away with the most significant anti-Soviet strategic realignment of the entire Cold War, formally breaking up the communist bloc and gaining China’s neutrality, and occasional support, in the half-century struggle to dismantle the Soviet empire.

From Cuba, Obama didn’t even get a token gesture. Not even a fig leaf such as, say, withdrawal of secret police support in Venezuela. Or extradition of American criminals now fugitive in Cuba, including a notorious cop killer. Did we even ask?

Obama seems to believe that the one-way deal was win-win. A famous victory — the Cuba issue is now behind us. A breakthrough.

Indeed it is. You know how to achieve a breakthrough in tough negotiations? Give everything away. Try it. You’ll have a deal by noon. Every time.

Did Obama Lie to Cuban-Americans?

capitolhillcubans

By Russ Sloan in The Daily Commercial:

Lies and politics are close cousins in the White House

“Lying can never save us from another lie” is probably the most famous quote from Vaclav Havel, the first president of the Czech Republic. In politics we have often been subjected to political spin, half truths, exaggeration and downright lies. But when political lies consistently follow one after another, at what point can we believe anything that source says?

On May 23, 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama was speaking to the Cuban-American Foundation’s annual Cuban Independence Day luncheon, where he said the following: “My policy towards Cuba will be guided by one word, liberty. The road to freedom for all Cubans must begin with justice for Cuba’s political prisoners, the right of free speech, a free press, freedom of assembly, and it must lead to elections that are free and fair. This is my commitment.”

He stated that he would not begin to “normalize” relations with Cuba until all political prisoners are released. To all of the political prisoners still in Cuba, President Obama’s promise must ring very hollow today based on his decision to renew relations with the Castro brothers’ oppressive regime. To those of us who know what he said in 2008, it is just one more significant lie piled on a continuous stack of presidential lies.

One wonders how any politician today, knowing that there exists volumes of recorded utterances, can so blatantly ignore what they promised and now do the exact opposite. Apparently the president shares the beliefs of Jonathan Gruber, the MIT professor who scoffed that the American people were stupid as they drafted and passed Obamacare.

I ask myself, how many times can anyone lie before you recognize that this person is no longer trustworthy? The entire litany of President Obama’s lies would exceed my column space, but the important ones would be his 30-plus promises that you could keep your health care plan, doctor and save money, or his 20-plus utterances that he could not ignore a significant portion of our immigration laws since he was a president not an emperor.

Obama campaigned against the spending of George Bush, only to make Bush look like a miser. He said Bush was un-American for adding $4 trillion to our national debt over eight years, only to see his administration run up $7.4 trillion more debt during his six years. He states that he has issued fewer executive orders than previous presidents but does not mention that his numerous presidential proclamations virtually amount to the same thing. This was just a deliberate half truth. We’re making progress.

Throughout his administration, over 20 times, he has promised that Iran would not get nuclear weapons. Does anyone now believe that? Iran has played Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama like novices in a high stakes poker game. It is one thing to disagree with the president based on an honest difference of opinion, but to constantly be inundated with lies is dumbfounding.

Vaclav Havel was correct, “Lying can never save us from another lie.” For the past six years, we have been subjected to a series of major lies that can all be fully documented by the president’s very own words.

Los regalos de Obama

Diario de Cuba

Andrés Reynaldo

Si ayer los demócratas cubanos estaban solos hoy podemos conjeturar que vamos a seguir muy solos. Quizás por un buen rato. El restablecimiento de relaciones con EEUU puede haber asegurado la transición dinástica de la dictadura, que ya tiene posicionadas a su segunda y tercera generación en los puestos de mando de la política y la economía. "¡Ahora sí que ganamos la guerra!", exclamó Raúl Castro ante la Asamblea Nacional parafraseando a Fidel en otra lejana circunstancia. No tanto, Raúl, pero sí ganaste una importante batalla.

Por más de medio siglo, la renuencia de EEUU a aceptar la dictadura castrista marcó una posición condenatoria en la arena internacional. De esa raya en la arena se aferró la oposición interna y externa frente a las habituales  indiferencia de Europa y el compadrazgo de la mayoría de los gobiernos latinoamericanos. Un gesto político que servía de asidero moral. Esta vez, una ola (parece que es la ola del olvido) ha borrado la raya. En el momento de su decrepitud, los Castro reciben un segundo aire. Con las variantes propias de la época, Washington les ayudará a convertirse en los Somoza.

Corridas las cortinas, vemos el entramado. Más de año y medio de negociaciones conducidas desde la parte estadounidense por gente con muy poco conocimiento y mucho menos afecto por el pueblo cubano. En ese período Raúl definió el marco protector de sus intereses. Una ley del embudo sobre las inversiones extranjeras y la actividad privada que deja a la gente de a pie las desventuras del cuentapropismo y promete a la elite la vida loca del capitalismo salvaje. Todo lo demás es decorado.

El modelo raulista es de una represiva perfección cleptocrática. Sus iguales no están en las dictaduras colegiadas de China y Vietnam, ni siquiera en la mafiosa Rusia de Putin, sino en las dinastías postcomunistas de Africa: Angola , República del Congo, Guinea Ecuatorial, por citar. A diferencia de estas, cuenta en su fase de arranque con una amplia red de agentes de influencia, poderosos empresarios (algunos de ellos cubanoamericanos) y líderes congresionales en Estados Unidos. Cuenta, además, con el empuje de una exótica coalición: los grandes intereses de Washington y el ala izquierda del Partido Demócrata. Unos lavan sus crímenes en nombre del progreso y otros en nombre de la distensión.

Ninguneada por el presidente Barack Obama, la oposición interna gana, eso sí, el beneficio de la claridad total. Ya no puede llamarse a engaño. Todas las recetas que se le proponen apuntan a facilitarle tiempo, dinero y prestigio a la dictadura. Hasta la misma tesis de que Obama le ha hecho un regalo envenenado a Raúl es una invitación a cruzarse de brazos. El tren de los cambios pasará de largo por la estación del Estado de derecho. No veo a General Motors, a Caterpillar y al Chase amenazando con cerrar negocio por una pateadura a las Damas de Blanco.

En el exilio, la categoría de los celebrantes no permite dudas de estar viviendo un humillante y retrógrado punto de inflexión en nuestra historia, preñado de desmemoria, deshonor y codicia. Con todo, merecemos sufrir el ruidoso ascenso de esta comparsa de la esclavitud. Estamos enfermos del pusilánime prurito de ser tolerantes frente a un mal radical. Por eso les dimos un sagrado lugar en el debate y nos inhibimos de quebrar a sangre y fuego el diálogo con aquellos que cortan orejas y arrancan lenguas. Hemos sido así de mansos y obtusos que hoy son esos mercaderes de la reconciliación quienes se presentan ante el mundo como los legítimos representantes de una "diáspora" ansiosa de complacer a los verdugos de la nación.

A propósito de la visita papal que nuestra Iglesia Católica le regaló a Fidel y Raúl en marzo del 2012, el líder del Movimiento Cristiano Liberación (MCL), Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, alertó sobre la inminencia del cambio fraude. Un cambio sin derechos para el pueblo, con la inserción de poderosos intereses que escamotean la democracia y la soberanía. Ah, y con el concepto de una "oposición leal", salido del taller de trucaje de la brigada de respuesta laica del cardenal Ortega. Cinco meses después, Payá fue asesinado. Triste hora para Cuba si al hablar de la decencia, la justicia y la libertad, el eco de los muertos se oye más alto que la voz de los vivos.

Síndrome del Neocastrismo: Cubanos esperan nueva vida para autos americanos

la esperanza que dimana del Síndrome del Neocastrismo, donde la resignacion, como apuntaba balzac, es un suicidio cotidiano. 

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AmericaTeVeCanal41

WSJ: Who Would Benefit if the Cuban Embargo is Lifted?

capitolhillcubans

By Mary Anastasia O'Grady in The Wall Street Journal:

Who Benefits if the Embargo Is Lifted?

The Castros already welcome foreign trade and investment. Fat lot of good it’s done for Cubans.

On a trip to Havana in the late 1990s, I toured the restoration of a 17th century convent with a Cuban architect. He told me the project was having trouble getting replacement floor tiles because of the U.S. embargo. I smiled and told him there was no blockade of the island and that the tiles could be sourced in Mexico. He grinned back at me.

“Well, OK,” he said. “The real problem is that we don’t have any money to buy them.”

Cubans are programmed from an early age to complain to anyone who will listen that “el bloqueo” is the cause of the island’s dire poverty. They know it’s a lie. But obediently repeating it is a survival skill. It raises the odds that the demented dictator won’t suspect you of having counterrevolutionary thoughts, boot you from your job, kick your children out of school and haul you off to jail.

President Obama appeared to be trying to prove his own revolutionary bona fides when he announced on Wednesday new diplomatic relations with the military dictatorship and plans to make it easier for Americans to travel to the island and engage in commerce with Cubans. He repeatedly linked the isolation of the Cuban people to U.S. policy, as the regime teaches Cuban children to do. He complained that the embargo strives to keep “Cuba closed off from an interconnected world.” In a reference to the limited access that Cubans have to telecommunications, he said “our sanctions on Cuba have denied Cubans access to technology that has empowered individuals around the globe.”

Even the humblest Cuban peasant would split his sides laughing if he heard those statements, which none did because they do not have access to anything other than Cuban state television—speaking of isolation. Cubans know that the island is not isolated from foreigners. According to Cuban statistics in 2013 there were 2.85 million visitors to the island of 11 million inhabitants. These included European, Chinese, Latin American, Canadian and American tourists and investors. In the first six months of this year, according to The Havana Consulting Group, there were 327,000 visitors to Cuba from the U.S.

The isolation (news flash Rand Paul) is caused by the police state, which controls and surveils foreigners’ movements, herding most visitors into resort enclaves. Foreign journalists who vocally oppose the Communist Party line are not allowed into the country.

More visitors won’t do anything to reduce Cuban poverty. The regime pockets the hard currency that they leave behind and pays workers in worthless pesos. Foreigners who decide to reward good workers without state approval can face prison.

It’s true that the Cuban people lack access to technology, but Mr. Obama’s suggestion that it is because of the embargo is a howler. Carlos Slim , the Mexican telecom monopolist and global player; Telefónica , the Spanish broadband and telecommunications provider; Vietnam’s Natcom; Ireland’s Digicel and countless other companies can do business on the island. But they can’t provide Internet access in homes because the state prohibits it.

U.S. telecom companies are lobbying Washington to be able to do business with the dictator. So to peddle the idea to the rest of us, Mr. Obama claims that this small, backward Caribbean country is a huge untapped export market. Question: How come the likes of Mexico and Spain haven’t flooded the virgin paradise for capitalists and turbocharged the Cuban middle class? Maybe because a couple of hoodlums have rigged the game. They decide who and what enters the country, treat Cubans like slaves, and arbitrarily jail foreign entrepreneurs and take property when it suits them.

Some delusional pro-market pundits think the anti-market Mr. Obama is suddenly pushing their ideas in Cuba. Mr. Obama wants us to believe that when Americans do business in Cuba, Cubans will be empowered. Funny that he didn’t feel that way about helping democratic Colombia when its U.S. free-trade agreement was up for ratification. Back then the White House was fretting about Colombian workers’ rights. Now, well, never mind.

The Castros are in full-blown panic mode because Venezuela, which has been their financial lifeline for 15 years, is broke. The last time things were this bad, when Soviet subsidies dried up in the early 1990s and the regime ran out of money, Castro introduced the “special period.”

Cubans were permitted to run restaurants in their homes, operate taxis and provide other services to foreigners and locals. As entrepreneurship blossomed, the state began to lose the absolute control it had relied on since 1959. Fidel clamped down as soon as Cuba stabilized.

Now the gangsters are again on the ropes. If they can up the number of U.S. travelers to the island and later wrangle multilateral funding now blocked by the U.S., they might squeeze by. But if not, the dictatorship is likely to come unglued, which raises the question of just who Mr. Obama is trying to help by stepping in now.

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-lehtinen: 'We feel betrayed' by Obama

Miami Herald

Senator Marco Rubio Holds Press Conference On Changes In U.S. Policy Toward Cuba

SenatorMarcoRubio

10 Steps Obama Is Planning to Take On Cuba

NBC News.com

Suzanne Gamboa

The Obama administration's attempt to normalize relations with Cuba after decades of a U.S. policy of isolation comes with many steps, many of which will take time and further negotiation. In general, it seeks to ease regulations that limit commerce and travel flows, while maintaining pressure for improved human rights and democracy. Here are highlights of what the White House plans:

_ Establish an embassy in Havana.

_ Travel to Cuba is limited by how much an American can spend in Cuba and for what purpose a person can travel. The administration wants to ease for travel on a general license _ which does not require advance notification to the U.S. government _ for people who fit in 12 categories currently allowed for travel to Cuba. Changes to those categories requires congressional action. Travel to Cuba for tourist activities, will continue to be prohibited.

_ Increase to $400, the value of goods that Americans can bring from Cuba on return to the U.S. That total would include no more than $100 of tobacco and alcohol combined, and those can only be for personal, not commercial, use.

_ Raise limits on remittances to Cuba from $500 to $2,000 and eliminate requirements that businesses that forward the remittances, many of them based in Miami, have a license. (Remittances to certain Communist officials are excluded.) Remittances for humanitarian projects, support of the Cuban people and development of private businesses in Cuba will have no amount limits.

_ Expand list of goods authorized for export to Cuba, including materials for private residential construction, for use by private sector Cuban entrepreneurs and agricultural equipment for small farms.

_ Allow U.S. financial institutions to open corresponding accounts at Cuban financial institutions.

_ Allow U.S. credit and debit cards to be used by travelers in Cuba.

_ Authorize the commercial export of certain communications equipment and services to expand Cuban Internet access, now at 5 percent penetration, and to lower the cost of telecommunications.

_ Allow third-party countries to trade and transact with Cuba, unblock accounts of Cuban nationals who have located outside Cuba, allow U.S. citizens to participate in third-country professional meetings and conferences on Cuba. Also, allow foreign vessels to enter the U.S. after engaging in humanitarian trade with Cuba.

_ Require Secretary of State John Kerry to review and report to the president in six months the U.S. designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. That designation dates to 1982.

Record de la Ignominia: Raul Castro sobre el acuerdo con Obama

Cuba Hoy

Ignominy: President Obama's Cuba Speech

keeping records for the future. 
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The White House

Cuban-Americans React to Expected Changes

NBC News.com

By Suzanne Gamboa

There has been swift reaction following news of the release of American contractor Alan Gross after five years imprisonment in Cuba and the expected announcements on changes to hardline U.S. policy towards Cuba that the administration on Tuesday decreed had not been working.

Senator Robert Menendez, (D-NJ), one of two Cuban American U.S. senators, has been an outspoken opponent of the Castro government and has not advocated for lifting the economic embargo against Cuba, in place since 1960.

"This is a moment of profound relief for Alan Gross and his family. Mr. Gross' physical and mental health has declined severely as a result of his five-year imprisonment under difficult conditions. He should have been released immediately and unconditionally five years ago," said Menendez in a statement. "He committed no crime and was simply working to provide Internet access to Cuba's small Jewish community. His imprisonment was cruel and arbitrary, but consistent with the behavior of the Cuban regime."

Menendez blasted the news that the U.S. was releasing three members of the "Cuban 5" who had been imprisoned in the U.S. after conspiracy and spying convictions. Senior administration officials said on the condition of anonymity that the Cubans' release was in exchange for a swap for a U.S. intelligence asset whom they did not identify by name, but whom they said had been imprisoned in Cuba for 20 years and was responsible for important intelligence prosecutions, including of the Cuban 5 and Ana Belén Montes, a former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who had spied for Cuba. The administration said Gross' release was released on humanitarian grounds by Cuba.

"President Obama's actions have vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government. There is no equivalence between an international aid worker and convicted spies who were found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage against our nation. One spy was also convicted of conspiracy to murder for his role in the 1996 tragedy in which the Cuban military shot down two U.S. civilian planes, killing several American citizens. My heart goes out to the American families that lost love ones on that fateful day," Menendez stated.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, criticized the announced policy changes and said on his Twitter accounty he plans "to make every effort to block this dangerous & desperate attempt by (Obama) to burnish his legacy at the Cuban people's expense"

Although Obama can make some of the changes, such as starting talks about an opening an embassy in Havana, can be done administratively, Congress has to change laws on things such as travel rules and lifting the embargo.

Though some Cuban-Americans share Menendez's more hardline stance against the Cuban government, Wednesday's news follows what has been increasingly evolving attitudes towards Cuba.

"This does not need to be a relationship that is frozen in time," a senior administration official told reporters in a conference call Tuesday morning.

As news trickled out, groups such as #CubaNow that had implored Cuban-Americans during election season to vote "to protect their right to travel to Cuba to see their families sending a strong message to politicians who continue to cling to failed hardline policies."

"It is well within the President's authority to improve our ability to support the Cuban people, including the growing class of independent entrepreneurs and to bolster civil society on the island," said Ric Herrero, president of #CubaNow.

Ramon Saul Sanchez, a Miami-based human rights activist and president of Democracy Movement has been active in the Cuban-American community for 45 years, undergoing five hunger strikes, but he has never supported the U.S. embargo on Cuba. He is open to changes in Cuba if the island reciprocates and allows political descent and allows people like him to travel to his homeland.

Speaking before the president's announcement on Cuba changes, Sanchez said:

"The changes that may be introduced represent a large question mark to the Cuban population. They may also present an opportunity for change in Cuba. A closed society can only be changed when you are able to have people to people contact … And also provide them with communications."

In Florida, a major battleground state in U.S. politics, discussions of lifting or easing the embargo and softening relations toward Cuba have always been treacherous.

A Florida International University poll during the summer showed slightly over half of Miami-area Cuban Americans favored lifting the U.S. embargo against Cuba, as well as lifting travel restrictions and establishing diplomatic relations, NBC News reported. It's results came admid other surveys showing similar thawing of hardened views towards Cuba, particularly among younger and more recently arrived Cubans.

However, more than two thirds of Cuban Americans felt the country should remain on a list of four countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism.

Herrero's group had run a television ad in October featuring Cuban-American families divided between Cuba and the U.S. who told how 2009 changes in travel restrictions allowed them to reunite with family. Before 2009, Cuban-Americans could only travel to Cuba once every three years and faced tougher restrictions on sending money home to family in Cuba.

EEUU multa a banco aleman por hacer negocios con Cuba

Grupo Milenio

Manuel Juan Somoza 

La Habana/ Estados Unidos multó con mil millones de dólares al banco alemán Commerzbank por hacer negocios con Cuba, cinco meses después de proceder de igual forma contra el BNP Paribas, con la cifra record de más de ocho mil millones de dólares, informaron hoy medios de la isla.

Según los cubanos, la pena se basa en que el banco alemán, considerado el quinto más poderoso del mundo y segundo en importancia en su país después del Deutsche Bank, realizó transacciones con gobiernos que Washington considera promotores del terrorismo internacional, lista en la que figura Cuba.

Citando al Financial Times, los medios locales puntualizaron que  la institución germana acordó el pasado mes de septiembre el pago de 650 millones de dólares luego de ser acusado por llevar a cabo transacciones financieras con Cuba, y otros países que figuran en dicha lista .

En julio pasado, Cuba calificó de “atropello contra la soberanía” otra multa de ocho mil 970 millones de dólares impuesta por Estados Unidos al BNP Paribas, el mayor banco de Francia, y dijo que esta es la más cuantiosa pena registrada en medio siglo de bloqueo estadunidense.

El diario The New York Times publicó el 9 de julio pasado que el Departamento del Tesoro de EU había multado por más de 500 millones de dólares al Commerzbank por transferencias a través de sus filiales hacia Cuba, Corea del Norte, Myanmar, Irán y Sudán.

Otros  bancos europeos investigados por EU son el Deutsche Bank, los franceses Crédit Agricole y Société Générale y el italiano UniCredit SpA. El gobierno cubano ha denunciado en todos los foros internacionales a su alcance el carácter extraterritorial del bloqueo que Washington mantiene en su contra desde hace más de medio siglo, pese al rechazo casi total que cada año se registra en Naciones Unidades.

Colaboracionistas en accion: Saladrigas y Cuesta Morua

observese atentamente la coincidencia en las elucubraciones de ambos personajes. mas interesante aun, los denodados esfuerzos por "argumentar" la necesidad de flexibilizar de manera cuasi absoluta las restricciones norteamericanas a las relaciones comerciales entre ambos paises. pudieran parecer inconsistente las razones, pero el objetivo es aun mas perverso: son desfachatadamente colaboracionistas. no sorprenderia como alguna vez apunte, que cuesta morua se convirtiera en el primer "disidente" en engrosar la nomenklatura oficial. solo bastaria "quemarlo", porque no cabe dudas que su proceder rebasa meridianamente la barrera etica de la libertad de expresion.

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Maria Elvira Salazar

Bill Clinton: Gross detention imperils U.S.-Cuba relations

The Miami Herald

Former President Bill Clinton said the United States could be “well on its way” to ending the Cuban embargo if the island would release USAID subcontractor Alan Gross.

In an interview with the Miami Herald on Thursday, Clinton said that his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had come out in favor of ending the half-century embargo in her recently released book about her four years at the State Department.

“I think we would be well on our way to doing it if they released Alan Gross,” he said of the contractor who has served five years of a 15-year sentence. “It is really foolish to allow what is clearly a questionable incarceration to imperil the whole future of US-Cuban relations, but that’s not my call to make.”

The former president made the comments at the “Future of the Americas” summit that his foundation is hosting Thursday at the University of Miami.

The meeting has brought together business, non-profit and political leaders from around the region to plot the coming decades in the hemisphere.

The meeting aims to produce specific goals and actions that will direct the 2015 summit in Panama.

The event also falls on the 20th anniversary of the first Summit of the Americas that was held in Miami and brought together regional leaders.

As he inaugurated Thursday’s event, Clinton recalled the “heady” days 20 years ago when leaders believed they could lift the region out of poverty through free trade and promoting democracy.

Today much of that promise is fulfilled, Clinton said. The region’s economy is booming and millions have emerged from poverty, even as problems of inequality and gender disparity remain.

There were also unforeseen challenges in the last decades.

“The climate change problem is much more severe than we thought 20 years ago,” he said, “and it’s bearing down on us.”

The meeting aims to bring in high-level thinkers to talk about energy, infrastructure, the environment, healthcare, vocational training, agriculture and chronic disease, among other topics.

Among the attendees are Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, Carlos Slim, the world’s second-richest man and the founder of the Carlos Slim Foundation; Inter American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno; and Susan Fonseca, the founder and CEO of Woman@TheFrontier.

Clinton said the results of Thursday’s session would feed into the discussions of the next Summit in Panama and aim to be specific and actionable.

“We are here to complement not complicate the coming Summit of the Americas,” Clinton said.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article4427163.html#storylink=cpy

Elena Freyre, una agente cubana en los EEUU

Carlos Rafael Diéguez

Discurso del metodo: "el negro vs el chino"

jardines que es una persona inteligente aunque se queda cortisimo en el empleo de un sistema conceptual cuyo deficit critica en otros, se despista tomando como tema principal un intento de taxonomia de la disidencia-oposicion y arremte en su 1ra parte contra el infeliz politraumatizado de campos.

lo que no estan viendo la eminencias, es que el bout "el negro vs el chino" ya esta por los rounds de campeonato [del 9no al 12mo] con el suicida de gross y los 3 espias comodamente instalados en el ring side.

entonces es pura logica aristotelica o en todo caso cartesiana:

• proposicion 1: ley codificada del congreso que el negro respeta
• proposicion 2: acciones ejecutivas del niche que no violan la ley codificada [codificacion por demas que es superflua porque en cuba no hay presos politicos sino terroristas; no hay partidos politicos de oposicion sino grupusculos de mercenarios y, el pais es un modelo de proceso democratico electoral porque no postula el partido sino el pueblo directamente, en un proceso que supera a la antigua democracia ateniense]
• proposicion 3: el negro convierte al judio en el anti bin laden y lo salva a cualquier precio y se acabaron las excusas para el desmerengamiento paulatino de eso que denominan embargo-bloqueo [comercial ante todo aunque se elevarian los rangos diplomaticos] como ha afirmado la propia wh.

si hubiera tenido alguna duda, esta se hubiera despejado porque el pataleo ya empezo con uno de los artifices de la codificacion; el lincoln, que sera cualquier cosa menos idiota y es una persona bien astuta y hasta sagaz, quien acaba de afirmar publicamente que no cree que el niche puede violar la ley de forma tan burda. despues que lei detenidamente varios ensayos mayores y estudios sobre el negro y las relaciones de poder en el inside del partido democrata y particularmente con el clan clinton, llegue a la conviccion que el iman de la wh cree efectivamente que es un mesias y que despues de el, si fuera necesario, el diluvio.  
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The Economist se pronuncia al respecto en el dia de hoy evaluando igualmente esta posibilidad.

Is Obama contemplating unilateral action on Cuba?

Yahoo News

By Howard LaFranchi

Is President Obama about to take unilateral steps to ease US relations with Cuba?

A number of recent developments – from Mr. Obama’s recourse to executive action on immigration to the Spanish foreign minister’s enigmatic statement that he would be carrying “very concrete messages” from the US government when he visits Havana this week – have some Republicans fretting that the White House aims to move even further from decades-old policy of isolating communist Cuba.

Obama last took action on Cuba in 2011, when he eased travel restrictions on Americans visiting the island. But a year ago in Florida, he raised eyebrows – and the hopes of supporters about a new US direction with Cuba – when he spoke of wanting “to continue to update our policies.”

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It makes no sense, the president said, to continue with policies from 1961 “in the age of the Internet and Google and world travel.”

Some advocates of liberalized relations with Cuba are pressing the administration for concrete steps before April. That’s when Obama is slated to take part in the Summit of the Americas in Panama, which is expected to be the first such hemispheric gathering to include Cuba.

In the past, the United States has vetoed Cuba’s participation on the grounds that the gathering is limited to the hemisphere’s democracies, but a number of countries have said they would not attend next year’s summit if Cuba were once again barred.

But supporters of the status quo on relations with Cuba counter that if the US has stuck with policies from the 1960s – notably an embargo – it’s because the Castro regime that came to power in that era continues today to deny the Cuban people the democratic governance and human rights that most of the rest of the Western Hemisphere enjoys.

Last week Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio used a confirmation hearing for Antony Blinken, Obama’s deputy national security adviser and his choice to become deputy secretary of State, to grill Mr. Blinken about “chatter” in Washington that Obama intends to make “unilateral change” on US-Cuba policy.

Ending the embargo would require congressional action, but there are other steps the president could take to redirect US policy on Cuba.

After several attempts to get Blinken to rule out executive action on Cuba, Senator Rubio said, “The thing that concerns me is that I haven’t heard you say point-blank that, absent democratic openings, we’re not going to see actions on the part of this administration to weaken the current embargo and sanctions on Cuba.”

In response, Blinken said Obama has ideas on how to “help Cuba move in a democratic direction,” and he added, “If [Obama] has an opportunity, I’m sure that’s something he would want to pursue.” But he emphasized that “it depends on Cuba and the actions that they take.”

One action the administration is looking for is the release of US aid worker Alan Gross, who has been imprisoned in Cuba since December 2009 for bringing satellite phones and computer equipment into Cuba without a permit. Mr. Gross was handed a 15-year sentence in 2011 after being found guilty of “acts against the state” for his role in US efforts to set up a communications network in Cuba free of government control.

Speculation has swirled in Washington over the past week that the Spanish foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, could be delivering to officials in Havana this week a list of actions the US could take if the impediment of Gross’s incarceration were out of the way.  

On Monday at the State Department, spokesman Jeff Rathke was asked at the daily press briefing what Mr. García-Margallo was referring to when he spoke of having “very concrete messages” from the US government to take to Cuban officials.

“I have nothing to confirm about that,” Mr. Rathke responded.

Top Obama aide won’t rule out unilateral easing of Cuba policy

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President Barack Obama’s pick for the No. 2 job in the State Department repeatedly refused on Wednesday to rule out unilateral action by the White House to ease U.S. pressure on Cuba.

But the official, Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken, emphasized that the government in Havana would first have to make progress on democratic reforms and free imprisoned U.S. aid worker Alan Gross. The comments came during Blinken's confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“Do you anticipate, during the rest of the president’s term, that there will be any unilateral change” to sanctions on Cuba absent democratic reforms, asked Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, whose parents emigrated from Cuba to the U.S.

“Anything that might be done on Cuba will have to be consistent with the law,” Blinken replied. He added, “Anything that in the future might be done on Cuba would be done in full consultation” with Congress.

Rubio tried again, noting “chatter” that Obama could try to change relations with Cuba unilaterally before leaving the White House in January 2017.

“The president has views on how to try to move, help move Cuba in a democratic direction, to help support people moving in that direction, and, you know, if he has an opportunity I’m sure that’s something he would want to pursue,” Blinken said. “But it depends on Cuba and the actions that they take.”

And recently Cuba’s government has taken “actions in exactly the wrong direction,” he added, noting that Havana was “unjustly imprisoning” Gross.

Rubio came back for a third try: “The thing that concerns me is that I haven’t heard you say point blank that, absent democratic openings, we’re not going to see actions on the part of this administration to weaken the current embargo and sanctions against Cuba.”

Again Blinken deflected the question, though he agreed Cuba would need to take steps before there could be changes. “At least in my judgment, unless Cuba is able to demonstrate that it is taking meaningful steps to move forward, I don’t see how you move forward in the relationship,” Blinken said.

Advocates of changing Washington’s policy toward Cuba cheered when Obama declared at a November 2013 fundraiser in Florida that the United States had to be “creative” and “thoughtful” about fostering change on the island, “and we have to continue to update our policies.”

“The notion that the same policies that we put in place in 1961 would somehow still be as effective as they are today, in the age of the Internet and Google and world travel, doesn't make sense,” Obama said at the time.

But Obama’s last notable unilateral move on Cuba came in January 2011, when he eased restrictions on travel to and from the island. And top administration officials say nothing will happen while Cuba continues to hold Gross, who was sentenced in 2011 to 15 years in prison in connection with an effort to create a communications network outside government control.

Obama’s options for unilateral action are relatively limited. Lifting the embargo of more than five decades imposed after Fidel Castro’s revolution and subsequent turn toward the Soviet Union requires congressional action. But advisers have suggested much more modest steps, like increasing cultural exchanges, further easing travel or dropping Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. In foreign policy circles, speculation has run rampant that Obama is looking at steps he could take in his final two years in office to overhaul U.S.-Cuba relations.

In the hearing, Blinken also indicated that the White House could live with Congress attaching a time limit and restrictions on mass deployment of ground forces to legislation formally approving Obama’s military operations against the so-called Islamic State. Obama has said he wants lawmakers to approve an authorization for use of military force (AUMF) but has not explicitly specified what kinds of restrictions he would accept.

The committee chairman, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who has criticized the administration for not seeking congressional authorization sooner, said an AUMF should be limited to those “fighting for, or on behalf of” the Islamic State, “should be limited to three years or some other reasonable time frame; [and] should foreclose the possibility of a large-scale, enduring ground combat mission that we saw in Iraq from 2003 to 2011.”

Asked whether Obama could accept those limits, Blinken replied that “those would seem to me to form a good basis for a conversation on developing a new AUMF.”

Blinken also played down hopes that the United States and its partners would reach a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran by a mutually agreed Nov. 24 deadline.

“It's going to be difficult to get to where we want to go. It's not impossible,” he said. “But it is literally a minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour thing. I was getting emails before coming here. As we speak, I can't tell you what to expect.”

Blinken further suggested that Obama might drop his objections to arming Ukraine’s government in the face of Russia’s incursion and support for rebels in the country’s eastern areas.

“The question of defensive lethal assistance has never been off the table. It remains on the table. It's something that we're looking at, and, indeed, the vice president will be in Ukraine in the next few days, and I'm sure that will be a topic of discussion,” he said.

At times, Blinken became a target for Senate frustration with the Obama administration.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Md.) declared that the White House had made a “mistake” by not sending Congress specific AUMF language.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) scolded Blinken for saying the White House had “engaged, as you know, with you” on the AUMF.

Corker cut him off: “You have not engaged with me. That is totally untrue.”

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was even blunter. After Blinken described the administration as working with Congress, the former presidential candidate shot back: “You have not worked with me on anything.”

Corporación estadounidense acuerda pagar multa por violar el embargo a Cuba

martinoticias

La empresa ESCO Corporation (ESCO) de Portland, estado de Oregon, aceptó pagar $2.057.540 para llegar a un arreglo y evitar una sanción civil por aparentes violaciones de las Regulaciones de Control de Activos Cubanos, informa en un comunicado el Departamento del Tesoro de Estados Unidos.

Una subsidiaria de ESCO habría violado dos de esas regulaciones cuando compró briquetas de níquel hechas con ─o derivadas de─ mineral proveniente de los yacimientos de Cuba, entre el 7 de noviembre de 2007 y el 11 de junio del 2011.

La Oficina de Control de Activos Extranjeros de la Tesorería, OFAC, determinó que ESCO reveló voluntariamente las aparentes violaciones, y que estas no constituyen una infracción grave. El valor total de las transacciones se calcula en $6.188.149 y la penalidad inicial fue de $3.048.208.

Para llegar al acuerdo, la OFAC valoró entre los agravantes que ESCO ignoró las sanciones a Cuba al no identificar que las briquetas estaban hechas con níquel cubano, y que la empresa causó daños al programa de sanciones a Cuba al comerciar con un gran volumen de productos hechos con níquel de Cuba. 

Entre los factores que atenuaron la sanción, la empresa no recibió ninguna penalidad o notificación de violaciones de la OFAC en los cinco años anteriores a la primera transacción que dio lugar a la aparente violación. Además, cooperó con la investigación de la Tesorería, emprendiendo una minuciosa pesquisa interna, y reforzó su programa de acatamiento de las regulaciones.

Cuba-EEUU: La hoja de ruta del levantamiento del embargo del neocastrismo sucesor

dado lo avanzado de la maduracion para una accion unilateral de la administracion democrata de obama en el tema del descongelamiento de las relaciones cuba-estados unidos particularmente en materia del embargo comercial, cubadebate expone mediante la firma de un abogado  norteamericano lobbista por el levantamiento del embargo y por consiguiente declarado colaborador y agente de influencias Robert Muse*, el cual se desempena bajo fachada de experto en relaciones legales entre cuba y estados unidos, la "interpretacion" del regimen de la habana del proceso. como no comparto el optimismo reinante del exilio miamense luego del triunfo republicano en las midterm elections, espero cualquier "trastada" obamista en los dos anos que permanecera en el salon oval respecto al tema cuba. 

como es costumbre, el regimen boca en boca de otro lo que quiere decir no solo para demostrar la "opinion publica internacional", sino ante todo para reservarse la ultima palabra que sea preciso modificar o anadir a lo expuesto por el leguleyo.

el articulo puede ser consultado integramente en cubadebate
se articula tomando partido por los intereses de la habana de la siguiente manera:

1. Normalizacion: Como hacerlo [a]
2. Poner fin a las medidas punitivas aplicadas a Cuba
3. Normalizacion de las relaciones
4. Dirigirse hacia la completa normalizacion de las relaciones
5. Conclusion

 llamo la atencion a los miembros del congreso y el senado cubano-americanos, cubanologos, kubichelogos, disidentes, opositores y demas interesados, pues estamos en presencia del borrador de la hoja de ruta del neocastrismo sucesor.

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*de acuerdo con la resena de Peter Sanchez, Robert L. Muse is a Washington, D.C., lawyer with experience in U.S. laws relating  to Cuba. He provides legal counsel to a number of U.S. not-for-profits operating in Cuba,  including the Environmental Defense Fund, the New York Botanical Garden, the Social  Science Research Council, and the Council of the Americas, as well as to the Association of Latin American Studies and universities seeking to establish academic programs in Cuba. He has testified on legal issues involving Cuba before the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate, the Trade Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, and many other governmental entities in the U.S. and Europe. Mr. Muse has delivered papers on the Helms-Burton Act and other U.S. laws pertaining to Cuba at symposiums sponsored by organizations including the National Policy Association, The Economist, the Brookings Institution, and other foundations worldwide.

un ejemplo del tipo de actividades que realiza el sr. muse lo encontramos  aqui >>