Diplomat Worried of US Plan for Cuba

[guajira]

I think he has reason to worry - US State Dept drawing up report for Cuba's future. More B* interference in other country's government!

snippets:
WASHINGTON - Dagoberto Rodriguez, Cuba's top diplomat in Washington, spends his days looking for hints about what the Bush administration has in mind for his country. He doesn't like what he sees.

Is "regime change" in the cards in this election year, he wonders. That possibility can't be ruled out, he says, because the administration "has proved a tendency in the past to solve problems through violent means."

Speaking at a Jan. 6 news conference in New York, Noriega said, "Those that continue in destabilizing democratically elected governments, interfering in the internal affairs of other governments, are playing with fire."
more...

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7746796.htm

[pacifictiger]

1. the whole cuba policy

goes back to when the mafia got p***d off that castro appropriated their property and they've never forgiven him. It was initially a tit-for-tat thing. The US loved Cuba when it was the playground of the rich and crooked. Of course, now that the mafia has gone white collar it stands to reason that they still want revenge. Castro's a wily old fox that started out with a genuine cause of championing the little people, but learned to play hardball politics just like 95% of politicians around the world. Imagine, the smarts it has taken for this guy, running a tiny 2bit country with no natural resources, thumbing his nose at the crooks for so many years. And imagine, they're still obsessed with revenge, when everyone else knows openness and interaction would be the best way to improve the lives of cubans instead of the stupid embargo policies that still exist after 30 years.

[guajira]

2. The "pissed off" ones are the Miami Batistianos

If US politicians didn't pander to this bunch, we would be free to travel to Cuba legally, and Cubans on the island wouldn't have to contend with the embargo.

[pacifictiger]

3. I agree ..

and the mafia style crime is pretty high among this group. My point exactly.

[SharonAnn]

4. The Batistianos are the "Bush families" of Cuba. They think

they're entitled to having everything, owning everything, controlling everything, and taking all the money.

They don't like the fact that their greed and brutal power wielding got them thrown out of Cuba and that the "workers", who should be their slaves, are running things and have a better life and don't need or want the "Batistianos" to return.

[SharonAnn]

5. The Batistianos are the "Bush families" of Cuba. They think

they're entitled to having everything, owning everything, controlling everything, and taking all the money.

They don't like the fact that their greed and brutal power wielding got them thrown out of Cuba and that the "workers", who should be their slaves, are running things and have a better life and don't need or want the "Batistianos" to return.

[Judi Lynn]

6. You probably already know Jeb Bush appointed Batista's grandson

to the Florida Supreme Court,an act so boldly pro-gusano/batistiano it takes one's breath away.

I don't think the _Bushes feel any need to conceal their ties to this murderous crowd any longer! You'd think EVERYONE would give them a wide berth, wouldn't you?

(snip) Jeb appoints terror lawyer to Supreme Court
July/August 2002
You'd think that defending a terrorist responsible for blowing an airliner out of the sky and killing 73 people would be seen as a dark spot on the career of a lawyer considered for appointment to the Florida Supreme Court. But 'zero tolerance on terrorism' apparently doesn't extend to Raoul Cantero, who was recently appointed to the Florida Supreme Court by Governor Jeb Bush.

Cantero, 41, was part of the legal team that represented Orlando Bosch, who was convicted of masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airliner and killing the 73 passengers aboard. He was pardoned by Bush, Sr.

Cantero calls Bosch "a Cuban patriot."

After his appointment, Cantero said that "as an American whose family escaped a totalitarian regime, I have learned to appreciate and defend democratic values and the rule of law." Sounds good, except that his family IS a totalitarian regime, Cantero is the grandson of Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator who was overthrown in the 1959 revolution.
(snip/...)

http://www.afn.org/~iguana/archives/2002_07/20020702.html

[Mika]

8. 2 bit country? Cuba?

Hahahahahahahaha

Americans calling Cuba a 2 bit country.. f-ing laughable!

2 bit American hubris is more like it.

[Osolomia]

7. Is the U.S. becoming Cuba's bread basket?

Mon, Jan. 19, 2004
Is the U.S. becoming Cuba's bread basket?
BY JANE BUSSEY
Miami Herald

INDIANTOWN - Iris Wall's High Horse Ranch lies more than 100 miles -- and further in perspective -- from Miami and its staunch supporters of the U.S. embargo against Cuba. But it is in places like this cattle ranch -- deep in rural America -- that agribusiness has started to chip away at the decades-old restrictions against trade and other business dealings with Cuba.

Since a 2000 trade bill, the U.S. Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act, allowed the flow of some trade with Cuba -- on the condition that President Fidel Castro's government pay cash -- farm exports have soared from a few million dollars in 2001 to an expected $230 million or more in 2003.

Hundreds of companies and individuals, ranging from steamship lines to purveyors of wine and growers of soybeans, have set up trade and other deals with Cuba, and the United States is now Cuba's single largest source of imported food and agricultural products. For every $4 Cuba spends on food, $1 is going to U.S. growers or producers.

But ever since the resumption of U.S. food exports in December 2001 -- after a hiatus of some four decades -- the trade has been controversial.

Much, much more...
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/7732274.htm

[Osolomia]

9. Considering the rhetoric out of Washington it’d be stupid not to worry

about what Bush will do next to get re-elected.

Considering the fit of hysteria and lies and bullshit that got the Helms-Burton Act passed in 1996 and the number of Americans who are none the wiser to this day, provoking some kind of security threat 90 miles offshore would be an easy sell to brainwashed and travel banned and biased Americans, especially considering the complicity of all the leading 2004 Democratic presidential candidates and sites like this. Hopefully enough folks will pitch in to post the facts, and DUers will know what they're voting for and not be fooled:

Democratic Presidential Candidates on Cuba
http://www.lawg.org/Misc/prez-candidates1.htm

[JohnyCanuck]

10. They're probably dusting off the plans to Operation Northwoods

even as we speak.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.
The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.

America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."

Details of the plans are described in Body of Secrets (Doubleday), a new book by investigative reporter James Bamford about the history of America's largest spy agency, the National Security Agency. However, the plans were not connected to the agency, he notes.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.html