Hands off Cuba: The best thing U.S. can do is lie low

[Say_What]

<clips>

The American invasion of Iraq now appears likely to facilitate a peaceful transition from a long tyranny to a stable and prosperous democracy. In Cuba.

The fact that the United States military is pinned down and being rapidly depleted in Iraq and Afghanistan may be the only way that our government's promises not to invade Cuba in the wake of the power vacuum left by Fidel Castro's indisposition will be believed.

Or be true.

The 79-year-old Maximum Leader of Cuba, who has thumbed his nose at every U.S. president since Dwight Eisenhower, has been knocked out of action by an intestinal ailment requiring surgery. The island's propaganda machine promises a swift and total recovery, but friend and foe alike are actively contemplating what a post-Fidel Cuba might look like.

President Bush says that it should look like whatever the Cuban people want it to look like. And, by that, he apparently means the people who live in Cuba, not the half-century's worth of exiles who so dominate politics in South Florida.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4153046


People wave national flags while attending a political rally in Havana August 8, 2006. People gathered on a square in Havana to express their support for Cuba's President Fidel Castro, his brother Raul and the principles of the 1959 revolution. REUTERS/Claudia Daut (CUBA)

[Judi Lynn]

1. Who would have expected to see a fine commentary like this published

in Salt Lake City? One would tend to see a much more hawk-like tone.

From the article:

That's good news. The last thing Cuba needs is another generation of leaders defined by their antipathy toward the Yankee capitalists who, in dim but accurate memory, once used Cuba as casino, brothel and plantation.
(snip)

Anything that smells of Wall Street expansionism will only delay the day Cuba becomes a free nation. The United States should lie low, and let Cuba open itself to the world on its own terms.
(snip/)

Cuba would have been free a long time ago, if the U.S. had not participated directly in, and then absolutely condoned terrorism against the island from 1959 onward to the very, very present. By keeping the goverment starved, and under the threat of more attacks EVERY DAY all these years, with periodic bombings and smaller invasions, and murders, in Cuba, and in other countries where their citizens were, they would have had the ability to start opening up LONG AGO. It's common knowledge. Anything other than this is a flat out lie.

[gula]

2. In the name of humanity, please DO leave it alone.