>>It's a complicated issue (what isn't?) but I'm pleased to see that Obama took advantage of his lame duck status and did something that would probably have ensured that he'd never carry Florida again.
>>It needed to be done.
>>Nixon did it with China and it was his crowning achievement.
>>Cuba won't be as important as China, but it's an important achievement for Obama.
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>Important achievement? Took advantage of lame duck status?
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>Look, someone can observe this as a knee-jerk reaction of, "there goes Obama again, acting without Congress"......or can look at this from the perspective of the extreme American left that has viewed Castro as a romantic figure.....or they can look at this with a more fact-based perspective of both history and what is going on in the world right now.
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>For a long time Castro was aided by Chavez and the oil money from Venezuela. Now look at what's going on. Cuba is not stupid. They can read oil prices and that Venezuela isn't as reliable for them. In effect, we are making it far too easy for Cuba to believe we are stepping in to partly substitute, in a way, what they once had with Chavez. We are giving them a gift, without using any real leverage to get them to implement political reforms and improve human rights.
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>Unless we actually start supporting dissidents in Cuba and starting putting real pressure on the government and regime spokesmen to implement a freer society, you're looking at a situation similar to Vietnam and China....both countries are better off financially than they were decades ago, but their record on human rights is still terrible.
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>Obama tried this (in different ways) with Iran, Russia, and more recently Syria, which turned out to be a complete humanitarian disaster. They've all failed. For all the domestic failures of this administration, the failures in foreign policy are even worse. We've alienated allies like Israel and G.B., and we're sending messages to enemies that we'll treat them more patiently than we treat our allies.
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>And the arguments from the White House are not very persuasive - that our relationships with other Latin/South American countries will improve to the point where these countries will put pressure on Cuba to improve their human rights record. . C'mon, does anyone really believe that Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, etc. are going to put real pressure on Cuba???? This will be a repeat of the kind of blind eye we took with Iran when the country tortured dissidents in 2009 and Obama stood by silently.
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>As for the decent cigar, I'm sure I don't need to remind you that it was likely produced by some abused dissident working for ten cents an hour. :)

Interesting piece in the papers here about Russia a few days ago and how the Wests failure to help Russia financially at the time of Gorbachev consigned Russia to it lurch to the current state.

Also ironic the Guantanamo (the biggest blight on our human rights record for a long time) is in Cuba.