Cuba

No Country for Old Dictators (Slate.com)

Steve Clemons at the Washington Note, proving that all politics are local, weighs the effects of Castro's actions on the U.S. presidential election. He likes Obama because he promises to end our Cuba policy: "Of all the low cost opportunities to demonstrate a new and different US style of engagement with the world, Cuba is at the top of the list. Opening family travel—and frankly all travel—between Cuba and the US, and ending… more

Fidel Castro's Resignation Gives American Inventors New Hope For Havana (Nightly Business Report/PBS)

U.S. Cuba policy could get new look (USA Today)

...Retired colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, co-chair of the U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative [New America Foundation] and chief of staff to former secretary of State Colin Powell, said it was clear to most Americans that "our Cuba policy is a failure." more

Fidel Castro is stepping down -- but will anything in US policy change?

American foreign policy is full of missed moments -- the most recent and disturbing of which was in April 2003 when Iran made a normalisation offer to the US that included putting on the table recognition of Israel, cutting its support of Hamas and Hezbollah's terrorist activities, and its nuclear programme in exchange for some gestures from the US, the most important of which was ending our regime… more

U.S./Cuba: Justice Not So Blind in Politically Charged Cases (Inter Press Service News)

...At an event last week, Leonard Weinglass, an attorney for the agents -- who are better known as the "Cuban Five" -- argued that the tough treatment given his clients exposed hypocrisy in the so-called "war on terror". Speaking at the New America Foundation, a centrist Washington think tank, he sought to contrast the treatment of his clients with that of Luis Posada Carriles and… more

Join the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program for a presentation by Leonard Weinglass, defense attorney for Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González, also known as the Cuban Five.

These five individuals were sent by the Cuban government to gather intelligence on extremist Cuban exile organizations such as the Cuban American National Foundation, Brothers to the Rescue, Commandos F4 and Alpha 66 -- some of which have been allegedly complicit in numerous terrorist acts on the… more

The Failed Policy That Won't Die (The New Republic) And as Steve Clemons notes, Mike Huckabee, who backed greater engagement with Cuba when he was governor of Arkansas, now says he wants to put more pressure on Havana than the Bush administration did. ...

On Dec. 11, 2007, Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, USA (Ret), Co-Chair of the U.S.-Cuba 21st Century Policy Initiative, testified before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. In his opening remarks, Wilkerson stated:

Thank you, Chairman Baucus, Ranking Minority Member Grassley and members of the committee, for the opportunity to testify today on U.S. policy with respect to Cuba.

For almost half a century, U.S. policy with respect to Cuba has failed -- miserably.

The latest indicator of this failed policy is… more

Having belatedly realized that Cuba's communist regime is not doomed to collapse simply with the passing from power of Fidel Castro, the Bush administration is launching new pro-democracy initiatives with the decades-old U.S. hope of fostering a shift from communism.

But little suggests that the road to a democratic Cuba is suddenly open to new U.S. measures - or to renewed American pressure. Fidel's brother Raul has consolidated control of the Cuban system since the elder Castro relinquished power… more

Polls indicate the great majority of Americans now see our 47-year old Cuba policy for the utter failure it is. Even the Cuban-American community, heretofore solidly behind the policy, is moving rapidly in the other direction. Polls taken in the congressional districts of Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, two of the policy's most iron-clad advocates, show even the majority of their constituents to disagree -- 66% expressing disagreement in Lincoln Diaz-Balart's district and 69% in Mario Diaz-Balart's. Truly a… more