The Truth About the Cuban ‘Embargo’
by Humberto Fontova
Low information voters are bad enough. But maybe low information presidents, pundits, and legislators contribute to the problem. To wit:
“In Cuba, we are ending a policy that was long past its expiration date. When what you’re doing doesn’t work for fifty years, it’s time to try something new.(President Obama, Jan. 21, 2015.)
“The permanent (Cuba) embargo was imposed in 1962 in the hope of achieving, among other things, regime change. Well. Regime change — even significant regime modification — has not happened in Havana.” (Syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor/analyst George Will, Dec. 24, 2014)
“In the end, I think opening up Cuba is probably a good idea. The 50-year embargo just hasn’t worked. If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn’t seem to be working.” (Congressman Rand Paul Dec. 18, 2014.)
Given the breadth of policy-making, policy-influencing and policy-brokering represented by the figures quoted above you’d hope that one might have prevailed upon their huge staffs to actually research the issue at hand.
They apparently did not. So here I’ll volunteer my services in hopes of raising the information level on this issue:
On January, 21, 1962 at Punta del Este Uruguay U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk gave a speech to the Organization of American States explaining the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba and recommending that the members join the U.S. in voting for these sanctions. In this speech there is not a single word–or even an inference–that regime-change was the embargo’s goal. “The United States objects to Cuba’s activities and policies in the international arena not its internal system or arrangements.”
Indeed, Secretary Rusk went out of his way to stress that regime-change wasNOT the embargo’s goal. In brief, the U.S. was trying to contain Soviet-Cuban sponsored international terrorism:
Every terror group from the Weathermen to Puerto Rico’s Macheteros, from Argentina’s Montoneros, to Colombia’s FARC, from the Black Panthers to the IRA, and from the PLO to AL Fatah received training and funding from Castro.
Granted, while most were not immediately defeated they were certainly contained. Then for three decades the Soviet Union was forced to pump the equivalent of almost ten Marshall Plans into Cuba. This drain on her resources certainly helped bankrupt the Evil Empire.
Low information voters are bad enough. But maybe low information presidents, pundits, and legislators contribute to the problem. To wit:
“In Cuba, we are ending a policy that was long past its expiration date. When what you’re doing doesn’t work for fifty years, it’s time to try something new.(President Obama, Jan. 21, 2015.)
“The permanent (Cuba) embargo was imposed in 1962 in the hope of achieving, among other things, regime change. Well. Regime change — even significant regime modification — has not happened in Havana.” (Syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor/analyst George Will, Dec. 24, 2014)
“In the end, I think opening up Cuba is probably a good idea. The 50-year embargo just hasn’t worked. If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn’t seem to be working.” (Congressman Rand Paul Dec. 18, 2014.)
Given the breadth of policy-making, policy-influencing and policy-brokering represented by the figures quoted above you’d hope that one might have prevailed upon their huge staffs to actually research the issue at hand.
They apparently did not. So here I’ll volunteer my services in hopes of raising the information level on this issue:
On January, 21, 1962 at Punta del Este Uruguay U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk gave a speech to the Organization of American States explaining the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba and recommending that the members join the U.S. in voting for these sanctions. In this speech there is not a single word–or even an inference–that regime-change was the embargo’s goal. “The United States objects to Cuba’s activities and policies in the international arena not its internal system or arrangements.”
Indeed, Secretary Rusk went out of his way to stress that regime-change wasNOT the embargo’s goal. In brief, the U.S. was trying to contain Soviet-Cuban sponsored international terrorism:
Every terror group from the Weathermen to Puerto Rico’s Macheteros, from Argentina’s Montoneros, to Colombia’s FARC, from the Black Panthers to the IRA, and from the PLO to AL Fatah received training and funding from Castro.
Granted, while most were not immediately defeated they were certainly contained. Then for three decades the Soviet Union was forced to pump the equivalent of almost ten Marshall Plans into Cuba. This drain on her resources certainly helped bankrupt the Evil Empire.
............
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario