Once Fidel kicks it...Follow

...Is it time to drop the economic sanctions on Cuba?

Has it done any good? Would a shift in US policy facilitate a change in government in Cuba or would it just be business as usual with Raul in charge? And does it even matter? Of all the socialist/communist governments, why worry so much about Cuba?

Apparently, there's been a handful of bills floated since January which would loosen trade restrictions, agricultural trade, tourism, etc in the wake of Fidel's eventual demise.

Is it time to drop the economic sanctions on Cuba?

Of course not, it's time for a poorly planned special ops run invasion utilizing 'cubanapluts' and 'jintera trebouchet' firing off of Key West.

Since '62.

Edit: Well, it's more complicated than that since aspects have come and gone and come back again. Here's a link to a Wikipedia article about it.

Edited, Mar 5th 2007 4:27pm by Jophiel

They're snakes.

Source: www.state.gov/p/wha/rls/fs/2001/2558.htm

The relationship between the United States and Cuba for the last 40 years has been marked by tension and confrontations. The United States recognized the new Cuban government, headed by Fidel Castro, on January 7, 1959. However, bilateral relations deteriorated rapidly as the regime expropriated U.S. properties and moved towards adoption of a one-party Marxist-Leninist system. As a result, the United States established an embargo on Cuba in October 1960 and broke diplomatic relations the following January. Tensions between the two governments peaked during the April 1961 "Bay of Pigs" invasion and the October 1962 missile crisis.

Cuba established close ties with the Soviet Union and served as a Soviet surrogate in Africa and several countries in Latin America, which fueled cold war tensions and kept the bilateral relationship distant during the 1960s. In the 1970s, during the Nixon administration, the United States and Cuba began to explore normalizing relations, but the talks were suspended in 1975 when Cuba launched a large-scale intervention in Angola. The United States and Cuba did established interests sections in their respective capitals in September 1977 to facilitate consular relations and provide a venue for dialogue, and both currently operate under the protection of the Embassy of Switzerland. Cuban international entanglements in the 1970s, such as deploying troops to Ethiopia and allowing Soviet forces on the island, continued to strain bilateral relations.

In the 1980s the focus of friction in U.S.-Cuban relations shifted to include immigration, as well as Cuba’s international engagements, when a migration crisis unfolded. In April 1980 an estimated ten thousand Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking political asylum. Eventually, the Cuban government allowed 125,000 Cubans to illegally depart for the United States from the port of Mariel, an incident known as the "Mariel boatlift." A number of criminals and mentally ill persons were involuntarily included. Quiet efforts to explore the prospects for improving relations were initiated in 1981-82 under the Reagan administration, but ceased as Cuba continued to intervene in Latin America. In 1983, the United States and regional allies forced the withdrawal of the Cuban presence in Grenada.

In 1984, the United States and Cuba negotiated an agreement to resume normal immigration, interrupted in the wake of the 1980 Mariel boatlift, and to return to Cuba those persons who had arrived during the boatlift who were "excludable" under U.S. law. Cuba suspended this agreement in May 1985 following the U.S. initiation of Radio Marti broadcasts to the island, but it was reinstated in November 1987. In March 1990, TV Marti transmissions began to Cuba.

The 1990s witnessed another migration crisis that set back U.S.-Cuban relations. When demonstrations fueled by food shortages and prolonged unannounced blackouts erupted in Havana in August 1994, the Cuban Government responded by allowing some 30,000 Cubans to set sail for the United States, many in unsafe boats and rafts, which resulted in a number of deaths at sea. The two countries in September 1994 and May 1995 signed migration accords with the goal of cooperating to ensure safe, legal, and orderly migration.

On February 24, 1996, further worsening relations, the Cuban military shot down two U.S. registered civil aircraft in international airspace, killing three U.S. citizens and one U.S. resident. The unlawful and unwarranted attack on two unarmed U.S. civilian aircrafts resulted in the deaths of Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Alberto Costa, Mario M. de la Peña, and Pablo Morales. Immediately after this brutal act, and in response to this violation of international aviation law, Congress and former President Clinton passed the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, also known as the Libertad Act. The legislation, among other provisions, codified the U.S. trade embargo into law and imposed additional sanctions on the Cuban regime.

And what's worse... they're rubbing elbows with Jugo Chavez.

(Edit.) If we're expected to believe that Raul isn't warm-heartedly reassuring Fidel that his socialist intentions will be continued after his demise, then we're just blind.

Edited, Mar 5th 2007 7:54pm by rdmZANDER

I think it's time to have another vote on Cuba to make Democrats look bad. Most of the people passionately concerned with this issue, who vote in the US, are not for lifting sanctions (to my, limited, knowledge).

That said, of course I'd lift the sanctions.

I say just take the damn place as territory. We got more bombs that them and I'm sure they must be hiding a WMD in there somewhere.

Lifting the sanctions is long overdue. It hasn't done any good for decades.



Because they're on our back porch. And they've got some pretty hot chicas. We could really develop the **** industry there.

Castro is in fact Canadian.

True story.

Really, I mean really can Cuba bee that much of a threat. What have they done in the past 40 some odd years. Besides give us that kid in the 90's. I say lift the sancionts they serrve a beeter pourpos ethat being the black sheep of our hemisphere. I mean Baseball come on.

It would be nice to get Cuban cigars at Walmart.

I didn't think Cuba was that bad...

According to The Straight Dope...

I don't understand what's hypocritical about it. The amount we spend to lease it annually is probably less than what we spend weekly in bottled water for Congress. Cuba certainly isn't profiting off of the deal (even if Castro cashed the checks). Even if you take the Communism/Evil Empire route, what better way to hedge in evil communists than to have a military base in their country?