A Spork in the Drawer

Everything Old Is Old Again

What could be more mavericky than supporting a continuation of a policy that has been a failure for 50 years?

Obama suggested that he would support lifting the embargo on Cuba when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2003 but now says it should stay in place. He does, however, favor talking to the communist government and allowing Cuban Americans to travel freely to the island in hopes of instigating democratic reforms.

''These steps would send the worst possible signal to Cuba's dictators -- there is no need to undertake fundamental reforms, they can simply wait for a unilateral change in U.S. policy,'' McCain said. ``I believe we should give hope to the Cuban people, not to the Castro regime.

Kevin asks rhetorically, "For a guy of McCain's age, I guess that half a century of failure is just the blink of an eye. So why not give it another half century?" Or 100 years. That's more McCain's style.

And another point worth noting: The original batch of Batista-istas have pretty much died off; even if their children carried the torch on the subsequent generations mostly consider themselves to be - gasp! - Americans. That is, the "Cuba Card" is rapidly losing its resonance. Via Steve Benen, Michael Tomasky notes:

[I]n electoral terms, it makes them think that Obama has thrown away Florida, home of a large, conservative Cuban-American community. But Florida's Latino population is no longer majority-Cuban. And just this month, the news broke that more Latinos in Florida are Democrats than Republicans - a major historical shift. Could it be that Obama is on to something?

Could be. And if Obama's stance prevails it would be a welcome change.

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Adios

Fidel calls it quits.

Now can we call off the half-century war on Cuba?

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Terrorism Is Good

Rosa Brooks on Luis Posada Carriles:

I'm talking about a man who was — until 9/11 — perhaps the most successful terrorist in the Western Hemisphere. He's believed to have masterminded a 1976 plot to blow up a civilian airliner, killing all 73 people on board, including teenage members of Cuba's national fencing team. He's admitted to pulling off a series of 1997 bombings aimed at tourist hotels and nightspots. Today, he's living illegally in the United States, but senior members of the Bush administration — the very guys who declared war on terror just a few short years ago — don't seem terribly bothered.

[...]

The Cuban-born Posada was trained by the CIA at the School of the Americas in 1961. From Venezuela, he later planned the successful 1976 bombing of a civilian Cuban jetliner (apparently with the knowledge of the CIA). He was arrested for the crime, but he escaped from a Venezuelan prison before standing trial.

Posada later aided Ollie North's illegal efforts to get arms to the Nicaraguan Contras, tried repeatedly to assassinate Fidel Castro and was behind a 1997 string of Havana hotel bombings. Recently declassified U.S. government documents suggest that, throughout most of his career, Posada remained in close contact with the CIA.

[...]

It's not as if the evidence against Posada is seriously in dispute. In 1998, for instance, he "proudly admitted authorship of the hotel bomb attacks" to the New York Times, "describ[ing] them as acts of war intended to cripple a totalitarian regime by depriving it of foreign tourism and investment." He dismissed the civilian casualties as "sad" but assured the reporter that he slept "like a baby." (When asked about these admissions in 2005 by the Miami Herald, he coyly replied, "Let's leave it to history.")

If all this sounds eerily familiar, it should. We've heard the same callous justifications for terrorism from Bin Laden and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

This is very simple: Posada was "fighting" evil Commie bastards so he's a "freedom fighter." That innocent civilians were killed and maimed, well, "collateral damage", don't'cha know.

I mean, would Ollie North consort with terrorists? No! North only consorts with freedom fighters.

Oh, and don't let the word "hypocrisy" cross your mind.

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ADDED: Eugene Robinson:

Cardone's point was that if the government really wanted to keep Posada behind bars because he was a career terrorist, prosecutors should have prosecuted him as a terrorist. Then, faster than you can say "Patriot Act," authorities could have made him disappear into the netherworld of indefinite detention where terrorism suspects named Muhammad are kept.

I'll wager that the evidence against Posada, which I find compelling, is more solid than the secret evidence against most of the detainees at Guantanamo. But Posada's alleged crimes were against the Castro regime. George W. Bush's stance toward Cuba has been even more hardheaded and counterproductive than the policies of his predecessors. This administration has tightened the travel ban, increased economic pressure and made a show of planning for a post-Castro Cuba.

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They Have Nothing Better To Do

This is ridiculous:

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary "Sicko," The Associated Press has learned.

[...]

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 that it was conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba. A copy of the letter was obtained Tuesday by the AP.

"This office has no record that a specific license was issued authorizing you to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba," Dale Thompson, OFAC chief of general investigations and field operations, wrote in the letter to Moore.

So being a Cuban terrorist is A-OK while merely visiting Cuba is a crime. I'd like to think that they're going after Moore because of his provocative Lefty documentaries but they're probably going after him 'cause he's fat.

As the wingers keep reminding us.

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Objectively Pro-Terrorist

The BushCheney Administration, that is. The case is Luis Posada Carriles, Cuban terrorist, and the administration has been doing everything possible to not chuck him into jail:

A federal judge on Tuesday threw out immigration fraud charges against Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban exile militant who was facing trial later this week, saying the government manipulated his statement to investigators.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone said the interpretation of the April 2006 interview "is so inaccurate as to render it unreliable as evidence of defendant's actual statement."

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said prosecutors were reviewing the ruling and considering whether to appeal it.

Now, as a strictly legal matter the judge might have made the correct ruling. And maybe the DoJ will appeal. But considering Posada's history of terrorism, most notoriously the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 which killed 73 people, there's more than enough evidence to imprison him or, better yet, extradite him to Cuba or Venezuela. Yet for years the BushCheney Administration has been dragging their heels.

We're constantly being told that terrorism is bad. Is this an example of "one person's terrorist is another's freedom-fighter"?

Situational ethics!

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Making Friends Everywhere

Oslo:

An Oslo hotel owned by the U.S.-based Hilton Hotel Corp. faced protests, a boycott and a police complaint this week after refusing to book rooms for a Cuban delegation because of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

The Cuban delegation, set to attend a travel fair in Oslo this month, planned to stay at the Scandic Edderkoppen Hotel in the city centre, as they had on five previous visits.

However, the 140-hotel Scandic company was bought by Hilton in March, and the Cubans were informed in December that they would have to find another hotel due to the American boycott.

[...]

“We are already looking for other hotels for planned conferences,” said the union's deputy leader Anne Grethe Skaardal. “For us, it is unacceptable for the U.S. to dictate to the whole world. In addition, we strongly oppose the U.S. boycott of Cuba.”

[...]

“We have to follow American law,” she said by telephone from Stockholm. “We can't see that we have broken any Swedish or Norwegian law. ... If it turns out to be illegal, we will address that.”

The Foreign Ministry said companies operating in Norway have to obey Norwegian law, regardless of their home base. It said other agencies would have to determine what laws apply in this case.

To be fair, it's not just BushCo™ behind this silly and damaging embargo, it's long been a bipartisan effort. In 1996, Bill Clinton backed and signed the draconian "Helms-Burton Bill" into law. Nonetheless, it's time to bring it to an end.

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