I would like to suggest that perhaps we are going about our Cuba policy the wrong way. Well, maybe just not far enough.
Ever since Castro revolted his way to power, the US has presented Cuba with "the big stick", while assuming the chaotic and despotic nature of his regime would lead to its eventual demise. But we have found frustration in the unexpected longevity of the beast, the inability of the opposition to avoid his brutal henchmen, but most especially a true lack of support for democratic change among his people.
That is, before Castro, most Cubans lived like dogs. After Castro, they still lived like dogs, but dogs that at least got the occasional bone. So they embrace Castro, more or less. What better offer has been made to them?
And that is my point: the US threatens, but what has the US offered Cuba?
Pure bribery. A standing offer. Once the bearded fat man is gone, you can either continue to live like dogs, or what?
Let me propose what at first may sound extraordinary, but is not beyond the possible. An offer that should be made to the Cuban people again and again.
1) One Trillion USD in aid the first year. Using Cuban labor, to rebuild their entire infrastructure to first world standards.
2) The retention of all military personnel who chose to stay in the Cuban army, at their current rank up to Major General, with full U.S. retirement benefits to all senior officers and NCOs.
3) A complete amnesty for those individuals who violated the standards of international law, and resettlement and pension in a neutral country for those who felt they could not remain in country, for fear of reprisal.
4) A massive reeducation program centering around english as a second language, and the re-creation of their technical and professional class to high standards.
5) A series of democratic elections, from local to national level, under the auspices of the UN.
6) Ten years later, to offer for public referendum that Cuba become the 51st State of the United States, or to become a tax-free territory of the US like Puerto Rico.
I'm sure that any number of other "sweeteners" could be added to this deal, but the point is to tell the Cuban people, over and over again, that the US in no way intends to take away anything they have. Instead that we offer to them a seemingly endless bounty, and friendship.
#1
Why, Moose? Who cares about Cuba? Hell, we'd be better off threatening them that if they don't get rid of the bearded fat scumbag pronto we're going to FORCE THEM TO ACCEPT PUERTO RICO AS PART OF THE "PEOPLE'S PARADISE." It wouldn't take five years of having PR to absolutely flat-out bankrupt their sorry butts and we'd be rid of a useless, money-sucking encumbrance. Both Cuba and PR are not now, never have been, and never will be of any net benefit and the US would be better off if tomorrow we woke to find that both had sunk beneath the waves without a trace. Maybe we'll get lucky and Chavez will accept them both.
Posted by: mac ||
12/31/2005 12:37 Comments ||
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#2
As you point out, we've got PR. Who wants to create another welfare state? Let the Cubans work. After Castro goes, we might let the smart ones go back, if they want to.
#6
A trillion dollars is ~40% of the total Federal budget for a year. It's about $90,000 per capita in Cuba (1 trillion / 11 million Cubans).
I think that's a trifle high. Two trifles, in fact.
If the idea is to reassure the Cuban people that after Fidel meets Himmler in Hell, we'll be friendly and warm in our relations, fine. But I see no need to leave any substantial amount of money on the table until we know what kind of system they're going to have.
After all, there's still Raul.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2005 16:51 Comments ||
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#7
If only they'd listened. What a business we coulda had
Exactly six years ago, hours before the onset of the new millennium, India capitulated to the demands of hijackers of an Indian jetliner so disgracefully that it advertised itself globally as an attractive target for further terrorist attacks. In a surrender unparalleled in modern world history, then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh personally chaperoned three jailed terrorists to freedom in a special aircraft. The bitter fruit of the Kandahar deal has been a sharp surge in terror that has seen India emerge as the worldâs worst victim of terrorism.
By breaching the fragile global consensus against surrender to terrorist demands, India lost not just international respectability. Once a nation lowers its esteem in its own eyes, it opens the path to continuing compromises on national interests. That is what Kandahar did.
It was such a defining moment for the new millennium that India has continued to slip and sink. As the already-forgotten New Delhi bombings of two months ago show, India is increasingly unwilling to go after transnational terrorists and their sponsors. Contrast that with the unforgiving British response to the bombings in London that killed fewer people. Is it any surprise that terrorists are now emboldened to strike in Indiaâs Silicon Valley?
Kandahar set in motion a process from which India has found hard to recover due to its leadership deficit â the further softening of this country, mirrored in its growing forbearance towards terrorism. As it has repeatedly in recent years, India will invite another major terror attack before long, but one already knows how it will respond â with bold, empty words that will do little to hide its lack of both a coherent counter-terrorism strategy and the political will to go beyond mere reprobation. The ruling and opposition leadership, ensconced in a commando ring, cares little about ordinary citizens falling to terrorists.
The Kandahar ignominy has hung from the nationâs neck like the proverbial albatross, exacting continuing costs. Indeed, after Kandahar, terrorism rapidly morphed from hit-and-run strikes to daring assaults on military camps, major religious sites and national emblems of power, like the Red Fort and Parliament.
Pervez Musharraf accomplished through this ISI-scripted hijacking much more than what he had set out to achieve with force in Kargil just months earlier. The IC-814 hijacking, as Strobe Talbott wrote in his book, came âas a personal victory for Musharraf, who was widely believed to have masterminded the incidentâŠâ Within five months, Musharraf won an invitation to a summit in Agra, an event that lifted his semi-pariah status internationally. Since then, he has progressively upped the ante to the extent that today he is able to hold the weapon of terror to Indiaâs head and still show off an âirreversibleâ Indian-initiated peace process.
The ISI, for its part, used the hijacking to bring home its two main assets from Indian jails â Harkat-ul Ansar chief Masood Azhar and the abductor of Western tourists, Ahmed Omar Sheikh â and then re-employ them for more vicious terrorism.
Azhar, through his new terror outfit, Jaish-e-Muhammad, has killed many more Indians in attacks than the number of hostages for whose freedom he was freed along with Omar Sheikh and another terrorist, Al-Umarâs Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar. Omar Sheikh went on to help finance the 9/11 attacks and murder reporter Daniel Pearl, who was investigating the ISIâs role in fomenting global jehad.
Yet, there has been no mea culpa from the architects of the Kandahar capitulation, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and company. Not even a casual acknowledgement of guilt.
While they were in office, they frustrated any inquiry effort to get to the bottom of how they ended up negotiating with the terrorists on bended knees. Lest the CBI inquiry uncovered the culpability of Brajesh Mishra, who bungled in the take-off of the commandeered plane from Amritsar, the Crisis Management Group claimed to have maintained no records. Its members even feigned loss of memory on key details. Equally unsavoury was how security agencies were used to orchestrate demonstrations by hostagesâ relatives to help build a public case for succumbing to the hijackersâ demands.
Even in opposition ranks, Vajpayee and company have maintained a conspiracy of silence. No explanation has been offered as to why the foreign minister had to hand-deliver three monsters. In fact, the publicity-hungry Jaswant Singh even wanted to take a media team with him. Singh had whipped himself into such a hallucinatory loop of delusion that when the flight landed in the terrorist retreat of Kandahar, he actually rejoiced, telling newspaper editors that it presented a golden opportunity to drive a wedge between the Taliban and its sponsor, Pakistan!
Lord Actonâs maxim that âpower corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutelyâ may explain why Vajpayee and company had begun to lose touch with reality. The intoxication with heady power was manifest from Jaswant Singhâs Alice-in-Wonderland briefing to newspaper editors and Vajpayeeâs consent to his foreign minister to escort hardcore terrorists, as if they were kids and needed a guardian.
More than the shame it brought on India, the capitulationâs significance lay in the manner it helped raise the threshold of shame for Vajpayee and company. After Kandahar, they increasingly became anaesthetised to disgrace, as they took the nation on a wacky roller-coaster ride with an ever-shifting policy on Pakistan and terror. Today, they and their party are unable to stand up for any principle because they showed in office that they have no convictions. Scandal and sleaze have become the nemesis of a party incapable to play the role of an effective opposition.
Every time Azharâs Jaish-e-Muhammad claims responsibility for a terror strike that murders or maims innocent Indians, the same question must haunt Vajpayee and company that did Lady Macbeth: âWill all great Neptuneâs ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?â In fact, close to the first anniversary of his release, Azhar sought to pay his debt to those who freed him by sending a terrorist squad to kill them. But for the valiant security personnel, six of whom laid down their lives, the attackers would have stormed into Parliament.
Kandahar remains a bleeding shame. No lesson has been learned. No plan is in place to prevent another Kandahar-type ignominy.
What India needs is a concerted, sustained campaign against terror. But what it gets is more political rhetoric and dubious declarations. A new anti-hijacking declaratory policy threatens to shoot down an aircraft that deviates from the assigned course in such a way as to take its flight track close to sensitive sites, such as the presidential or prime ministerial house.
If a rogue plane over Delhi aims to crash into such a site, the government will have less than a minute to take a decision and execute it. When India failed to keep Flight IC-814 grounded at Amritsar after it landed there, despite advance information that it was headed to that city, how can anyone expect the countryâs doddering, dithering leadership to take a decision within seconds to shoot down a plane?
As an open, untreated sore on the Indian body politic threatening to become gangrenous, Kandahar has brought India under increasing attack from terrorism. Turning this abysmal situation around demands a new mindset that will not allow India to be continually gored and treats terrorism as an existential battle. That in turn means a readiness to do whatever it takes to end the terrorist siege of India.
Posted by: john ||
12/31/2005 10:25 ||
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#1
Omar Sheikh went on to help finance the 9/11 attacks and murder reporter Daniel Pearl, who was investigating the ISIâs role in fomenting global jehad.
Under orders from General Mahmood Ahmed, then ISI chief, Sheikh transferred 100,000 dollars to lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta.
Pearl was murdered because he began to di too deply into the ISI terror nexus.
Posted by: john ||
12/31/2005 12:11 Comments ||
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#2
would be good to translate to German, I think
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2005 14:19 Comments ||
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Thereâs a blog called Israel Perspectives: Feeling âRightâ at Home by Zeâev, a Zionist. I once posted to him full of my bluster and he calmly responded point for point. It was a decidedly different approach to the belligerence that I encountered at Rantburg.com or to the intimacy I encountered at My Egypt - My Love. In that brief exchange with Zeâev he made a number of interesting points. Iâll highlight just one. Basically, I paraphrased a quote included in a previous post (Making the Inconceivable Obvious):
â⊠in the eyes of many, including Israeliâs and former Israeliâs, the idea of a Jewish State (i.e., Zionism) is the idea of racism, colonialism and unprogressive social laws regarding non-Jews. It is this evolving character of the Jewish State and how it runs counter to the humanistic and progressive views of the liberal democracies (themselves being severely challenged at present) that causes many to seriously question the practical consequences of Zionism.â
Zeâve responded:
âYou are correct in your assessment that the idea of a Jewish State does not fit in well in a world based on progressive, liberal, secular democracies⊠but does that mean that the Jewish people have less of a right to a State of their own, in their Homeland b/c of it? The right of the Jewish people to a Jewish State in the Land of Israel does not come from the UN, or the US, or the EU, it comes from G-d and the Bible - and without that - we have no right whatsoever to be here⊠â
#2
If defenders of the only established democracy (willing Iraq to continue) are "Zionist Tools" then register me, unapologetically
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2005 17:52 Comments ||
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#3
oops! in the ME
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2005 17:53 Comments ||
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#4
the idea of a Jewish State does not fit in well in a world based on progressive, liberal, secular democracies liberal world
At last! Somebody actually admits it.
I notice "liberals" have absolutely NO problem with a multitude of repressive, misogynistic,terrorist-supporting, murdering moslem societies in their "world based on progressive, liberal, secular democracies."
Hmmmmm. Notice a pattern here? >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/31/2005 18:25 Comments ||
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#5
Ah, that lovely word 'progressive' and all it entails in the historically determined march toward the golden city on the hill, where all is perfect equality and harmony.
Of course it's the great lie of the Left and inevitably leads to loss of freedoms and state coercion when people don't want 'progress' as defined by the 'progressives' when they see its consequences. Worse, when the barbarians are at the gate, it invites them in to discuss the bribes needed to keep them happy.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
