Reply #38: I'd Hoped Diplomatic Relations Would Improve Even While Fidel Was Alive, But [View All]

[Vogon_Glory]

I'd hoped that diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba would improve even while Fidel Castro still lived, but it looks like that ain't gonna happen. Whatever horrors that might have occurred at Camp Xray and other places during George GTT Bush's regime, as a Yanqui nationalist, I fail to see why the US should hand over the US base at Guantanamo because an aged Cuban control-freak retiree demands it.

Unlike most of DU's claque of 'Sandalistas,' I don't see the current Havana regime as being either eternal or enduring. Considering Cuba's geographic position as an ideal springboard for smuggling drugs and contraband into the US and considering what narco-traffickers have done to OTHER Caribbean governments (I include the Central American and South American mainland), I don't see it in the US' interest to give in to what's-his-name's demands. A post-Castro Cuban state might prove every bit as troubled as Guatemala after the military dictatorship ended in the '90's or Haiti after Dubya's intervention ended--and both states are now playgrounds for narco-traffickers.

I hope that President Obama shows some of that Chicago political toughness that his enemies accused him of having during the campaign season, and I hope that President Obama says no. I see no gain for President Obama to be seen as weenie; GOP reactionaries would be quick to portray him as such if he did what Fidel demanded. If that means that US--Cuban diplomatic relations have to remain in the deep-freeze, so (alas) be it.