Tag Archives: Cuba

Neoconservatives rail against Eritrean dictator Isaias Afewerki

Hah, just kidding. Neocons don’t even know where Eritrea is.

Afewerki announced in May 2008 that elections would be postponed for “three or four decades” or longer because they “polarize society.” All forms of media are controlled by the government. At least 10 local journalists remain in prison since their arrests in 2001.

(Link: Parade)

Remember, the Neocon playbook says that dictators are only bad if they rule nations that have resources we want and aren’t providing them to us. Sure, they know Robert Mugabe is a bad guy, but Zimbabwe is strategically uninteresting to them. Not like Cuba – they can win votes for singling out Cuba.

No honest person could say that Raul Castro is worse than Robert Mugabe, or Omar Al-Bashir, or Than Shwe, not if they did a moment’s worth of research. And the idea that Cuba poses any kind of strategic threat to the United States is ludicrous.

Even more flagrant is the demonization of Honduras’s Manuel Zelaya. He had the temerity to hold a non-binding public poll – called by some a referendum – as to whether the constitution should be amended to remove presidential term limits. Somehow, this legitimizes the military coup (which has implemented strict press restrictions that did not exist under Zelaya) in the minds of Neocons (and non-libertarian GOP nationalists in general). Why? Because he’s an ally of Castro and Chavez, and a populist (leftist). Now find me a single quote from any neocon about Choummaly Sayasone, president of communist Laos, a single-party state. Go on. Find me one, single, solitary quote about Sayasone, and how his communist regime in Laos must be toppled. Remember, Nixon bombed the living crap out of Laos because they were communist and adjacent to Vietnam. Now that Laos and Vietnam are friendly trading partners, the idea of democracy in Laos, that we equipped thousands of Laotians to fight and die for, is no longer worth thinking about.

Any honest assessment of Neocon priorities reveals the following:
1. US Corporations must be allowed to acquire any valuable natural resources any nation might have.
2. Any world leader who criticizes US foreign policy must be deposed.

That’s it. Threat assessment is not a factor – otherwise they would be considering the danger posed by Pervez Musharraf’s nukes. Same goes for “democracy” and “freedom” – you don’t see them rail against Swaziland’s King Mswati III, Africa’s only absolute monarch (with 13 wives last time I counted).

Neoconservatism is about two things – money and pride. But that’s pretty much all conservative politics in a nutshell.

Time To Lift The Cuban Embargo

It’s been 47 years since the embargo on Cuban goods was put in place by the United States and its been 18 years in a row that the United Nations General Assembly has called for the end of the US embargo. It seem back in April of this year that President Obama was moving in the direction ending the embargo, but Obama’s tit-for-tat Cuba policy seems to be “the same old story” says Ted Piccone of The Brookings Institution.

Cuba has made it very clear that it is prepared to sit down and talk with the U.S. in a spirit of mutual respect, i.e., accepting the regime as it is, rather than as we would like it to be. Until then, it will happily promote the image of David vs. Goliath on the world stage. It is just too potent and too successful a narrative in winning friends for Havana to abandon, even more so now that its economy is in a shambles and it needs all the friends it can get.

As the foreign minister of Cuba said, “U.S. citizens elected Obama as president because he promised change. Where is the change on the blockade of Cuba?”