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I was busy all weekend, and now I get a look at CNN Headline News, who subtly report that a shipment of US-made products is arriving at one of Cuba's busiest ports. I know this was under debate last time i checked, so i must ask: Did we lift our trade embargo? If so, When and Under what conditions? And how do you feel about the trade embargo with Cuba up to this point? How would you describe it's success compared with it's original intent?
I don't see what kind of threath Cuba forms for the US. The land is basicly reduced to a third-world country, as far is I've been told. The few times I hear from Castro trough the news, he strikes me as a helpless guy. He keeps cracking me up though. When I heard Castro offered to send political advisors to Florida to 'ensure a democratic solution to the problem' I almost choked in my drink.
I say, lift the embargo. The people of Cuba have suffered enough.
I would have to agree on the lifting of the embargo to cuba. Last I heard, they have a very limited technical structure, i.e. comps, isp's ect. I say lift it, start shiping buisness to them to increase there IT buisness, that way I can have a cuban anonymous proxy to add to my list.*W* I think think this embargo debate is the same as the one involved with vietnam. I personally can see why others who were personally involved with the cold war and vietnam would want to keep the embaro going, although, both of these countries pose no major threat to the us like Iraq or some other third world country. Lift the embaro, let US goods be shiped so that it increases export productivity in our own country.
*tosses his two cents in a bucket*
I'm from Ft Lauderdale and here's what I hear from the cuban exiles ...."The presense of US goods provides a mean of support for a heinous dictator". I confess I find his hapless meanderings amusing also. To some poeple however(those under his "rule") He is evil incarnate..... :firedevil
He is an actual threat from my perspective. Three years ago a cuban pilot fled(seeking asylum) in a mig-27 (or something). He made it all the way to Ft Lauderdale airport and landed..without so much as being challeneged.It's a true story. Castro could possilbly do the same thing with a loyal pilot and hit Turkey Point(our friendly local nuclear power plant) and contaminate this whole area.
Sorry to say Trade Embargos are the things of goverments that never work. Why simply anyone that has free access to any country products and want to make a buck will find a way around them. Prime example a business man in Canada imports under his country oh a few thousand missles and bunker busters and then using legal means sends them to New Mexico I think. His excuse was to train to fight terrorist..naw more like make a buck, screw the world. It is how 9/11 even happened who suffers in all of this just every day people. Sorry spent 50 years around this crap. Not to mention the bust on wall street what is not a bubble a CEO hows very job is to act with ethics and now they have to give sworn statements? Free markets are just that as trade thing is the wrold has reached the height of a few people greed for what a place in history to become an ICON on what a computer and what have these people brought the world really has all of it made all of this better hell no things are falling apart at the seams. I have no answers other then men women, corps and that elusive thing called power and those that persue it. Believe or not one fact remains we all are Dust in the Wind :)
Most of the people who started this thing are dead and gone.
Why pass a grudge on to another generation?
Obviously, it has never had a chance of accomplishing
its staded purpose. Quite the contrary. Eisenhower is dead.
Kennedy is dead. Johnson is Dead. Nixon is dead.
Iguess the idiots will "declare victory" when Castro too
dies of old age, and the younger generation asks,
"what the hell was that all about?"
:cool:
Facts are, Castro has a limited amount of time left as the 'leader' of Cuba due to his age. His brother, reported to have been selected by Castro as his successor, has already been making friendly overtones towards the U.S., as he probably realizes that the dictatorships days are numbered and good relations with the U.S. are in the best interests of the cuban people. Now that the U.S. and Russia are becoming allies Cuba is not the threat to freedom that it used to be. It would be in the best interests of BOTH countries to lift the embargo as it would counter-balance a small portion of our trade IMBALANCE and might actually serve to stem the flow of refugees into this country from Cuba. I think it is something that should be seriously considered.
I agree......but let it take place after Castro is.....gone. That man has perpetrated some of the most in-imaginable atrocities possible against humanity. His own poeple no less.Its real easy to fail to see his threat potential if you live far away..I'm in his backyard almost
Hearing a Floridan talk about such business does make one think, but ending the embargo now would provide many cubans with things they need, not fund castro's gov't. There is little money to be made off imported goods, which cost to shipa nd buy from over a vast expanse of water. So we aren't giving him money unless he taxes our stuff to death, and if he does then his people wont be able to afford them anyways.
So we really just don't have a reason anymore. And we never quite did in the first place.
Quote:
Originally posted here by punchthebaby
So we really just don't have a reason anymore. And we never quite did in the first place.
Actually, when he tried to base Soviet made nukes on the island and point them at us....that was a pretty good reason to say "you're cut off". At one time Cuba was a MAJOR threat to the U.S.. You weren't around during the cold war, my friend, but I was and I'm here to tell you those were seriously frightening times to live in.
cuba is not a third world country, what makes a third world country is a low gdp and illiteracy as well as low standard of living.
Literacy
95.7% total, 96.2% male, 95.3% female (1995 est.)
Life Expectancy
73.84 male, 78.73 female (2000 est.)
no one can deny castro is dictator, but he is seen as hero and revolutionary by many millions.
personally i wish to see democracy in cuba's future. communism has failed.
Quote:
Originally posted here by punchthebaby
Hearing a Floridan talk about such business does make one think, but ending the embargo now would provide many cubans with things they need, not fund castro's gov't. There is little money to be made off imported goods, which cost to shipa nd buy from over a vast expanse of water. So we aren't giving him money unless he taxes our stuff to death, and if he does then his people wont be able to afford them anyways.
So we really just don't have a reason anymore. And we never quite did in the first place.
I beg to differ sir! Do you really think the PEOPLE will see one damn thing out of those shipments? Absolutly not..the only ones to profit by lifting the embargo are the despots in power there (and the companies that supply them). The poeple themselves will continue to starve and suffer..it will just be prolonged because the goverment would then have the life force it needs to survive. I applaud your concern for "the people" just temper your perception with the realisation that they will not see much(I'm sure Castro will televise some distributions) of the goods brought in. The "power structure" will absorb most of it.