Saying that “50 years have shown that isolation hasn’t worked,” President Obama announced historic changes to the United states’ Cuban policies.
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Tag: Fidel Castro
White House aide Ben Rhodes told reporters the two exchanged no words more substantive than a greeting.
The Cuban government said the gesture may show the “beginning of the end of the US aggressions”.
The US broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba in 1961 as Fidel Castro aligned with the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
And on Tuesday after the handshake, a White House official said the Obama administration still had grave concerns about human rights violations in Cuba, Reuters reported.
Republicans on Capitol Hill were quick to condemn the gesture, with one Republican congresswoman chiding the move during a unrelated hearing on Tuesday.
“Sometimes a handshake is just a handshake, but when the leader of the free world shakes the bloody hand of a ruthless dictator like Raul Castro, it becomes a propaganda coup for the tyrant,” Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is known for her opposition to the Castro government, told Secretary of State John Kerry.
“Could you please tell the Cuban people living under that repressive regime that, a handshake notwithstanding, the US policy toward the cruel and sadistic Cuban dictatorship has not weakened.”
Gradual thaw disrupted
The last US president to shake a Cuban leader’s hand was President Bill Clinton, who greeted President Fidel Castro, Raul’s brother and predecessor, at a 2000 UN General Assembly meeting.
Under President Obama, the US has eased restrictions on Cuban-Americans travelling to the island and on remittances between family members across the two countries
Cuba’s ex-president Fidel Castro, made an observation that I think is worth a mention in this post. Castro called the Republican presidential race “the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been.” I must say, I agree with that observation.
Politico reports;
Castro made his comments in his latest column of “reflections” on a Cuban government website, attacking the Republican candidates two days after their debate in Florida.
“The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is – and I mean this seriously – the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been,” he wrote, according to The Associated Press.
During the debate, Mitt Romney responded to a question of how he would react to a 3 a.m. announcement of Castro’s death by referencing the Jan. 19 death of Cuban prisoner Wilman Villar.
“We just had, with Wilman Villar, his life was just lost in a hunger strike fighting for democracy,” Romney said.
Castro wrote that Villar was a common criminal and not a political dissident, the AP reported.
Judge Napolitano of Fox News should be fired, but don’t hold your breath for that to happen, Fox openly demands that their employees make the kind of remarks Napolitano made yesterday. The Fox News ding-bat accused the President of “illigally killing” Osama Bin Laden. All this, because the President is not a Republican, and possibly because he’s black.
The Fox News Napolitano went on the propaganda machine better known as Fox Network, and basically called the president a murderer, saying, “this business of the president deciding to kill people is very dangerous and very unlawful.” He continued;
“Where will it stop. Who will President Obama kill next? Can the president now send the seals to kill colonel Qhadaffi? President Assad? Prime minister Putin? Fidel Castro? Hugo Chavez or Kim Jon Il? Can he kill whomever is an obstacle to his purposes?
Can he kill Bradley Manning or Juliane Assange? Or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Could he kill Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or me? Can the president kill anyone who was once a friend but became our enemy?
Although the Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh or “me” question may be a valid one in some circles, Napolitano’s rant, is of course, based purely on capturing some political ground for Republicans lost after Obama gains over the last week. And of course theres the racial element thats always present.
According to his own diatribe, Osama Bin Laden was the most wanted man in the world. He wasn’t wanted because of his pleasant ways and wonderful mannerism at the dinner table, he was wanted because he personally went on a mission to kill as many American citizens as he possibly could. And because of his hate and contempt for Americans, Osama Bin Laden was sought after by multiple administrations including that of Bill Clinton, who the Republicans, including Fox News, blamed for the attacks on September 11th. According to the Republican’s theory, if Bill Clinton had killed Bin Laden when “he had the chance to,” then September 11th, 2001 would not have happen.
George Bush tried to find and kill Bin Laden – a search that lasted about an hour. He sent in troops to drop bombs in known caves in Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the hope of killing Bin Laden. Drone attacks were often used but most of the time resulted in other terrorists being killed. “We want him dead or alive” was the famous Bush line. Judge Napolitano didn’t see the need to question these drone attacks or the other bodies they provided, but he now has issues with President Obama accomplishing what previous administrations couldn’t.
The Fox News employee suggests the only time a President is “legally” allowed to kill someone is, “in self defense, in war on a battlefield or after a verdict by a jury for the death penalty. ” Well it seems to me that two of the three reasons given, were present in the case of Osama Bin Laden.
- Bin Laden began the war on America when he recruited and paid for members of his army to board planes to New York and Washington that would kill over three thousand Americans. Ground Zero was a battlefield and America had no choice but to respond.
- Self defense – Self defense is not only when you have word of an eminent attack, but also after you’ve actually been attacked. America was attacked on September 11th, and our retaliation was, and is, in self defense.
And keeping with the mindset of Fox News, Mr. Napolitano lied to his sheeple, telling them that there are no pictures, just Obama’s word. Of course we know this to be a lie. There are pictures and a video of the mission. But even if there were none, how does Napolitano explain the survivors who were present in the mansion with Bin Laden? According to all the news reports and Pakistan officials, Bin Laden’s wife was shot in her leg, there were other dead bodies from the mission and there were children on the compound. If you are to believe Napolitano’s “all we have is Obama’s word,” then you will have to believe that Bin Laden’s wife volunteered to be shot in the leg, and the dead bodies are not really dead. You will have to believe that all the children found at the compound were paid off, probably with candy, to perpetrate afraud.
The whole point here is that Fox News and their sicko employees can’t accept the fact that a Democratic President – wait a minute, Bill Clinton was a Democratic President and they wanted him to kill Bin Laden – strike that… They can’t accept the fact that a black Democratic President accomplished what other administrations tried, and failed to do.
