After only 49 years, our economic sanctions on Cuba have finally brought Castro down. This proves what a great policy we've had regarding Cuba for all these years. I'm sure the Bushies will claim that their “get tough” policies regarding Cuba caused Fidel's illness.
Let's look at the how we treated various Communist countries, and what happened. We engaged the Soviets, and communism crumbled. Nixon went to Chnia, and ....well, the Communist Party still runs the place, but it's hardly “communist” anymore. We lost a war in Vietnam, but now we trade freely with them, and they are much like China. Meanwhile, we isolate Castro, and he outlives everyone who came up with the strategy in the first place. Iran is not Communist, but isolating them is only making the Ayatollah and his crazy friend stronger.
What have we learned? Not much! But what we should have learned is that economic sanctions won't bring down a dictator. By denying resources to Cuba, we've made the public there too poor to rally against Castro, and given him an evil empire to rally the people against. We aren't denying Castro resources, we are denying the average Cuban.
The way to get rid of this regime is to do exactly the opposite of what we have been doing. Encourage trade and tourism to Cuba. Put a major league baseball team in Havana. With that much US cash floating around, Communism is bound to tumble as markets will develop that they can't stop.
I may be wrong, but it can't be any dumber than 50 years of futile isolation.
1 comment:
Encourage not only trade but tourism. There's nothing that will crack open Communism like a bunch of dollar-wielding tourists. Actaully, these days, Euro-wielding toursts and Canadian dollar-wielding toursts are alredy there by the planeload -- and their currencies are way stronger than the US$.
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