From: ez000281@hamlet.ucdavis.edu
Newsgroups: alt.activism,soc.culture.latin-america,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections,misc.headlines
Subject: Re: CUBANS: End the Embargo
Date: 22 Aug 92 15:59:59 GMT
Followup-To: alt.activism
Organization: Computing Services, UC Davis

In <9208220229.AA16557@poly.math.cornell.edu> Harel writes:

>[Christopher Hitchens writes in the Nation:]

>In her excellent new book, _Cubans: Voices of Change_, Lynn Geldof
>conducts a series of illuminating conversation with Cubans on the
>island, in Miami and elsewhere, and with those who have made a study
>of the revolution.

>No single conclusion or strategy emerges from the book except on the
>matter of the embargo. In that case it is very clear that what we need
                                                               ^^^^
I wonder who this "we" is? Castro? His marionettes in the states?

>is not a tighter embargo but no embargo at all.  Wayne Smith, the
>former head of mission at the U.S. Interest Section in Havana, puts it
^^^^^^^
I wonder why he never made it to ambassador?

>well when he tells Geldof:

>    Cuba has the same effect on American administrations that the full
>    moon has on werewolves: they just lose their rationality at the
>    mention Castro or Cuba.

Well be Castro  should be careful during the next full moon, case Gorbi's 
folks aren't around any more with a silver SS-20 to keep the werewolves out.

>There used to be, Smith reminds us, three Administration conditions
       ^^^^^^^^^^
>for "normalizing" or "thawing" relations with Havana. 
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yeah, and there used to be three little pigs and a big bad wolf.  Just where 
does this guy get his used to be and are no more facts?  In any event assume 
his is right....

>Cuban soldiers
>had to begin to leave Africa, 

And they didn't when they had to, so a war raged on for many years.  Castro 
failed to meet the condition when the "had to".

>political prisoners had to be released

My God!  All Cuban society is a prison and now we ask Castro to release the 
prisoners!  Do we want anotherr Mariel?

>and there had to be a reduction in Soviet-Cuban ties.
    ^^^^^^^^^^^
Why use an impersonal?  Is it becasue you don't want to say "Cuba had",after 
having knowledge of how thing turned out? Again, Castro "had" his chance and he 
let it go.  Again he failed when he "had to" so new conditions must be met.

>Well, the Cubans have indeed left Angola (having earned warm thanks
>for defeating the South Africans at the battle of Cui'to Cuananvale
>and thus speeding the liberation of the region from apartheid [see
>below --HB]). 

Please don't let me crack up!  The war in Angola turned into Castro's Viet 
Nam, (or better yet his Afghanistan).  By the time he left Angola the oil 
reserves were in the hands of Gulf petroleum!  What a joke! I guess Angola is 
the last socialist regime in the planet, Ha Ha Ha!!!!

>The number of long-term political prisoners is now in
>the single figures.  

Yep.  They remaining ones (i.e., those who aren't sumarrily executed in one 
week trials) are in single... cells.   Hasn't this guy read the U.N. human 
rights report on Cuba?

>And there is only the most notional sense of
>"Soviet-Cuban" relations.

Again, the Cuban missed their opportunity to comply.

>But the response of Bush and Baker is still No Dice. They and their
>class cannot forgive the impudence of the Cubans in expropriating
>American property and in outliving imperial warning to cease and
>desist. 

Perhaps we cannot forget the nuclear missiles, the troops in Greneda, the ties 
with Hanoi, the troops in Ethiopia, the armament of Nicaragua, the aid of the 
Noriega regime, the relationship with the Cartel, the Venezuelan guerrillas, 
etc., etc., etc.,

>This leaves millions of Cubans, including many of those
>interviewed by Geldor, stuck between the vindictiveness of Washington
>and the increasingly theatrical dogmatism of the autumnal patriarch
                      ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^       ^^^^^^^^  ^^^^^^^^^
>himself.

How sweet of you!!  I've finally heard a critique of Castro from their 
adulators.  Let's see, this bloodthirsty stalinist is an...

1.-Actor
2.-Dogmatic
3.-Old aged
5.-Patriarch

Why its non other than Ronald Reagan.  Couldn't you be more polite on the 
Butcher of Havanna?

Edelmiro Salas
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