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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Machaon who wrote (13324)	4/6/2002 2:29:56 PM
From: Eashoa' M'sheekha	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 23908

A gigantic blind spot called Cuba. Here's to your so called freedom and democracy Bobby. 70% of Americans think the embargo should be at the very least reviewed and 55% believe it should be lifted..totally. By MATHEW INGRAM Globe and Mail Update Thursday, April 4 – Online Edition, Posted at 4:24 PM EST James Sabzali's wife and children must be horrified that they've been living with such a notorious criminal all these years. After all, he faces a possible sentence of over 200 years in prison on dozens of counts of breaking federal laws in the United States. And what did he do — sell nuclear secrets to North Korea? Anti-aircraft weapons to Iraq? Plutonium to Osama bin Laden? No. He sold water treatment products to Cuba. For decades now, American foreign policy has had a gigantic blind spot when it comes to Cuba. As various other nations have come and gone, or U.S. opinion of them has changed — including the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Vietnam — U.S. policy on trading with them has also changed. But the rules on trade with Cuba are still frozen where they were when John F. Kennedy was president, like a Cold War fly trapped in amber. Mr. Sabzali was convicted this week — along with two other executives of Bro-Tech, the Philadelphia-based chemical company he works for — of violating the 41-year-old Trading with the Enemy Act, which bans U.S. companies or individuals from doing business with Cuba. He was found guilty on more than 20 counts, and one count of conspiracy to contravene the act, while another executive was guilty on 33 counts. What makes this case different from other prosecutions of U.S. companies doing business with Cuba is that Mr. Sabzali is a Canadian citizen, and some of the offences he committed took place while he was living in Canada and working for a subsidiary of Bro-Tech. The fact that he could be convicted and face even a reduced sentence of about four years in prison — the current offer from the federal prosecutor — is virtually unheard of. In fact, if Mr. Sabzali had decided to abide by the U.S. sanctions on Cuba and refrained from trading with the country, he would have been guilty of a crime, since observing the U.S. embargo is an offence in Canada under the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act. U.S. authorities also laid charges against the man who took over the Canadian unit of Bro-Tech after Mr. Sabzali moved to Philadelphia, but dropped that part of their case two years ago after intervention by Canada's foreign affairs minister. The prosecution would likely point out that only at least seven of the counts against Mr. Sabzali relate to business done in Canada. Bro-Tech says all Cuban sales were handled by its international subsidiaries — using the same structure many companies use to get around such bans — and also argues that it would have made little sense for it to flout the law, since sales to Cuba represented about 1 per cent of the company's business. No case is too small, it seems, in what appears to be a new crackdown on trade with Cuba. Washington observers note that the assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs — in charge of U.S. policy on North and South America — is Otto Reich, a Cuban-American who has long opposed closer ties with Cuba while President Fidel Castro is still in power. Mr. Reich was reportedly involved in toughening up the Cuban embargo in the 1980s while working for the State Department under Ronald Reagan. Mr. Reich aside, why does Cuba matter so much that the U.S would prosecute a chemical company and possibly sentence its executives to prison? Mr. Castro has been guilty of many human rights abuses during his 40 years in power, but hardly any worse than what goes on in China, and yet the U.S. has no qualms about trade with that country — or with dozens of other oppressive regimes, or with the former Soviet Union or Vietnam. Many foreign policy theorists argue that trade embargoes such as the one the U.S. has had on Cuba since 1960 do little to influence leaders such as Mr. Castro and often do more harm than good, since they further impoverish the citizens of the country being embargoed. In many cases, governments — including the U.S. — have chosen to use trade as a way of getting into such countries and encouraging them to become more open. As usual, much of the impetus for the U.S. focus on Cuba appears to be political — but not in the usual sense of being opposed to Mr. Castro's one-party dictatorship. Instead, political experts in the U.S. say trade with Cuba is a "hot button" issue for voters in Florida, where there are thousands of Cuban refugees, and that Florida just happens to be a crucial state when it comes to presidential party support. See how the " system " works yet Bobby.....HUH? ______________________________________________ OH..and to that wonderful place they are " all " trying to get to.......guess they must be reading tourist mags...heh heh heh.....HA! aecf.org granma.cu quickfacts.census.gov But Poor Little Cuba......such a Monsterous threat to the World's ONLY SUPERPOWER tsk tsk tsk.... cia.gov OH.. and by the way..that kid you wanted to remain kidnapped in this haven of prosperity has some interesting asperations...dontcha thin..? <<<SNIP>>> April 4,2002 :Elian Gonzalez, the little Cuba boy who was kidnapped in the United States in 1999, says he wants to be a policeman, TV actor or cosmonaut. Damn commies eh? HA HA HA!! Mucho Latero.................