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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (131859)	5/6/2004 6:05:15 PM
From: Rascal	Respond to of 281500

Bush approves new squeeze on Cuba US President George W Bush has endorsed a report recommending tougher measures on Cuba to hasten the fall of the regime of Fidel Castro. Among the report's proposals are renewed efforts to broadcast pro-US messages in Cuba and tighter curbs on money sent home by expatriate Cubans. "We're not waiting for the day of Cuban freedom, we are working for the day of freedom," Mr Bush told reporters. A US trade embargo against Cuba has been in force for four decades. 'Tyranny' "We believe the people of Cuba should be free from tyranny," Mr Bush told reporters as he met the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. The commission - set up six months ago and chaired by Secretary of State Colin Powell - was tasked with planning for, in Mr Bush's words, "the happy day when Castro's regime is no more". It submitted a 500-page report of policy recommendations earlier in the week. The details of Mr Bush's new measures against Cuba were expected to be released later on Thursday, reports said. Officials have suggested that one of the new policies is expected to be a new drive to circumvent Cuban jamming of broadcasts of the US-funded TV and Radio Marti programmes inside Cuba. The broadcasts exhort Cubans to rebel against the "repression and human rights abuses" in their country and fight for a US-style democracy. The transmissions have been jammed by Cuban authorities for the past 14 years. An official earlier told the Associated Press news agency that under Mr Bush's new measures, military aircraft would be deployed to broadcast the services from international waters adjacent to the island. Cash control Better enforcement of limits on the amount of money Cubans working in the US can send back to relatives in Cuba, is also expected to be introduced. Such remittances are thought to total between $800m and $1.2bn per year, and correspondents say Washington is concerned that the money could end up in the hands of the Cuban government. However, Cuba lobbyists have cautioned that lowering the yearly $1,200 amount Cubans are allowed to send to family on the island could increase hardship without a noticeable impact on the leadership. Instead, Mr Bush may decide on measures to enforce the annual ceiling on individuals' remittances and to ensure the money goes directly to families, and not the government. Other policies are set to include: Increasing support to dissidents and the families of political prisoners in Cuba Encouraging other governments to distance themselves from Havana Taking steps to prepare for the downfall of the Cuban regime - for example, ensuring aid reaches Cubans quickly Mr Bush said the new strategy "encourages the spending of money to help organisations to protect dissidents and to promote human rights". "It is a strategy that encourages a clear voice of the truth being spoken to the Cuban people through Radio and TV Marti," he said. "It is a strategy that will prevent the regime from exploiting hard currency of tourists and of remittances to Cubans to prop up their repressive regime." No response has been reported from Havana yet. Washington scored a recent narrow victory over Havana when it won approval for a resolution condemning Cuba's human rights record at the annual meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in Geneva. Both Mexico - an erstwhile friend of Cuba - and Peru then withdrew their ambassadors from Havana after Mr Castro condemned the countries for supporting the motion. Story from BBC NEWS: news.bbc.co.uk Published: 2004/05/06 17:35:02 GMT (OY, another regime change! Maybe the WMDs are in Havana. Well at least the jail is ready,This kid has too much time on his hands or those new contracts have penalty clauses. Must owe something big in Fla. Bailing Jeb?) Hawk, did you listen to me when I told you about Cuba? Message 20091355@ Rascal @Fredo.com

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (131859)	5/7/2004 12:35:59 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Respond to of 281500

You're right.. I don't want to hear that because I implicitly believe its wrong. I don't believe in the "unwinnable scenario" (maybe I've been indoctrinated by the "Captain Kirk" Kabayashi Maru syndrome), but I believe that there are solutions to every issue, if we're willing to be innovative about it, as well as express it as a part of our national will to defend our values over those of brutal totalitarian ideologies. Be careful Hawk, you may have to stop your self-proclaimed labeling as a "moderate pragmatist." As for myself, I'm willing to take lessons from history and I'm willing to apply my accumulated wisdom concerning human nature; after all, those lessons and that wisdom was garnered through the blood of good Americans. But there are always those that say "it's different this time." We should have a special nation-building division for those folks so that if it turns out to be the same as it was in prior history, they can earn a place in history for themselves. If we did that often enough, we'd surely end up with a larger percentage of the living that were genuinely "moderate pragmatists."

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (131859)	5/7/2004 6:02:26 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "After all, we beat the N. Koreans and Chinese, despite their massive infiltration of the South behind our very lines and at least eeked out a stalemate at the 38th parallel." I know that the lessons of military history leave you unimpressed, but the reason we were unable to stop the infiltration of South Vietnam, but could do in South Korea is because there of the difference in the lengths of the borders that were being infiltrated. The South Korean border was short, the South Vietnamese border was long. And how long is Iraq's border? Here's the sad figures: Region Border(km) --------------- --------- South Korea 238 South Vietnam ~1800 Iraq 3650 We failed in South Vietnam where we had succeeded in South Korea largely because of the excessive length of its land borders. The short border in Korea prevented significant infiltration from happening, while the long border in Vietnam made guerilla war easy. And Iraq? It's got borders twice the length of South Vietnam's. Undefendable with 4x the troop size we've got there now. -- Carl