
Obama announces Cuba trip - miiiiiike
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/us/politics/new-talks-begin-with-cuba-on-expanding-business-ties.html
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Jedd
Here's what I (as a relatively poorly informed AU citizen who's 'travelled a
bit') don't understand about the reaction to this news.

It's clearly not the ideal end-game state. But, it seems to be a marked
improvement on the previous (half-century-long) situation. And in order to get
from current to ideal, there'll be some intermediary stuff. In tech this is a
common and well understood progression - ideally it's short, well managed,
not-too-painful, etc. But basically unavoidable.

So why is this announcement being judged in terms of 'This isn't perfect'?

~~~
tossaway1
There's a vocal minority of Americans who oppose any softening of policy
towards a Castro Cuba. Many (most?) of these have ties to men and women who
fled Castro decades ago and who lost a lot to the Castro regime.

~~~
jahnu
There also seems to be an incredible effort to prevent Obama from achieving
almost anything.

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ck2
I'm always confused about the duality of our pro-China but anti-Cuba attitude.

The idea of saturating Cuba with Americans to try something different to
awaken the people to alternatives is a good idea, at least better than what
we've done for the past half century.

And the scale of the evil the Castros have done is nothing compared to China.
Cuba doesn't kidnap people from other countries and have them suddenly appear
on Cuba TV confessing to crimes.

~~~
grabcocque
The CIA had spent a lot of time and money installing and arming the Batista
regime, a murderous, brutal but pliant Mafia-backed kleptocracy in Cuba, and
were absolutely furious when it was suddenly taken away from them.

The US has basically been sulking ever since.

~~~
flanbiscuit
And to add to that, the Cubans who fled during and right after the revolution
started a Cuban-American Lobby that has been able to continually influence the
hard stance our government has taken on them.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban-
American_lobby](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban-American_lobby)

------
known
Trade, Not Trust;

------
erbdex
Incidentally- “The United States will come talk to us when it has a black
president and the world has a Latin American pope,”

\-- Fidel Castro, 1973

Edit: flanbiscuit pointed out that there is no official record of this
statement. Letting it stay, as a mythbuster.

~~~
flanbiscuit
I don't think that he actually said that

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/19/fidel-castro-
pr...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/19/fidel-castro-prophet-
debunking-pope-and-obama-urban-legend)

[http://www.snopes.com/fidel-castro-prophecy-
quote/](http://www.snopes.com/fidel-castro-prophecy-quote/)

