The United Nations voted Tuesday 182-4 to urge the United States to end its 44-year old trade embargo against Cuba, the fourteenth straight year the international body has voted for such a move. Though the United States has routinely ignored the resolutions, many are concerned that the embargo has kept innocent Cubans in poverty, while doing nothing to foster democracy. Should the United States end the embargo?
Friday, November 11, 2005
Debate: Should the US end the trade embargo on Cuba?
The United Nations voted Tuesday 182-4 to urge the United States to end its 44-year old trade embargo against Cuba, the fourteenth straight year the international body has voted for such a move. Though the United States has routinely ignored the resolutions, many are concerned that the embargo has kept innocent Cubans in poverty, while doing nothing to foster democracy. Should the United States end the embargo?
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19 comments:
I do blame the electoral system for this mess. If presidents and presidents-elect didn't have to worry about Florida's electoral votes, I suspect that we would have ended the embargo a long time ago. I agree that opening trade would bring down Castro faster than anyone could possibly imagine, but most Cuban ex-pats in Florida will not have it.
Typical American conversation - that Castro's got to go and that lifting the embargo's a better way than continuing it or invading.
As the curmudgeon points out, Cuba provides free education and healthcare for everyone. Very un-American indeed. What's more important? Healthy, educated people or the free market which would love to relegate the Cuban people to the level of those across Latin America.
Lift the embargo and let Cuba be. Maybe aside from the sugar issue, Florida is also concerned about tourism since Cuba's built up quite the industry. The nice thing about it is that there are no "ugly Americans" ordering people around.
And close your military base at Guantanamo and give Cuba sovereignty over its own island.
Thanks for the invitation to participate in this debate.
I could not possibly add more than galloping curmudgeon did. He hit all the right points and I can only say yes. I have been opposed to the blockade ever since I was made aware of what Cubans lived under during Battista's rule, which was supported by us. The first question I would ask anyone who is anti-Castro is "did you live in Cuba under Battista?" If they prefer that, then they are part of the problem. I, too, am not Cuban, I just love the music and hate the stupid posturing of the US just to get votes in Florida and money from Big Sugar.
So far we all seem to agree. Until the USSR collapsed and its successors hadn't a spare ruble left over to continue their 30-year subsidy of the island, the embargo was mainly a U.S. political statement. Now, however, the embargo cruelly and unnecessarily punishes the faithful and patient "pueblo de la isla dorada," and remains an outdated political weapon of a spoiled elite class of "Americanized" Cubans who are now firmly in charge of south Floria--politically and economically.
And, as has been pointed out, Fidel's perfectly happy with the present state of things, for if his little pig sty he's created were opened to Wal-Mart and Disney World, the maniacal delusion he has immersed his people in might earn him a quick run-up a flag pole, a la Mussolini.
I've a little bone to pick (gently) with Ben's observation: He wrote, "I have been opposed to the blockade ever since I was made aware of what Cubans lived under during Battista's rule, which was supported by us."
MY BONE: Although Batista was an typical tinhorned Latin S.O.B. common in the hemisphere at the time--and therefore a convenient, easy target for the then-popular Marxist revolutionary movements inspired by Russia's "Noble Experiment"--the fact is, the life of the abused peons then was no worse, perhaps even better in some ways, than their misery today under Fidel's unrelenting iron fist.
Ah yes, the all knowing American political activist at his best, Monday morning quarterbacking.
I wish I had the time to school the galloping curmudgeon, but then again, I am absolutely positive there are not enough facts or historical data that I could provide that would change his mind.
Fact of the matter is the galloping curmudgeon kknows aboislutely nothing about Cuba save for what he has read from the likes of Chomsky and Granma and Counterpoint.
His arguement is standard, by the book, off the shelf point by point rhetoric.
Falsehood number 1:
The medical care in our island neighbor is superior in most respects to that in the good ol' USA.>
This is pure propaganda. There are tons of stories, articles and documented evidence that the "universal" healthcare is nothing but a farce in Cuba. A quick search on my blog will give you a complete lesson on the subject.
Falsehood number two:
Witness the fact that Cuba has the lowest...the lowest...rate of infant mortality on the planet, despite the difficulty of obtaining drugs and medical supplies.
Of course Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate. When six out of ten pregnacies are aborted, the numbers tend to kinda skew that way.
There are any number of multinational corporations that would love to move manufacturing facilities and other operations into a country with a well-educated, hungry population, (many of whom speak English as a second language; I told you Castro made sure they were well-educated.) Ten years ago I was told personally by the then-CEO of a huge multinational electronics firm that they couldn't wait to get into Cuba. Castro would love it, too. He could retire...his people OK and on their way at last.
An island of indentured servants would serve any corportaion well, n'est pas? Fidel allows the company to do business there, charges top dollar for employees, then pays the emplyess a mere percentage (less than 5%) of what he charges the corporation. What a perfect symbiotic relationship. State sponsored slavery for the capitalist corporation.
The reality: the blockade is for the benefit of South Florida sugar growers, who inject incredible amounts of money into politics (both parties) as well as into the so-called "resistance" movement in Miami-Dade County, Hermanos al Rascate and the other flag-wavers and rabble-rousers who manage to keep things stirred up between our countries. If relations were normalized with Cuba - a huge sugar producer - the business in the US would fold up and die as soon as the big consumers, (pretty much all of us,) discovered that Cuban sugar costs less than half as much at that produced here.
Nice strawman argument. Unfortunately, completely incorrect. Cuba was once the world's largest supplier of sugar. Today, due to agrarian reforms and massive misnangement, it IMPORTS over 70 of sugar for its own use. Surely, that's not the fault of Florida's sugar growers is it?
Just this year castro closed all but 4 of the remianing sugar refineries. There were hundreds. Now there are only four.
Eleven million people who want desperately to be our friends have been kept in poverty for over forty years by a bunch of cowards who cut and ran when their buddy Batista couldn't hold on to his corrupt government.
Perhaps, had old Jack Kennedy been a president with cojones, and not one more concerned about public opinion than what was right, he would not have let hundreds of Cuban US trained soldiers die on the beaches of the Bay of Pigs. remember that, curmudgeon? I bet you voted for old jack too.
Oh, and BTW, the greater population of Cuban exiles in the states now, were born AFTER batista was overthrown. Kinda throws your bigotted theory a wrench.
Keep in mind that Castro was our boy, to begin with. He switched sides when we dumped him in the middle of the revolution because he wouldn't make the deals his predecessor had. It didn't have to be this way.
In this statement, you clearly demonstrate that you have no idea what you are talking about.
Seems to me, having grown up in South Florida, you just have a chip on your shoulder. Perhaps you are a bit envious of the Cuban work ethic? Of their Progress? of their political clout? We didnt take anything away from you, you handed it to us on a silver platter by complaining instead of working.
I invite you all over to my blog for a real lesson on Cuba.
Firstly, I'd like to thank Kirk for the invite to comment on this issue. That said, the question at hand is a serious one and raises many questions.
The foremost question at hand is, by what lawful authority is the U.S. imposing this embargo and to what ends? With the Cuban Missile Crisis and Politiburo-controlled Soviet Union issues long over decades ago, there is abosolutely no credible reason for the continuation of this blockade. Period.
Cuba is a sovereign country as recognised under the United Nations charter and as such, is deserving of international attention towards the plight of the Cuban people. While few opinions disagree with that line, the reality is that "freedom" for third world people is in many ways simply another name for slavery. One needs only to review the history of Cuba from the first European invasion to "liberate" the Americas through the Spanish-American War to "liberate" Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Phillipines. Read on to learn more about the U.S. supported Batista military junta that marginalized those of African and Indigneous ethnicity, people primarily limited to low-wage jobs serving Americans in Mafia-run hotels and casinos. Educate yourself on how Batista's heavy-handed totalitarian goverment encouraged a leftist popular uprising inspiring CIA attempts to "liquidate" Cuban leader Dr. Fidel Castro and the economic embargo we are discussing now.
Any reasonable Cuban national or critical non-Cuban observer would question why this pressure continues to be levied against a country that has never aggressed against the United States. Dr. Castro, love him or hate for whatever reason, has done more for the Cuban people than any other leader they have ever had. Unlike his predecessors, Castro has resisted American imperialism and for this alone he should be respected. If the U.S. really wants to make a moral argument about freedom, it should first take a good look at its own internal and external behaviours. Bogus elections barring African people in two states, two elections in a row, The privacy-invading Patriot Act, the Downing Street Memorandum proving the U.S. lied us into a war masking the real occupation of Iraq, FBI investigations on private citizen dissidents, FEMA's nonresponse to Katrina, The recent Libby indictment for the outing of a CIA operative by elements within the Federal government, racial profiling by law enforment, Abu Gharib merely highlighting prison abuses happining every day in the U.S., Phosphorus dropped on civilians, etc, etc. Shall I go on?
With all this to think about, why would the Cuban people seriously want to have anything to do with the U.S., A nation that speaks liberty yet practices entirely something else. Embargoes punish the people, not the leaders. But in the case of Castro, at least he appears to stand with his people while the Americans who want to take him down clearly show their seperation from the rabble day after day.
In short, Americans should think twice before attempting to liberate someone else. Liberate yourself first.
Aw c'mon, troops! Is it possible to try and stay on point, that is, to focus on the question posed by Kirk. You needn't spin it by dragging in all your vituperous and dubiously related baggage, e.g. the FEMA response to Katrina, Abu Ghraib, Downing Street memos, ad nauseum.
I also suggest that those logging onto onto Kirk's question already know something about Cuba's modern history (if they don't they should just read and learn--or move on)--offering you the opportunity to practice effective writing and, mercifully, spare us, gracias a Dios.
Finally, to those who believe magna cum verbiage impresses and convinces, I suggest making your responses more pithy would make them more readable, interesting, credible, and yes, possibly more persuasive.
Since none of us has ever met, you know this is nothing personal. And if you suffer pride in authorship by my suggestions, get over it if you want to achieve constructive communications!
In the interest of accuracy, Castro's island is under an EMBARGO--a refusal to trade, not under a BLOCKADE--a warlike state with one party using force to prevent the physical entry of vehicular traffic, usually maritime, into another's territory.
IMHO if castro dies and the cuban people get to elect their leaders then the trade embargo is finished.
Thanks Grant, I agree, no no-calling! You boys are veritable flame-warriors! Re: Cuba, I hate to take the 'American' position of commenting on other countries' leaders. In the US we treat world leaders of similar notoriety in very different ways. For example, I would argue that Castro's relationship with the Cuban people is roughly similar to that of Pervez Musharaf in Pakistan. They both restrict the press, gained power in un-democratic fashions, eliminate enemies with an eye to the international press, and try to project their countries in the best possible light. The US has paid more attention that Castro's economic policy happens to be based on Communism, and Musharaf's is not. The thing is, if we have such a big problem with Communism as an economic policy, why do we trade with China, who is certainly Communist, according to every government document, but is obviously anything but?
We have obviously been inconsistent, though the tactic of a full economic embargo has been rarely used. I don't think it should apply to Cuba. Though Castro is not a cuddly teddy bear, he has also not committed murder on the scale of Hitler, Stalin, Hussein, etc, nor is he actively starving his people like Kim Jong Il. The embargo seems very outdated and too severe a punishment for the people.
Hi, this is Russell from Rulablog (Russell’s Latin America Politics Blog). I try to keep my posts short and I’ll do the same here. First, thanks to Taylor for the invite to participate. A few short points.
1) Taylor is absolutely right about the embargo not making any sense when justified on the basis of promoting democracy and human rights. If we’re going to consistently apply that standard we’d have to embargo at least dozens of countries, including Saudi Arabia and China.
2) Taylor is again correct that the nature of U.S. politics maintains the embargo. A well organized minority that feels passionately about something (and is concentrated in a strategic state) can win out against a majority that thinks the embargo is stupid but doesn’t put much energy into it.
3) I think the real reason for the embargo is to punish Cuba for defying U.S. hegemony and to prevent the “threat of a good example.” If Cuba is successful in accomplishing a different kind of development other countries will try to follow. So it is vital to ensure that Cuba fail.
4) Given that people often claim that anything that deviates from orthodox capitalism is “doomed to fail” why has the U.S. expended so much effort to ensure that it does? The record of the U.S. crushing “communism”—defined as anything from Arbenz’s land-reform to Allende in Chile to Cuba, demonstrates that U.S. policy makers thought viable alternatives existed and needed to be crushed.
Responses to a few claims made by others:
Grant’s claim that life under Batista was “no worse” than life under Castro is absurd, as any intellectually honest history of Cuba will indicate.
I don’t understand Val Prieto’s argument that abortion leads to low infant mortality, unless he’s claiming that it’s because of lack of over-population. The reason Cuba has low infant mortality is because of medical care and nutrition.
To Dan Morgan I would reply that Korea and Taiwan deviated significantly from the free market model. The sate instituted strong capital controls and played a significant role in the economy. For more see the three essays on East Asia in Models of Capitalism edited by Evelyne Huber.
POINT OF ORDER, PLEASE!
Taylor wrote of Fidel: ". . . he has also not committed murder on the scale of Hitler, Stalin, Hussein."
Tsk, tsk, Taylor Kirk, that smacks of pure moral relativism. Hitler's regime murdered an estimated 6,000,000; Saddam's, 200,000 (estimated, not counting the war with Iran);Stalin's 11,000,000.
True, Castro can't compete with those big leaguers, but is there a line to exonerate that you would draw? Or do some obscure post-Nuremberg international tenets do so?
Pesonally, I'd not be inclined to let the senile old dictator off-- and I doubt the families of his few(er) victims would either--were it to ever come to a reckoning. (Unfortunately, if the post-Soviet era is a precedent, it probably won't ever come to that.)
Yea, you're right Grant. Moral relativism really gets us nowhere. I guess the point I meant to make is that if we wanted to punish or apply sanctions to a regime, Cuba would probably not be the first one on my list.
Russell wrote: "Grant’s claim that life under Batista was “no worse” than life under Castro is absurd."
What Grant actually wrote was: ". . . the life of the abused peons then was no worse, perhaps even better in some ways ...."
You'll note a specific, significant difference between the two. My comment derives from a study of history, plus having lived in Central America nearly 15 years--but most important, from a two-week visit in 1994, where my focus was almost exclusively the countryside's cane-cutting peons--who still live a miserable lifestyle had to imagine, whether under a dictatorship or democracy!
Remember Marxist doctrine says that in any "true" communist dictatorship workers ("the means of production") must endure, however long, whatever burden the "dictatorship of the proletariat" imposes until the day Holy Communism arrives. At least under Batista, peons responded to their private landowner-bosses and periodic demands for a "living wage"--not to some ideological dictums published by "el Lider."
The "Holy Day" never arrived under the Soviets after 75 years, and neither has it under Fidel. A few days among Cuba's cane cutters today will reveal very little if any visible progress. In fact, some workers' responses to my leading questions evoked clear responses from some: distinctive negative body language and a terse "Mierda!" I know this doesn't comport with occasional pro-regime images painted by CNN's on-site reporter.
(Apologies if I have herein deviated from my "K.I.S.S." admonitions--please write if off to "seniority"--hopefully, not to senility.)
Thanks for the invite Taylor.
The folks above have made several arguments for and against. So, I'll leave all of those out and add a couple of ideas.
First, a very important part of any science experiment is time. In this case, we've had an embargo of Cuba for 44 years. Has it worked? Since the answer is clearly no, let's terminate the experiment.
Second, we've gotten over our problems with Germany, Italy, Japan and Viet Nam. How about we get over the problems we have with Cuba?
Let's end the embargo now.
It serves largely as an excuse for Mr. Castro to demonize and jail his opponents.
The two communist nations we have little or no trade with are:
Cuba and North Korea.
And there are still two completely Stalinist communist nations in the world.
Cuba and North Korea.
China, Vietnam, and all of the former Soviet bloc are more open, at least economically than the two countries we try to isolate.
And this is not even a problem limited to communism. My guess is if we had completely engaged Iran instead of isolating them, then instead of strengthening the hand of those who want to keep them isolated, we would instead strenthen the hand of those who want constructive engagement with the world.
And one more point about Cuba: If we continue the embargo until Castro dies, then who will have more influence in the post-Castro Cuba: Us or the people from other countries who are already over there discussing trade?
I don’t understand Val Prieto’s argument that abortion leads to low infant mortality, unless he’s claiming that it’s because of lack of over-population. The reason Cuba has low infant mortality is because of medical care and nutrition.
If you don't understand that, then you don't understand infant mortality. If you lower the number of infants by aborting them before born or calling premature babies that die soon after birth as miscarriages you avoid an increase in the denominator and numerator for infant mortality statistics. Many European countries are guilty of the latter because they don't undertake the heroic measures that the US medical community does to save premature infants because to do so would bankrupt their socialist medical services as taking care of premature infants is expensive.
IMR is infant deaths in the first year per 1000 live births:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html
The issue of premature babies is a tangent. My question was about abortion lowering IMR. Aborted pregnancies count neither as infant deaths (the numerator) nor live births (the denominator). I'll check with my friend who's getting his MD and a PhD in public health.
Also, I should point out to galloping cumudgeon, that Cuba doesn't have the lowest rate on the planet (that's Singapore--see CIA link), but rather a very low rate for the developing world.
what can the western world give cuba other than food lets see what do we have gambling drugs gangs taxes on taxes the people of cuba do not have much but they are a lot happier than us there is no reason for the embargo othe than the rich that were kicked out still influence the government ther are more murders in north america than all the soldiers killed in the past 15 years we are not democratic our government thinks they are but look around look at all the monsters and puppets we have become.
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