U.S./Cuba Relations

U.S. / Cuba Relations:

A change has come about with the abrupt release of American contractor Alan Gross, who had been imprisoned in Cuba for 5 years.  The release was granted on humanitarian grounds.  Gross, who has been on a hunger strike, is in poor health and deteriorating.  At the same time the U.S. released 3 Cubans jailed for 15 years on spying charges.  Cuba also released a U.S. spy held there for 2 decades.   As part of the deal to end decades of hostility is the release of 53 political prisoners.  It is not clear if some prisoners were kept off the list because the Cuban government refused to release them.  

President Barack Obama has announced the U.S. would restore full diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba.   The U.S. will establish an embassy in Havana for the first time in 50 years.   Negotiations are ongoing regarding lifting the 54 year old trade embargo.   Obama stated the U.S. would relax travel, banking, and commerce restrictions, and instructed  Secretary of State John Kerry to start to re-establish diplomatic relations.  The president also directed Kerry to review Cuba's status as a  sponsor of terrorism, which has been in place since 1982.  

This policy shift is the result of 18 months of talks between the U.S. and Cuba held in Canada, and a pivotal meeting in the fall at the Vatican.  Both President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro received personal appeals from Pope Francis.   President Obama stated that the U.S. is ending an "outdated approach" after 5 decades of isolation has failed to accomplish a democratic and prosperous Cuba.   While the Cubans have made no concessions on human or political rights, as relations are established, President Obama said that U.S. officials would push Cuba on those issues 

Not everyone is behind the president.  Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, said that the policy change was "the latest in a long line of failed attempts by President to appease rogue regimes at all costs".  There is also a feeling among Congressional opponents that the move by the president is naive and will cause a loss of support among other Latin nations.  Cuban President Raul Castro told the Cuban National Assembly, "In the same way that we have never demanded that the U.S. change its political system, we will demand respect for ours.  

I favor the re-establishment of diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba.  Fifty years of isolation has produced only suffering and economic hardship for the Cuban people.   When what you are doing does not produce results, common sense dictates that you try something else.   At the very least these new policies have the potential for economic gain from commerce for both the U.S. and Cuba.  Many will be the families who will be reunited after years of separation.   The best ambassadors for America are the American people who will now have more exposure to Cubans.  Let's keep our expectations realistic.  Cuba is not likely to become democratic any time soon, but what we can expect is the benefits of reunited families, tourism and trade.  Who knows what can happen over time. 

What do you think?

Senate Report on CIA Interrogations

Senate Report on CIA Interrogations:

This report which was 5 years in the making examined 6.3 million CIA documents and produced a 6000 page document which examined the CIA's methods of interrogating prisoners after the 9/11 attack.  The report found that the CIA misled the White House and the public about its torture of detainees and acted more brutally and pervasively than it acknowledged.   It concluded that the intelligence agency failed to disrupt a single plot.   

The interrogations took place in countries including Afghanistan, Poland, and Romania.   The report revealed that detainees were subjected to repeated waterboarding, slapping, stress positions and sleep deprivation.  Saudi al-Queada suspect Abu Zubayda was kept in a coffin sized box for hours on end.  Suspects were threatened with severe harm psychologically and physically.   Meanwhile the investigators found that 3 CIA directors and their deputies lied to Congress, the White House and the American people.  A review of 20 cases found that  no usable intelligence was produced. 

Civil rights advocates are calling for accountability.  There are calls for prosecution of American officials.  John  Brennan, CIA director, calls the Senate report "flawed" in that investigators failed to interview key personnel about their decisions.   The CIA has also issued its own report.   In it they try to justify their tactics by giving examples of what they called thwarted terrorist plots and suspects captures, but these representations were inaccurate and contradicted the CIA's own records. 

In any event President Obama cancelled the program 2 days after taking office.  Obama said the methods used were inconsistent with U.S. values.   Despite the calls for accountability there seems little prospect of criminal prosecutions of those who implemented the program.  A law official said the U.S. Justice Department has no plans to conduct any investigation of the CIA actions.   President Obama signaled he is more interested in focusing on the future, than reopening a dark and contentious period of the recent past. 

I must agree with the President.  Let's concentrate on the future.   I see no benefit in hanging people out to dry who acted in what they thought was the correct way to protect our country. To be sure there was intense pressure following the 9/11 attack to prevent further attacks.   There are those who will say that the U.S. had prior knowledge that al-Queada would use commercial airliners as weapons of terror.  There are others who will say U.S. authorities had never thought of that possibility.   Just as there are those who will say officials had foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack at the beginning of WW II.  In the end whom do you believe ?   Only one side is correct, but the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.  Did we need to resort to the interrogations in the first place?

I think it is clear that the tactics used by the CIA in the interrogation of terror suspects are inconsistent with U.S. values and should not have been used whether they were effective or not.  

What do you think?