Friday, January 19, 2007

Cuba Libre?

Hugo Chavez has admitted that Castro is dying, having spoken to him recently. "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday that Fidel Castro is 'battling for his life' and said he spoke with the Cuban leader for nearly half an hour several days ago". The Associated Press says the post-Castro era has already begun, and power long in the hands of a collective leadership. "Collective leadership" in most Marxist countries, is a phrase that signals the start of a steel cage death match. Cuba may be starting the post-Castro era, but American political debate has not yet begun to address what to do when events begun long ago with the fall of Batista reach their final crescendo.

Commentary

Castro may be going by Chavez is itching to fill his shoes and is even now grasping at whatever assets he can get. Since experience shows that assets "nationalized" by Latin American Marxist dictators are confiscated and never returned, Tigerhawk offers this advice in half-jest to managers. "Just blow it up."

13 Comments:

Blogger Herr Wu Wei said...

I hope the CIA is collecting information, but it seems that the best thing will be to wait for the Cuban government to change and stabilize. It is pretty much a given that Fidel's brother will take over, but it is likely that some sort of new process or cabinet government will form, maybe even open Communist party elections.

Fidel is like Arafat was, one of the last true dictators that can never be replaced while alive, and that no one can overrule. Fidel's brother won't have the same safety and freedom.

No matter what happens initially, there will be more opportunity for the US than with Fidel alive.

1/19/2007 03:48:00 PM  
Blogger Meme chose said...

Literally the only way that the US can avoid getting tagged by the rest of the world as responsible for whatever debacle follows the collapse of Cuban communism is to do what we did with the Soviet Union - stand back and let it fall in on itself.

We can then choose to be helpful to whatever regime emerges, hopefully one more like say Poland than Russia.

There is little upside to getting more involved than that with Spanish-speaking third world countries (except for the special case of Mexico, and that's only because of the border).

1/19/2007 05:34:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

meme chose,

Despite the fact that Cuba is the Left's mess, the press will assign responsibility for fixing things to the US. Two or three possible scenarios may emerge if a power struggle convulses Cuba. First, there may be a flood of refugee, some of them former regime elements. Second, there may be a humanitarian crisis because Cuba probably has no appreciable reserves of anything. Third, there may intervention in the internal power struggle. Chavez, perhaps Iran. Maybe Arab money. Chaos in Cuba will attract all the bad guys of the world. Then there will be the exile groups who will be raring to go in. The time to figure it out is now.

1/19/2007 06:14:00 PM  
Blogger Pat Patterson said...

At some point there will a major incident whether from some kind of anti-government demonstration, food riot or even mass attempts at leaving Cuba. Then the Cuban government will face the decision of firing on its own people. East Germany found that its own soldiers wouldn't obey such and order and the army actually threatened police units that were willing to shoot. With the total number of Cuban immigrants in the US and relatives still in Cuba I suspect that the army will not stay loyal but the security forces will.

1/19/2007 06:26:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"There will be no division among Cuban revolutionaries," Lage said at a belated 80th birthday celebration that Castro was too sick to attend. "There will be no ambitions, no egos."

Is this pretense at a unified front, a dash of political saltpeter for the locals or Transcendental Zenmunism? And why do we bother with what they purportedly believe, when we have a spiritually yoked Cuba in league with Jesús Christo Chavez, the 12th Imam Persians, Euro high Socialists, Chinese Opportunists, Russian Orthodox Atheists, Marxist Africans and Islamist terror-Caliphatists everywhere, while western liberal Secularists love Fidel and fret over 'Born Again' America? Should we believe anybody’s ideology to be the point or merely a means to mean ends?

The power grab currently happening in Latin America does feel less idealistic than self-serving, though, and, given how in most of the world mammon and the material trump trumped-up belief almost always and amen, we can work with that. We should continue to go after our hemisphere’s totalitarian trademarked True-Believer tinpot leaders through their wallets with select punitive sanctions, while simultaneously luring them into the capitalistic fold with trade incentives, such as giving post-Castro Cuba the talented pinko dingbat Harry Belafonte in exchange for importing its cigars, and Jimmy Carter the demi-god demagogue to his best friend Hugo in exchange for Citgo.

While Latin American revolutionaries are expected not to exhibit ego or ambition over dead leaders in untoward displays of political initiative or individualism, America likewise has an imperative to sacrifice and invest in the Chavez/post-Castro axis with human capital and liberal dreams. Fortunately for us, Redford and Streisand also seem to be fond of Havana and Caracas.

1/19/2007 09:03:00 PM  
Blogger DaveK said...

It will be most interesting to watch US-Cuba relations following the passing of Fidel (whenever that might eventually happen). I, for one, think that the US policy has been, at all public levels, very irrational, at least compared to how we have dealt with other communist dictators.

To me, the only rational explanation for our absolutely inflexible approach to dealing with Fidel is that we are holding a very serious grudge against the man. And not just about a little debacle like the Bay of Pigs.

And here, I get into serious speculation, without any evidence to support my pet conspiracy theory... And that is that Fidel was up to his eyeballs in the Kennedy asassination, the US Government at very high levels knows about it, but for some reason they cannot publicly make a case. Perhaps they are protecting a high-level informer? Perhaps there is something very embarassing to our government about how the information was obtained?

Who knows... Anyway, it is just my private conspiracy theory to explain our relations with Fidel. Unfortunately, we may never know the truth.

Ah well, such are conspiracy theories!

Just my $.002
DaveK

1/20/2007 10:39:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If the communist apparatus falls apart, and it will eventually, the Cuban people will replace it with something not to our liking, and hopefully not to Chavez's liking either. We can't expect a vibrant democracy to form magically in the ashes of Cuba's current repressive regime. They will have their struggles, and the best we can do is to keep Chavez and his henchmen out of Cuba. Let the Cubans decide for themselves, and we will have a partner, not an adversary. And if they need our help they can certainly ask. Of course half of South Florida will be in Havana 5 minutes after the communists leave, so perhaps we won't need to do much! If this sounds tentative, so be it. Our record of nation building is not impressive, especially in light of our bumbling in Iraq.

1/20/2007 10:49:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Good thread right up to the 'trade Carter for Citgo' proposal. That won't fly--it's WAY overpriced. A Citgo service station maybe, and be willing to settle for a squee-jee bucket and a restroom doorknob.

1/20/2007 12:27:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

LOL, Buddy! Nothing gets past you, and right you are.

1/20/2007 12:38:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

FoxNews has a heavily-promoted special on the tube tonight. It's about Hezbollah, and Hez inside USA.

1/20/2007 02:36:00 PM  
Blogger RWE said...

At the core of Communism is criminality - theft and murder in the name of the State. Everyone knows this and so everyone thinks like a criminal. The more Communist a place is, the bigger basket case it is when things come unzipped. Places such as Czech and Sloavk republics and Poland never really accepted Communism and got along pretty well after the Warsaw Pact dissolved. East Germany was a more Communist place and had to be put on 100% life support by West Germany. The Chicoms renounced Marxism in 1984 and have gotten along pretty well. Russia is struggling. Albania was the most Communist place anywhere and turned into a total basketcase in about 15 min; it's still that way.

Cuba is probably somewhere between East Germany and Albania and may be saved only by the Latin tendancy to not work too hard at anything. And it's going to be fun watching Chavez try to put the place on 100% life support, South American Sytle.

1/20/2007 05:07:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well said, rwe, although, some of the "Latins" I've seen in the US work pretty hard. To me, systemic disincentives are the enemy, whether from Communist or American-donk utopian engineering.

1/20/2007 06:16:00 PM  
Blogger Db2m said...

"Supervise an immediate vote for them to determine whether they want to become the 51st state or not."

If Cuba becomes the 51st state, does China still get the offshore oil? We're good guys, you know...

1/20/2007 07:37:00 PM  

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