Read Fausta on Obama and Cuba
If you’re interested in some in-depth coverage of the Cuba news, go to Fausta’s blog and start reading. There’s a lot there to digest.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
If you’re interested in some in-depth coverage of the Cuba news, go to Fausta’s blog and start reading. There’s a lot there to digest.
Thank you! I Really appreciate it!
Fausta:
You’re welcome!
Good read.
And for those who want more, here are a couple of articles written by Michael Totten about his trip to Cuba.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/welcome-cuba
http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_2_havana.html
One day, hopefully soon, the Cuban people will be free. Though the thought of what will be required for them to transition back into life with the rest of the world worries me.
For Latin American developments Fausta’s blog is the best.
What too many people don’t realize is that Castro, Allende in Chile, the Shining Path in Peru, The Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and Chavez in Venezuela represented Communist inroads into our hemisphere that were like a dagger aimed at our underbelly. Blockading Cuba has held the Castro’s in check. Fortunately, Allende ruined Chile so quickly that the military (General Pinochet) executed a coups and Chile has been less socialist since then. The Sandinistas and Shining Path are weakened since the bad old days of the 80s and 90s, but they are still simmering under the surface, waiting for new infusions of money to reactivate their desire for Communist revolution. Chavez, as we all know, made the mistake of spending all the oil money and not investing in maintenance of their oil production capabilities such that production is now falling. For the time being the dagger aimed at us has been somewhat dulled. These new relations with Cuba, make them a threat again.
We can never go to sleep when it comes to Communism. Russia and China don’t seem the big threats they once were because they want to get wealthy. But their comrades in our hemisphere are always at work trying to foment revolution and rot our foundations out from under us.
Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega actually got elected back into power in Nicaragua.
There was also the abortive attempt to go the “President for Life” route by the Honduran president. Fortunately, that was nipped in the bud – though the international community tried to ensure it succeeded…
“Russia and China don’t seem the big threats they once were because they want to get wealthy.” J.J.
Russia and China are demonstrably bigger potential threats than they once were, while Russia seeks parity (in all things) China seeks dominance.
Russia prepares nuclear surprise for NATO
“On September 1, 2014 the US State Department published a report, in which it was stated that for first time since the collapse of the USSR, Russia reached parity with the US in the field of strategic nuclear weapons.”
China Tests ICBM With Multiple Warheads
“China carried out a long-range missile flight test on Saturday using multiple, independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, according to U.S. defense officials.
The flight test Saturday of a new DF-41 missile, China’s longest-range intercontinental ballistic missile, marks the first test of multiple warhead capabilities for China, officials told the Washington Free Beacon.
China has been known to be developing multiple-warhead technology, which it obtained from the United States illegally in the 1990s.
However, the Dec. 13 DF-41 flight test, using an unknown number of inert maneuvering warheads, is being viewed by U.S. intelligence agencies as a significant advance for China’s strategic nuclear forces and part of a build-up that is likely to affect the strategic balance of forces.”
What we do know with complete confidence is that the members of cuban regime are sadistic thugs who amass wealth at the expense of a real 99%. Dear leader gave the thugs everything they wanted. But he will need to learn cuban 😉 if he wants to leave the oval office and assume the mantle of el jefe.
At risk of hinting at my age, I remember watching the old, old Tonight Show with Steve Allen at the time of the Cuban “revolution”. Mr. Allen was doing a bit where his guests were giving him headlines from current newspapers and his task was to improvise songs using the headlines. One was “Batista Flees” and Mr. Allen quickly started playing the piano and singing “Batista fleas, Batista fleas, I was bitten by Batista fleas.”
G.B. Do you believe that China and Russia really want to have a nuclear war? Both countries want to become economic super powers. That’s a far cry from their positions as open enemies which they occupied before China and the USSR collapsed economically, which forced them to open up to trade with the world.
Do you remember the intelligence estimates of the CIA about Red China and the USSR’s military capabilities during the Cold War? All of them overestimated their capabilities. They way overestimated them.
When the USSR opened up in 1990, two men from my home town bicycled from Moscow to Vladivostok. They reported back a country that was still more a third world nation than anyone could believe. Remember when we all used to worry that they would “bury us” economically? It was good to spur us economically, but the threat was never there. The Russians are not much better off now than they were then.
I’ve was in Russia five years ago. I saw their Naval Base at Kronstadt on the Baltic Sea. It was a mass of rusting ships that were in sad condition. According to Wiki: “The Russian Navy suffered severely since the dissolution of the Soviet Union due to insufficient maintenance, lack of funding and subsequent effects on the training of personnel and timely replacement of equipment. Another setback is attributed to Russia’s domestic shipbuilding industry which is reported to have been in decline as to their capabilities of constructing contemporary hardware efficiently. Some analysts even say that because of this Russia’s naval capabilities have been facing a slow but certain “irreversible collapse.” What I saw at Kronstadt certainly confirmed this.
Neither China nor Russia have the ability to project military power very far beyond their borders. Nukes are their only way of projecting power. That’s why SDI is important. Derided by Left all these years, the truth is:
From Wiki: “However, the United States now holds a significant advantage in the field of comprehensive advanced missile defense systems through years of extensive research and testing. Many of the obtained technological insights were transferred to subsequent programs and would find use in follow-up programs.”
I am not saying they are not our adversaries, but they are no longer open enemies. We are in a much better position to know what their military capabilities are. We must continue to remain strong (which Obama has set back), but we have to recognize that they were never as militarily strong as we once thought them to be.
Russia and China are currently regional powers, but unless the next administration beefs up DOD, they will be encouraged to expand their influence. However, there are wild cards: nuclear Pakistan, North Korea, and soon, Iran. All are capable of giving a nuke to the terrorist group du jour.
At her fantastic blog, GenerationY, Yoani Sanchez is not quite ready to uncork the champagne. The island’s activists (a term that can be applied in the good sense when referring to anti-tyrant Cubans) have four actions they are waiting for:
We have to assume the worst if Obama is for it, but el gato may get out of the bag if decent people in Cuba can add items to the agenda. If this does not fall off the front page, it will be interesting to see whether the pope and el presidente studiously exclude Cuban activists from the proceedings.
J.J.
I knew some professors who had gone to an international conference in Moscow in the 1970s. One of them, perhaps courtesy of his time in the Army, was more of a Cold Warrior/Soviet threat person than most of his colleagues. His response to seeing the Soviet Union: a place with such a messed up economy is not as much of a threat as we may have thought.
By virtue of bicycling across the country, your hometowners got to see more of Russia than the relatitively more advanced cities of Moscow or Leningrad/St. Petersburg.
Way way back in the days, when the Soviet Bear was dead as a door nail, I saw a some commie rocket scientists talking about their space facilities. At one point they said “and here is where we grew potatoes when they didn’t pay us for two years”. I have wanted to see that repeated by all .gov workers everywhere ever since.
Vampires! All of them!
True or not, USAID as the universal reputation in the Second World as being a front for the CIA.
For that reason, I’m hesitant to claim Alan Gross as a totally innocent player.
He was, in every practical sense, engaged in a classic NOC opperation… straight out of the world of Mission Impossible.
Busting him on his way out the door is classic spook-craft.
This is compounded by the way that the Castro crew has penetrated our own spook organs to a striking degree.
You can read about those penetrations elsewhere. Suffice it to say that Havana has penetrated the US government far more than the USSR or Red China.
Castro is known to have supported his regime by retailing the secrets so discovered.
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Which leads us to the next stage: Castro & Company are only going to redouble their spying campaigns.
With OPEC oil cratering, Castro had just run his patrons into the ground.
So Barry Soetoro rescues this tyranny… with praise all around.
Neither China nor Russia have the ability to project military power very far beyond their borders.
In a few years, America will be the same way.