After 54 years, was the Cuban embargo a failed policy or not

Thank goodness mr. Gross is back from Cuba after 5 horrible years.

You can think what you want of that, bringing illegal materials to a country that has rules clearly not allowing that is not smart. Jailing him instead of just deporting him was also a wrong decision from the Cuban authorities but that is now all solved because he is free.

It looks like president Obama is going to strive for better relations with Cuba because it does not look like the police of the past 54 years has worked. The US trades with just about any other country in the world and by any reasonable standard the embargo policy has failed.

What do you think? Was the embargo wrong or was it not the wrong decisions? Or was it right then and is it wrong to now continue it?

Peter King said:

Thank goodness mr. Gross is back from Cuba after 5 horrible years.

You can think what you want of that, bringing illegal materials to a country that has rules clearly not allowing that is not smart. Jailing him instead of just deporting him was also a wrong decision from the Cuban authorities but that is now all solved because he is free.

It looks like president Obama is going to strive for better relations with Cuba because it does not look like the police of the past 54 years has worked. The US trades with just about any other country in the world and by any reasonable standard the embargo policy has failed.

What do you think? Was the embargo wrong or was it not the wrong decisions? Or was it right then and is it wrong to now continue it?

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The Cuban Embargo was a nasty and mean spirited policy from Day One. It was designed to
hurt the people of Cuba. It seems to be something the USA likes to do, while squealing
Human Rights tripe. Torture, Iraq, Guantanamo, Libya, Ukraine, etc. are projections of
bad USA policy and it is definitely not a manifestation of the thoughts of average USA
individuals and families. We should be a lot better than that. Let the people speak.

Jesus, why do you need to make the options so ****ing complicated?

I don't think America should regret having initiated the policy.

What I do think America should regret is the fact that the policy is still on-going right now even though the Soviet Union is dead and Cuba isn't really that much of an enemy to us.

If Putin tries to pander to them like the Soviets did (Putin being the inferior subhuman ex-KGB he is) then fine, embargo Cuba again (or annihilate them, one or the other, time to stop playing around with national security), but that's a far fetched what-if. I think the Cubans are ready to embrace America, the problem is that America for some reason doesn't feel ready to embrace them back.

Made sense then, does not make sense now, end it already. We should be moving on from these things, especially when they did not work well in the first place.

Luftwaffe said:

I don't think America should regret having initiated the policy.

What I do think America should regret is the fact that the policy is still on-going right now even though the Soviet Union is dead and Cuba isn't really that much of an enemy to us.

If Putin tries to pander to them like the Soviets did (Putin being the inferior subhuman ex-KGB he is) then fine, embargo Cuba again (or annihilate them, one or the other, time to stop playing around with national security), but that's a far fetched what-if. I think the Cubans are ready to embrace America, the problem is that America for some reason doesn't feel ready to embrace them back.

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I don't think Cubans want to embrace America, just end an embargo that was
an attack against the average Cuban.. As for the USA, we just want to make
some money off the deal and keep Russia from putting Nukes on the Island.
There's also the huge offshore oil deposits. Any USA motivation will be
motivated by "Vulture Corporatism," with no altruistic tendencies.

Peter King said:

Thank goodness mr. Gross is back from Cuba after 5 horrible years.

You can think what you want of that, bringing illegal materials to a country that has rules clearly not allowing that is not smart. Jailing him instead of just deporting him was also a wrong decision from the Cuban authorities but that is now all solved because he is free.

It looks like president Obama is going to strive for better relations with Cuba because it does not look like the police of the past 54 years has worked. The US trades with just about any other country in the world and by any reasonable standard the embargo policy has failed.

What do you think? Was the embargo wrong or was it not the wrong decisions? Or was it right then and is it wrong to now continue it?

Click to expand...

Why would jailing him be wrong?

Canada jails people who illegally import as does the US. FFS, some Canadians have been jailed for some really stupid ****. try taking contraband into Mexico, or China. The rule is always obey the laws of the host nation whether you agree with them or not.

Failed? No, not necessarily. But it did go on way too long and should have ended many years ago.

DaveFagan said:

I don't think Cubans want to embrace America, just end an embargo that was
an attack against the average Cuban.. As for the USA, we just want to make
some money off the deal and keep Russia from putting Nukes on the Island.
There's also the huge offshore oil deposits. Any USA motivation will be
motivated by "Vulture Corporatism," with no altruistic tendencies.

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One, there is no chance that Russia will ever put nukes on the island. Russia hasn't been putting much money into Cuba since the end of the cold war, Cuba gets more aid and trade from the Commonwealth countries.

What Cuba wants is an end to the embargoes. They mostly need car parts and new, economical cars. They need manufacturing equipment also embargoed.

What they offer the US, is sugar. And that's been the issue. The American sugar industry is heavily subsidized and Cuban availability will wreck the whole system. However, what few people know is that Bananas, as we eat them, cannot produce seed, and the established crops throughout the Caribbean coast are dying off from a fungus. Cuba is one of few places not affected.

Fearandloathing said:

Why would jailing him be wrong?

Canada jails people who illegally import as does the US. FFS, some Canadians have been jailed for some really stupid ****. try taking contraband into Mexico, or China. The rule is always obey the laws of the host nation whether you agree with them or not.

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If it would have been spying yes, but for illegally importing the 15 years was way too harsh. If jail was warranted it should be in accordance with the economical offense he committed, not for spying.

pbrauer said:

Jesus, why do you need to make the options so ****ing complicated?

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Why do others have so few options, making giving an appropriate response very difficult. Or at least that is my opinion. The most likely opinions are the first ones and the a bit more over the top one are more to the bottom.

Peter King said:

Thank goodness mr. Gross is back from Cuba after 5 horrible years.

You can think what you want of that, bringing illegal materials to a country that has rules clearly not allowing that is not smart. Jailing him instead of just deporting him was also a wrong decision from the Cuban authorities but that is now all solved because he is free.

It looks like president Obama is going to strive for better relations with Cuba because it does not look like the police of the past 54 years has worked. The US trades with just about any other country in the world and by any reasonable standard the embargo policy has failed.

What do you think? Was the embargo wrong or was it not the wrong decisions? Or was it right then and is it wrong to now continue it?

Click to expand...

If they give back property confiscated from US citizens we should normalize and offer a free trade agreement. If we want to open up before that, the US government must compensate those citizens.

I picked "I have no opinion" because I don't know. I really don't know if it was a good idea or not. Did it have a greater positive effect than a negative effect? Hard to tell.

My husband can't wait for the cigars, so there's that.

It made sense at the time. But the Cold War is long gone. Good on Obama for doing this.

DaveFagan said:

I don't think Cubans want to embrace America, just end an embargo that was
an attack against the average Cuban.. As for the USA, we just want to make
some money off the deal and keep Russia from putting Nukes on the Island.
There's also the huge offshore oil deposits. Any USA motivation will be
motivated by "Vulture Corporatism," with no altruistic tendencies.

Click to expand...

Ending an embargo may make us money, but it also makes Cuba money, it's a win win, you seem to forget that.

tres borrachos said:

I picked "I have no opinion" because I don't know. I really don't know if it was a good idea or not. Did it have a greater positive effect than a negative effect? Hard to tell.

My husband can't wait for the cigars, so there's that.

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Cuba lost trillions, I can give two ****s, they ****ed with us, so we ****ed them back, 50 times harder. Good.

Maybe now they'll rethink ****ing with us?

Peter King said:

If it would have been spying yes, but for illegally importing the 15 years was way too harsh. If jail was warranted it should be in accordance with the economical offense he committed, not for spying.

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By your standards, maybe. But then five years for Marc Emery for exporting seeds [that contain no THC] was way too harsh. The Canadian doing three to five federal time for trying to import his marijuana vaporizer [medical user] was way too harsh. many of the penalties Mexico and other countries are way too harsh by OUR standards. And North Korea isn't exactly "nice".

The point is the law is THEIRS to write and enact. In that case the favored argument of the law and order crowd comes into play, if you don't like the rules, don't go. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Peter King said:

Why do others have so few options, making giving an appropriate response very difficult. Or at least that is my opinion. The most likely opinions are the first ones and the a bit more over the top one are more to the bottom.

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IMO, the only thing that matters is the new policy, I doesn't matter now what the policy was 5 decades ago. I also would make the votes public so you can see how others vote.

pbrauer said:

IMO, the only thing that matters is the new policy, I doesn't matter now what the policy was 5 decades ago. I also would make the votes public so you can see how others vote.

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Ooh, I thought the was automatically set that you can see the votes of others.

Peter King said:

Ooh, I thought the was automatically set that you can see the votes of others.

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It's not,you must manually set it. I make almost all my polls public, unless I forget.
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I think this is a great move by the president!

Luftwaffe said:

Cuba lost trillions, I can give two ****s, they ****ed with us, so we ****ed them back, 50 times harder. Good.

Maybe now they'll rethink ****ing with us?

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When did they do what ever you said to you?

It might have been wrong for them to agree to the rockets on their island, but that was all after the bay of pigs incident.

Maybe, if the US and the US mob would not have been so friendly to the dictator Batista, all of the revolution etc. would not have been needed.

It was a democratic society (from what I remember, learned and just read) until the democratic government was ousted out of power by a military coup, an illegal government which was quickly recognized by the US as the legitimate government of Cuba.

You can point towards the guilt of Castro but Castro could point to the guilt of the US government, US companies and US mob for the power of the dictator Batista. This all started with Batista, not with Castro.

Maybe the situation would have been a lot better if the US would not have gotten involved with Batista but would have supported the legitimate leaders of Cuba. The US supported Batista with aid that virtually all came in the form of weapons to strengthen the Batista dictatorship.

Further the US government used it's influence to increase the profits of US firms and made it possible for just about every natural resource of Cuba to come into the hands of American companies. At the urging of the US government ITT was allowed to raise the telephone rate in such an excessive rate that out of thanks ITT gave the US backed Batista a solid gold telephone.

Sorry, but Castro was a response to the crimes of Batista and the government that supported him.

Im only interested in it if we can make both a visible impact on liberalizing the regime and if it is economically beneficial to us.

The liberal talking point on American imperialism doesn't impress me.

IIRC it's only the US that is in the embargo. Cuba is free to trade with and have tourism from the rest of the world.

Until they agree to transition to democracy and improve human rights, only the Cuban elites would benefit from open trade.

My Dad has been on a couple of missions to Cuba and it's the epitome of a third-world Communist country where most have nothing unless the government allows it.

WCH said:

IIRC it's only the US that is in the embargo. Cuba is free to trade with and have tourism from the rest of the world.

Until they agree to transition to democracy and improve human rights, only the Cuban elites would benefit from open trade.

My Dad has been on a couple of missions to Cuba and it's the epitome of a third-world Communist country where most have nothing unless the government allows it.

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And the embargo has done nothing to solve that, all it did was entrench the communist government of Cuba in their position of power.

China has been improving since they opened their borders, without that the communist government would be like the one in North Korea but with more money and loads of nuclear weapons.

The embargo was not right to begin with and of course it achieved nothing. Good riddance.