On Cuba, Trump is right

On Cuba, Trump is right
Published: July 1, 2017

President Barack Obama bought into an ideology that said be nice to evil
people and they will be nice back.

So it was that he let the Syrian regime off the hook when it killed
civilians with chemical weapons, figuring it would come around. Then
there was this deal with Iran based on Islamic radicals softening up in
a way they have not done. He wanted to get cozy with the Russians, and
they poked him in the eye. And, of course, he then played palsy-walsy
with Cuba, and here was his reasoning.

Yes, he knew Raul Castro has done some bad stuff and not all was hunky
dory on the island. But if we trade with Cuba, the reasoning went, it
will be to the economic good of both sides and the increased
interactions of varied kinds will help induce true democracy. We trade
with other autocracies and punishing Cuba accomplishes nothing and
should come to an end, he grinned.

After his trip to make this deal that was all give and no get, he headed
down to Argentina to provide further evidence of his sophisticated
incompetence. He talked to a group called Young Leaders of the Americas
and said they should not get involved in intellectual arguments about
capitalism versus communism. They should simply choose what works for
them. He went on to say that Cuba provided a good education for its
people and good health care.

Now let's visit with reality and point out that the regime of Raul
Castro and his late brother Fidel has murdered people left and right,
mainly on the right, those who aspire to freedom. There are still
political prisoners, the elections are fake and protest can get you in
deep trouble. It is a desperately poor country not for a lack of trade
that exists with many other nations but because of socialistic
malfeasance. The good health care goes mostly to those with money and
political power, and much of the education is sheer propaganda.

The deal Obama made with Cuba is not trade with the people but trade
that cheats the people. It is trade with the Cuban government, those of
high rank and with a further empowered military. There is little if any
trickle down to the still-deprived. What you get from Castro is
assertions that there is nothing to reform in this blessed land that
once may have looked at Obama's options and chose communism. After all,
he leads the good life, doesn't he?

Then we have President Donald Trump saying he is discontinuing the deal
but would be happy to renegotiate the terms. You want trade, Cuba? Fine.
How about releasing political prisoners. How about easing up the
oppression generally, you know, with real free speech? And how about the
trade being general, something that also goes into the pockets of
entrepreneurs and their workers?

Naturally enough, Trump took a bruising because this is oh, so awful and
there was a chance for something good growing out of the Obama mission
and now it is gone, liberals said. Nonsense. Cuba's only chance resides
in ditching socialism, not in bolstering it. That's what Obama did, and
this Washington star is thereby reminiscent of a Hollywood star, actor
Sean Penn, when he praised Venezuela's socialist dictator Hugo Chavez
and, after he died, Nicolas Maduro, his replacement.

These self-adulating thugs took a country with one of the noblest
records in Latin America and converted it to a land of starvation,
imprisonment and death everywhere you look. That's the record of
ultra-socialist regimes, you know — 100 million dead as a result of
their policies over the last century.

I don't know about those young people lectured in Argentina, but I would
choose a free market over socialism any day of the week. I would also
point out to Obama that niceness can sometimes abet evil.

Source: On Cuba, Trump is right - U.S. - Stripes -
https://www.stripes.com/news/us/on-cuba-trump-is-right-1.476233#.WVfCeYiGP6Q