Keep Castro Out Of White House Diplomacy: The White House says Cuba’s Raul Castro may soon visit. If he does, it’ll be an ugly blot on President Obama’s record. Since when does the U.S. welcome brutal military dictators into the people’s house? Speaking to flabbergasted reporters, President Obama’s spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday that the White House “wouldn’t rule out a visit from President Castro,” just after explaining that Obama wanted to travel to Cuba. That would be the diplomatic trade-off for an administration visit to the island, which would undoubtedly be a repeat of Obama pop-star pal Beyonce’s pleasure trip last year in a miasma of 1950s Chevys, Daiquiris and Buena Vista Social Club sounds. ’ve seen — ’s Castro’s communist regime as vacation playland. But sorry, it’s too high a price. The hard, ugly fact remains that Cuba remains one of the world’s most repressive totalitarian dictatorships. Regularly ranked at the bottom in democratic freedom and human rights surveys, more than 10% of the population has fled the island, while another 10% has literally been murdered by a regime whose military Raul Castro has led since 1959. In some cases, Raul himself personally fired the shots that killed. Which brings up something Obama himself has noted: The Castros have ruled Cuba since before he was born. Since the late 1950s they have denied Cubans free elections, freedom to travel, freedom to think and potential for human Then there’s Cuba’s record against the U.S.: In 1962 the Castros cooked up the first 9/11-style attack — with 500 kilos of TNT set to blow up in subways below Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Bloomingdale’s and Manhattan’s Grand Central Station on retailers’ Black Friday to maximize casualties. The plot was foiled by Hoover’s FBI. Obama’s invitation is without true precedent. In the 1980s, then-Secretary of State George Schultz reportedly threatened to resign if President Reagan hosted Chile’s military leader Augusto Pinochet in the White House. Out of respect for Schultz, Reagan deferred. But it’s a hell of an irony that a man who brought free market prosperity to his country and whose transgressions were minor compared with Castro’s would be unwelcome in the White House, while the very regime whose meddling in Chile led to its military government will now sip tea with the Obamas in the White House so that Obama can play tourist in Havana. The very idea is repugnant, and a terrible signal that far from expressing the Cold War’s end, as the New York Times headline crowed, rewrites history to say that Castro has won at last.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 14:02:58 +0000
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