Obsessed with Democracy?
Filed under: Cuba ~ Russia
President Bush, surrounded by victims of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's oppression at the White House yesterday, delivered a blistering rebuke against the regime's decades of outrageous conduct, declaring that the U.S. would not relax its embargo if Castro attempts to pass power to his little brother Raul when he finally kicks the rusty communist bucket. He declared: "The socialist paradise is a tropical gulag. The quest for justice that once inspired the Cuban people has now become a grab for power. And as with all totalitarian systems, Cuba's regime no doubt has other horrors still unknown to the rest of the world." He actually made a direct call for insurrection, asking Cuba's military leaders: "When Cubans rise up to demand their liberty, you've got to make a choice. Will you defend a disgraced and dying order by using force against your own people? Or will you embrace your people's desire for change?" And he exhorted the people of the nation to rise up and show their true colors:
We will know there is a new Cuba when opposition parties have the freedom to organize, assemble and speak with equal access to the airwaves. We will know there is a new Cuba when a free and independent press has the power to operate without censors. We will know there is a new Cuba when the government removes its stranglehold on private economic activity. Above all, we will know there is a new Cuba when authorities go to the prisons, walk to the cells where people are being held for their beliefs and set them free. We will not support the old way with new faces, the old system held together by new chains.
He dismissed those who seek engagement with the dictatorship. The Miami Herald reported: "At a White House news briefing, Press Secretary Dana Perino was asked if Bush was 'obsessed with Cuba.'" Perino responded: "The president is obsessed with human rights -- if that is an accusation that they want to lodge against the president, we'll take it as a compliment."
That's all well and good, Mr. President, but there are two pretty big holes in your rhetoric that you'll need to address before your pretty words have any real significance.
First, you'd do well to read our two recent posts regarding the harsh reality that "people power" may fail in Cuba just as it has done recently in Burma -- both by Robert Mayer, one providing his own analysis and one touting that of Bo Nyein on Pajamas Media. You might then realize how long on verbal heat and short on the light of action your speech was. What if the people rise up, and Castro Jr. simply crushes them, and does try to shackle the nation into the old regime with new chains, just as you feared? What, specifically, will we do then, beyond just leaving a failed embargo in place? More terrifying a prospect, what if Cuba turns out to be like Russia, and the people don't rise up at all, but rather give support to a brutal regime and its oppressive ways? What then, Mr. President? What then?
Second, you really ought to take a look at your foreign policy beyond Cuba, and ask yourself whether it expresses a consistent message that would make Fidel Castro, and more importantly those who would rise up against him, believe you mean it when you say his scrawny Marxist goose is cooked. Most especially, you ought to review your benighted policy on Russia, a nation which is an egregious transgressor of human rights and democratic values which, for most of your presidency, you've swept under the carpet. Viewing it, many potential Cuban democratic revolutionaries -- to say nothing of those in Russia -- might think all you are offering is another Bay of Pigs.
Take Iran, for example. It was announced today by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their Quds strikeforce were being branded terrorist organizations, their U.S. assets frozen and all contacts with U.S. citizens banned. Joining Rice, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson stated: "Iran funnels hundreds of millions of dollars each year through the international financial system to terrorists. Iran's banks aid this conduct using a range of deceptive financial practices intended to evade even the most stringent risk management controls." Rice added: "The Iranian government continues to spurn our offer of open negotiations, instead threatening peace and security by pursuing nuclear technologies that can lead to a nuclear weapon; building dangerous ballistic missiles; supporting Shia militants in Iraq and terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories; and denying the existence of a fellow member of the United Nations, threatening to wipe Israel off the map."
But where was the mention of Russia, which is supplying this rogue state with nuclear technology and missiles to defend it from NATO strikes, as well as vetoes in the UN Security Council blocking coordinated worldwide sanctions, favored by a majority of the Council? Where was the admission that President Bush has led us down the garden path on Russia, and that a course correction is needed and being made? Without dealing with Russia, no Iran solution can be effective. And where, pray tell, is the rhetoric about human rights. Both Iran and Russia are among the world's worst transgressors, making Cuba look small time by comparison. Did they just forget their obsession?
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