Senseless Heavy-handedness
American foreign policy has come in for a fair bit of criticism over recent years in respect to Iraq but nothing seems to deter them. This week they forced a Spanish airline from flying from Spain to Cuba. The US government forced Hola to stop flying through Boeing; its fleet is entirely composed of Boeing aircrafts and so they have been forced to give up its operation in the Caribbean Island overnight. The US government applied the 1996 Helms-Burton Act that prevents non north-American countries from trading with Cuba by penalizing foreign companies. The Council of Europe, the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Argentina and other U.S. allies that enjoy normal trade relations with Cuba, condemns the act.
It's little wonder that people can sometimes look to the US with less than favourable views. After all we are hardly likely to see a repeat of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. As I understand it the Cuban economy is far from healthy and tourism is one of the things that sustains it. How can this type of bullying tactic make any sense?
6 comments:
Sir, what about Cuba's heavy handedness? Have you seen amnesty international's report on Cuba? When the regime finally crumbles, as the communist governments in Europe finally did, what excuse will you make for enabling the abusers and the repression in Cuba?
Manuel, I see where you are coming from and your comparison with European communism is compelling.
I wouldn't have a problem with not selling planes to Cuba. But not selling planes to a Spanish airline that serves Cuba (among other places) seems pretty extreme.
Let's hope that when Cuba is finally free they don't revert to a Bautista dictatorship but that they find true democracy. Their people, by this I mean the working class people, have suffered way too long under both systems.
As is always the case with extreme regimes it's the people who suffer. My point remains that the ordinary people in Cuba will suffer through this action more than the regime itself.
In a separate point it is a case of the USA exporting its own foreign policy, one that many other countries do not agree with.
Absolutely.
End result = Almost everybody now hates us.
I am now donning my flak jacket for incoming.
Rob, that makes ordinary Americans just like Cubans :)
In all seriousness this points up one very important thing that I've come to realise over the years. People of whatever nationality, race, ethnic background, political persuasion or whatever, are at the end of the day just people. Saying one doesn't like people of a particular nationality is absolutely daft. Speak as you find, always assume that individuals from a particular country have little or nothing in common with the leadership of said country and don't be too judgemental and you won't go to far wrong.
Amen to that, Richard.
I can't improve on that statement, so instead, I'll just second that emotion.
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