Opuscula Trump willing To open talks With N. Korea

 

It worked for Obama
It worked for Nixon
It worked for Regan

According to Reuters, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Tuesday he is willing to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to stop Pyongyang's nuclear program, proposing a major shift in U.S. policy toward the isolated nation.

In a wide-ranging interview with Reuters, Trump also called for a renegotiation of the Paris climate accord, said he disapproved of Russian President Vladimir Putin's actions in eastern Ukraine, and said he would seek to dismantle most of the U.S. Dodd-Frank financial regulations if he is elected president.

The presumptive Republican nominee declined to share details of his plans to deal with North Korea, but said he was open to talking to its leader.

Precedent firmly established

Obama & Castro

ABC News reported on March 21, 2016 that

President Obama is in bilateral talks with Cuban leader Raul Castro, following an official welcoming ceremony at the presidential palace in Havana this morning.

The president’s full day of events in Cuba marks the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited the island nation since Coolidge arrived by boat 88 years ago.

Cuba was blockaded by another Democrat, John Kennedy, more than 50 years before Obama's visit.

While Cuba had been "gifted" with Soviet missiles, the country never fought against the U.S. The famous "Battle of San Juan Hill (or Heights" was fought as part of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and against Spanish regulars, not Cubans.

Nixon & Mao

U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States and China. It marked the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC, which at that time considered the U.S. one of its foes, and the visit ended 25 years of separation between the two sides.

Before even being elected president, Nixon had talked of the need for better relations with the PRC, with which the U.S. did not maintain diplomatic relations as it recognized the government of the Republic of China on Taiwan as the government of China. Early in his first term, Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger began sending subtle overtures hinting at warmer relations to the PRC government. After a series of these overtures by both countries, Kissinger flew on secret diplomatic missions to Beijing, where he met with Premier Zhou. On July 15, 1971, the President announced that he would visit the PRC the following year. (2)

“There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation.” Richard Nixon, after his election in 1968, pushed for better relations with China despite historical tensions and hostilities. In 1971, National Security Advisor and future Secretary of State Henry Kissinger took two trips to China – the first made in secret – to consult with Premier Zhou Enlai. After more than two decades of icy relations, Nixon embarked on a trip to China starting on February 22, 1972. Not only did this visit strengthen Chinese-American relations, but it also served to encourage progress with the USSR. (3)

Sources:

1. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nixon-arrives-in-china-for-talks

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Nixon_visit_to_China

3. http://adst.org/2013/02/nixon-goes-to-china/

Nixon also managed to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union's Leonid Brezhnev, yet he is only remembered for remaining loyal to a small group of people who, on their own initiative, broke into DNC headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in Washington.

Regan & the "Evil Empire"

President Regan had a long history with Soviet leaders

According to the Shmoop site,

Many of Reagan's greatest admirers today celebrate his strong anti-Soviet stance, arguing that Reagan's firmness in waging the Cold War led directly to the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. Reagan's aggressive policy toward the Soviets, they say, ended up winning the Cold War for the United States. Reagan's detractors, by contrast, argue that he was recklessly and unnecessarily militant, and that only the good fortune of sane leadership in Moscow saved us all from nuclear apocalypse.

Both groups are mostly wrong.

In fact, Reagan's diplomatic legacy was more complicated than either his admirers or critics are likely to admit. Reagan did lead the United States to victory in the Cold War. But his greatest successes came during his second term, when he abandoned his earlier steadfastness to take a much more flexible stance in his relations with reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Reagan found victory when he found the courage to compromise. By acting as Gorbachev's partner as much as his enemy, Reagan helped the Soviet leader to dismantle the erstwhile "Evil Empire" peacefully, from within.


Then, in 1985, soon after Reagan's second inauguration, the vigorous, 54-year-old Gorbachev ascended to the leadership. He wanted to demilitarize Soviet foreign policy so that he could divert resources to the Augean task of fixing a broken economy. Initially, he expected no help from Reagan, whom he regarded as "not simply a conservative, but a political 'dinosaur.'"

In the Jack F. Matlock Jr. book, Reagan and Gorbachev: Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended, Matlock /writes:

Asked at a press conference in Moscow in 1988, his last year in office, about the role he played in the great drama of the late 20th century, he described himself essentially as a supporting actor. "Mr. Gorbachev," he said, "deserves most of the credit, as the leader of this country."

This quotation was much cited at the time as an example of Reagan's graciousness, tact and self-deprecation. But Matlock's book bears out his former boss's judgment. The 40th president of the United States emerges here not as a geopolitical visionary who jettisoned the supposedly accommodationist policies of containment and detente, but as an archpragmatist and operational optimist who adjusted his own attitudes and conduct in order to encourage a new kind of Kremlin leader.

During his first term, Reagan denounced the pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union as an "evil empire." The name-calling riled many Soviets (and more than a few Sovietologists) but did little diplomatic harm, since relations between Washington and Moscow were already in a rut. The Kremlin had become a geriatric ward, with Red Square doubling as the world's largest funeral parlor.

Opinion on a small island

In researching the above I stumbled upon several sites concerned with Islam in the UK.

Book reviewer Peter Preston, reviewing David E. Hoffman's The Deadly Hand writes that

So many of us got so much wrong through the years of fear. Polite opinion in Britain (my own included) quavered and cringed when Ronald Reagan became president of the United States. We saw a bemused ex-actor peddling conservative bromides. We saw a man who wasn't clever enough, or experienced enough, to stack Pershing 2s against Moscow's Pioneers. We prophesied doom. And yet – for very good reasons – Reagan, like Gorbachev, is a hero in Hoffman's eyes.

The English seem to worry equally about Trump. Their prime minister, David Cameron, calls Trump's proposed Muslim travel ban "stupid," and the former leader of Scotland labeling the mogul "three times a loser."

Perhaps Trump has in mind the Shiria No-Go zones on Cameron's little island. The Breitbart site has several videos showing how shiria is taking over parts of England and disregards English law.

Nigel Farage, head of the UK's Independent Party, claims that "ghettos" in parts of the UK are being run according to Shiria law as authorities "turn a blind eye" because of their "moral cowardice".

He contends that “big ghettos” have sprung up in Britain and Europe where child sex abuse, female genital mutilation, extremism and Shiria law were allowed to flourish.

"Why would Great Britain, France, Belgium or any other country, the Netherlands, why would they allow people to come to the country, not assimilate, separate, take their land ostensibly and risk even being at war with them when shiria, if you're coming from a country that you grew up under shiria, those values directly contradict the values of Western countries, why would anybody allow that?" Hannity asked.

According to hate preacher Anjem Choudary told the UK's Daily Mail "We want to run the area as a Shiria-controlled zone and really to put the seeds down for an Islamic Emirate in the long term.’

Choudary has claimed responsibility for the poster campaign, saying he plans to flood specific Muslim and non-Muslim communities around the UK and ‘put the seeds down for an Islamic Emirate in the long term.’

Opuscula Wet foot Dry foot

 

GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BEN CARSON doesn't know anything about the U.S. government's "Wet foot/dry foot" policy.

Not surprising. He is not a Cuban, south Floridian, or denizen of New York City.

Before anyone discounts his candidacy as they did that of then Alaska governor Sarah Palin for her lack of foreign experience, the incumbent at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue had even less experience with foreign policy. At least Gov. Palin could see a foreign nation from her state. The Chicago community organizer couldn't even see Canada from the Windy City.

While this is about politics, it is not about politicians.

WHAT IS AMERICA'S PROBLEM WITH CUBA?

There are, basically, three "official" problems with Cuba; reasons why Washington and south Florida politicians want to maintain the status quo.

Problem 1: Cuba's government barely tolerates dissent.

Problem 2: Cuba's government is one of several Communist/Socialist governments in the Western Hemisphere.

Problem 3: Cuba lacks a U.S.-style democracy.

NOW CONSIDER

The United States has diplomatic and trade agreements with China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and a number of other countries that stifle civil rights.

China, through its proxies North Korea and Vietnam, has been involved in shooting wars with the U.S. and still threatens U.S. allies South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Chinese ICBMs and ship-born (sea-to-land) missiles easily can strike cities on the U.S. mainland. China over the years has greatly increased its naval presence on, and beneath, the waves. Now Chinese warships are welcomed at U.S. ports.

Clip on image to enlarge

Russia, now in expansionist mode, has been involved with the U.S. in the so-called "cold" war for decades. Like China, Russia has the capability of sending missiles into American cities.

Saudi Arabia, which never has been in a shooting war with the U.S. does expect the U.S. to send troops to die protecting it while at the same time being one of the least tolerant nations of the world. The Saudis - under a harsh variation of the already harsh sharia law - execute women by stoning for the crime of being raped; it lops off heads of people who dare criticize the prophet (as do other Islamic nations).

Despite the above, the U.S. "enjoys" diplomatic and trade relations with all three of the above - and many more nations where civil rights are severely restricted or non-existent.

The Amnesty International Report 2014/15: The State Of The World's Human Rights provides civil rights overviews for the world's nations.

But Cuba? While the U.S. has several times invaded Cuba, Cuba never has invaded the U.S. - at least not as a military operation. True, the Russians, back when the Soviet Union existed, wanted to put ICBMs on Cuban soil and Fidel Castro was willing to accept the weaponry - in return for which the Soviets guaranteed to buy sugar and tobacco from Cuba to keep the Cuban economy from absolute collapse having Cuban products embargoed by the U.S.

Unlike China and Russia, Cuba is the U.S.' neighbor, famously 90 miles away from Key West.

It does allow some dissent, the Women in White as an example.

It seems to this scrivener that the best way to improve the lot of the average Cuban is to develop trade with the island; to export the flavor of U.S. style democracy (while realizing that not every nation can handle democracy as it is, or perhaps was, known in the U.S.).

It was Trinidad, not Cuba, but the bottom line of Rum and Coca-Cola was the "Yankee dollar." It may not have the power it once had, but it's still more welcome than the Russian ruble or even the Chinese yuan.

Opuscula China, yes, Saudia, yes, Iran, yes, Cuba, no ?

 

SOME (MANY) SOUTH FLORIDA CUBANS, including lawmakers, are ranting that the U.S. should NOT reopen diplomatic relations with its neighbor a mere 90 miles to the south because the Cuban government is not democratic and restricts people's rights.

Fair enough.

BUT, the U.S. has diplomatic and trade agreements, and in some cases, military compacts, with countries far worse than Cuba when it comes to human rights violations and democracy.

Plus, for more than 50 years the U.S. embargo - that, thanks to its allies has all but crumbled - has failed to depose the Castros and Communism.

Finally, if full diplomatic and trade relations are restored, maybe some of the Cubans who always said they would go back will go back and Miami can be American once more.

It seems highly hypocritical that politicos such as presidential hopeful Mario Rubio and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen are so against normalizing relations with Cuba when it was a Republican president - Richard Nixon - who normalized relations with China, the country that gave the world the the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and followed up with

Lead in children's toys
• Defective tires
• Poisonous wall board
• Tainted food products

and largely has managed to own much of the U.S., primarily through illegal trade.

Democrat Bill Clinton normalized relations with Vietnam after Nixon got the U.S. out of the war there.

The current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is leading the U.S. toward normalization of relations with Iran, not only a despotic state but one where the leaders call for "Death to America."

Neither China not Vietnam are bastions of democracy and human rights.

The U.S. maintains diplomatic relations with at least five countries labeled by the Human Rights Watch as violators of human rights:

1. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy which doesn’t even allow political parties or any kind of public dissent.
2. Zimbabwe. The US has diplomatic relations with the notoriously dictatorial government of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and actually has given the country $400 million in humanitarian aid
3. Belarus, a small eastern European country with a population of 9.5 million, which never made the transition to democracy after the fall of the Soviet Union. We have an embassy in Minsk, though the post of ambassador is right now unfilled (there is a charge d’affaires).
4. Sultanate of Brunei: The US has warm diplomatic relations and a US embassy there, despite its disregard for basic human rights
5. Vietnam The Vietnam government systematically suppresses freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and persecutes those who question government policies, expose official corruption, or call for democratic alternatives to one-party rule. Police harass and intimidate activists and their family members

The U.S. maintains diplomatic relations with Russia, despite its record on human rights and its invasion of the Ukraine. It maintains diplomatic relations with Turkey despite its human rights record against is own, never mind the Kurds.

The U.S. State Department issues an annual International Religious Freedom Report . The report for 2013 listed the following nations as places where freedom of religion is denied or restricted:

Bangladesh, Belgium*, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, France*, Germany*, Hungary*, Italy*, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Latvia, Nigeria, North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden*, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Kingdom*, Uzbekistan

* = noted for increasing anti-Semitism.

The Palestinian Authority is notable by its absence despite the fact that it promises a Jewish-free country.

Given all of the above, it's hard to see why Cuba should be singled out to (try to) punish for being "un-American."

Opuscula Chins & Cuba Nixon & Obama

v

 

OBAMA OPENS RELATIONS with the Castros of Cuba and the Cubans in America aren't happy.

Some politicians, notably Miami-raised U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, are making this Obama move a major part of their appeal - at least to the Cubans in South Florida.

Liberal folly to re-establish diplomatic relations with a "Communist" country only 90 miles from Key West, Florida, America's southernmost point?

Or good sense following in a Conservative politician's lead?

Consider:

U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States (U.S.) and the People's (PRC). It marked the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC, which at that time considered the U.S. one of its foes, and the visit ended 25 years of separation between the two sides. (Wikipedia: 1972 Nixon visit to China)

The distance between Anchorage Alaska and China is less than 700 miles, a mere 510 miles FARTHER than the distance between Key West and Cuba.

The arch-Conservative Nixon achieved peace with radical Communist China DESPITE China's involvement in the Korean "Policing" action - a condition that remains unresolved to today and one that keeps U.S. troops far from home, protecting a people that, during the fighting, were less than dependable allies.

Arch-Conservative Nixon also signed the peace agreement with the China-leaning Communist government of Vietnam, a country that a Liberal Democrat, JFK, thoroughly embroiled this nation while ignoring the ignoble expulsion of the French early in the century. (Dwight D. Eisenhower got the U.S. involved militarily with small Military Advisory Groups [MAGs]; JFK committed thousands of U.S. troops, largely in piecemeal increments.)

Nixon, of course, was the arch-villain of the liberals who now are open to détente and full diplomatic relations with the U.S.' nearby neighbor to the south while those claiming to be Conservatives rail against the compact.

 

A little Cuban history

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Cuban loyalty began to change as a result of Creole rivalry with Spaniards for the governing of the island, increased Spanish despotism and taxation, and the growth of Cuban nationalism. These developments combined to produce a prolonged and bloody war, the Ten Years’ War against Spain (1868–78), but it failed to win independence for Cuba. At the outset of the second independence war (1895–98), Cuban independence leader José Martí was killed. As a result of increasingly strained relations between Spain and the United States, the Americans entered the conflict in 1898 during the administration of President William McKinley. Already concerned about its economic interests on the island and its strategic interest in a future Panama Canal, the United States was aroused by an alarmist “yellow” press after the USS Maine sank in Havana Harbor on February 15 as the result of an explosion of undetermined origin. In December 1898, with the Treaty of Paris, the United States emerged as the victorious power in the Spanish-American War, thereby ensuring the expulsion of Spain and U.S. tutelage over Cuban affairs.

On May 20, 1902, after almost five years of U.S. military occupation, Cuba launched into nationhood with fewer problems than most Latin American nations. Prosperity increased during the early years. Militarism seemed curtailed. Social tensions were not profound. Yet corruption, violence, and political irresponsibility grew. Invoking the 1901 Platt Amendment, which was named after Senator Orville H. Platt and stipulated the right of the United States to intervene in Cuba’s internal affairs and to lease an area for a naval base in Cuba, the United States intervened militarily in Cuba in 1906–9, 1917, and 1921. U.S. economic involvement also weakened the growth of Cuba as a nation and made the island more dependent on its northern neighbor.

The 1930s saw a major attempt at revolution. Prompted by the cruel dictatorship of Gerardo Machado y Morales (president, 1925–33), the economic hardships of the world depression, and the growing control of their economy by Spaniards and North Americans, a group of Cubans led by students and intellectuals sought radical reforms and a profound transformation of Cuban society. Following several small army revolts, Machado was forced to resign and flee the country on August 12, 1933. Sergeant Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar, unhappy with proposed reductions of pay and restrictions of promotions, joined forces with the militant students on September 4 and overthrew the U.S.-backed regime of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (the younger). By making the military part of the government and allowing Batista to emerge as self-appointed chief of the armed forces, the Sergeants’ Revolt marked a turning point in Cuba’s history. On January 14, 1934, Army Chief Batista also brought to an end the short-lived provisional presidency of Ramón Grau San Martín (president, 1933–34) by forcing him to resign. Although the reformers attained power five months later and Machado’s overthrow was supposed to mark the beginning of an era of reform, their revolution failed. Batista (president, 1940–44; dictator, 1952–59) and the military emerged as the arbiters of Cuba’s politics, first through de facto ruling and finally with the election of Batista to the presidency in 1940.

An aside: Cuba had agreed to accept Jews escaping from the nazis on the SS St. Louis, but on arrival in Cuba the Jews were prevented from disembarking, despite the fact they had visas. Dr. Federico Laredo Brú was Cuba's president when the SS St. Louis attempted to land in 1939, Visas to land in Cuba were issued by Manuel Benite, sans Bru's authority, which, in part, led to the refugee's being refused entry. The Jews also were denied permission to disembark at the U.S. port, condemning them to death at the hands of the Germans.

The end of the early Batista era during World War II was followed by an era of democratic government, respect for human rights, and accelerated prosperity under the inheritors of the 1933 revolution—Grau San Martín (president, 1944–48) and Carlos Prío Socarrás (president, 1948–52). Yet political violence and corruption increased. Many saw these administrations of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Cubano—PRC), more commonly known as the Authentic Party (Partido Auténtico), as having failed to live up to the ideals of the revolution. Others still supported the Auténticos and hoped for new leadership that could correct the vices of the past. A few conspired to take power by force.

Batista’s coup d’état on March 10, 1952, had a profound effect on Cuban society, leading to doubts about the ability of the Cubans to govern themselves. It also began a brutal right-wing dictatorship that resulted in the polarization of society, civil war, the overthrow of Batista, and the destruction of the military and most other Cuban institutions. Fidel Castro Ruz, a charismatic, anti-U.S. revolutionary, seized power on January 1, 1959, following his successful revolt against the U.S.-backed Batista government. As the Castro regime expropriated U.S. properties and investments and began, officially, on April 16, 1961, to convert Cuba into a one-party communist system, relations between the United States and Cuba deteriorated rapidly. The United States imposed an embargo on Cuba on October 19,1960, and broke diplomatic relations on January 3, 1961, in response to Castro’s expropriations without compensation and other provocations, such as arrests of U.S. citizens. The failure of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)–sponsored invasion by Cuban exiles in April 1961 (the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion) allowed the Castro regime to destroy the entire Cuban underground and to emerge strengthened and consolidated, basking in the huge propaganda value of having defeated the “Yankees.”

THERE WAS A TIME when the U.S. was a major economic force in Cuba, being the primary purchaser of sugar and tobacco products. (JFK, according to the UK's Daily Mail had a cache of Cuban cigars laid in just before he declared an embargo on the items.)

Ernest Hemingway and U.S. gangsters spent time in Cuba as did the average American who wanted to visit an affordable - and warm - foreign land.

Having grown up in South Florida listening to many ex-pat Cubans claim that if they could they would go back, it will be interesting to see just how many of the Cuban community in South Florida will indeed go back. Will English once again become Miami's first language?

Whether the Cuban guests return to their island or not, the 50-year snub of a neighbor that, of itself, never threatened the U.S. , should have ended when Nixon made a pact with China's Cho, or at least when Nixon brought the Vietnam conflict to an end.

Enough is enough, and 50 years is too much.

I am not a fan of Obama, but this time he got it right.

President Sneaky Right action Wrong method

 

ONCE AGAIN President Sneaky has made what I consider a correct move but in a, what seems typical for him, sneaky manner.
First it was Obamacare. American needs a national health care system. That the Obamacare needs lots of work to make it usable is another matter, but it was a step in the right direction.
Now, Cuba.
The U.S. has attempted - and failed - to embargo Cuba for more than 50 years. The Castros still are in charge even without their former backers, the now-defunct - perhaps temporarily defunct - Soviet Union.
Obungler saw the embargo failed to benefit the U.S. or the "oppressed" Cubans who remain in Cuba. (There are so many Cubans in South Florida - Cubans who swore they would go back "just as soon as" that if you don't speak Spanish you don't do business in Dade County.)
Nixon (re)opened China to the U.S. - a mistake since China now "owns" the U.S. China it may be recalled was the chief sponsor of North Korea and of what was North Vietnam; in other words, no friend of the U.S.
Reagan saw the Berlin wall come down and lead detent with the former Soviet Union. We have - or perhaps soon "had" thanks to Mr. Putin - business relations with the former enemy. The Soviet Union and the U.S. were combatants in a cold war and a number of proxy hot wars (including Israel and its neighbors) since the end of World War II. Like China, no friend of the U.S.
Never mind that before the guns had cooled in 1945 the U.S. was rebuilding Germany and Japan at a cost U.S. manufacturers still are paying.
Cuba NEVER was an enemy. It never attacked a U.S. operation, and with the Guantanamo base, it had (has) plenty of opportunity.
THE PROBLEM with the president who would be king is that he is trying to rule by fiat, by executive order.
He's not the first to issue executive orders, nor will he be the last.
But he is sneaky about his intents.
The U.S. has a congress and a supreme court that are supposed to be equal with the executive branch. They are supposed to work in concert.
Obungler contends that he can't get anything thorough Congress because of the nasty Republicans.
Granted, the two parties probably have never been as diametrically opposed as during the current administration, but past administrations with a congress controlled by the opposing party HAVE made great progress.
Obungler acts like a thief in the night, sneaking his desires into law by either by-passing Congress or by inundating Congress with bills of thousands of pages and demanding immediate passage - don't bother to READ the bill, just pass it - which is how we got the Obamacare kludge. (Again, IMO the U.S. needs a better social welfare program.)
The U.S. can afford this if it will stop sending money - and jobs - across the border and overseas to countries that should stand on their own financial feet. How many American dollars go into foreign rulers' pockets rather than to the people for whom the money is intended?
I agree with President Sneaky - we should deal with Cuba as the U.S. deals with other countries. There may NOT be an immediate improvement in what Americans term "basic rights," but there also won't be a degradation of what rights are extent now. Over the long term I think - I hope - that commercial and social intercourse with the United States will benefit the average Jose Cuban.
It may LOOK as if the U.S.-Cuban detent is one sided, with the U.S. giving up everything and getting very little in return, but in time, the Communist influence will diminish as even the (aging) government will once again realize the benefits of democracy.
TO THEIR CREDIT, the Cubans of South Florida have so far kept their expressions of their pro or con opinions of Sneaky's latest fiat to verbal sparring; let's hope it stays that way.