the us and cuba

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/22/w...life-work/

Quote:Regime Change in Cuba By Other Means?
Will American Money Defeat Castro’s Life Work?
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Normalization of relations with Cuba is not the result of a diplomatic breakthrough or a change of heart on the part of Washington.  Normalization is a result of US corporations  seeking profit opportunities in Cuba, such as developing broadband Internet markets in Cuba.

Before the American left and the Cuban government find happiness in the normalization, they should consider that with normalization comes American money and a US Embassy.  The American money will take over the Cuban economy.  The embassy will be a home for CIA operatives to subvert the Cuban government.  The embassy will provide a base from which the US can establish NGOs whose gullible members can be called to street protest at the right time, as in Kiev, and the embassy will make it possible for Washington to groom a new set of political leaders.

In short, normalization of relations means regime change in Cuba. Soon Cuba will be another of Washington’s vassal states.

Conservatives and Republicans such as Peggy Noonan and Senator Marco Rubio, have made it clear that Castro is “a bad man who turned an almost-paradise into a floating prison” and that normalizing relations with Cuba will not “grant the Castro regime legitimacy.”

Noonan forgets about Guantanamo, Washington’s offshore torture prison in Cuba where hundreds of innocent people have been held and tortured for a large part of their lives by the exceptional Americans.  The Cuban Revolution intended to free Cubans from foreign domination and from exploitation by foreign capitalists.  Whatever the likelihood of success, a half century of Washington’s hostility has as much to do with Cuba’s economic problems as communist ideology.

The self-righteousness of Americans is extreme. Noonan is happy.  American money is now going to defeat Castro’s life work. And if the money doesn’t do it, the CIA will.  The agency has long been waiting to avenge the Bay of Pigs, and normalization of relations brings the opportunity.

Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, and a former columnist for Business Week. He held the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at Georgetown University for a dozen years. He has authored several books, including, “The Supply-Side Revolution” (translated and published in China in 2013) and “How America Was Lost” (2014). His official home page

I subscribe to the South America and Latin America : gambit !

that forced the US hands 

really

take a look at this:


The lame duck, Obama, extending a conciliatory hand to Cuba by opening an embassy in Havana, by reopening, after 54 years of a criminal and crippling embargo, diplomatic relations? – At the same time Obama is making not a single concession in terms of lifting the blockade. This smells like a trap. Cuba beware!

Imagine – a US Embassy in Havana – it would open the floodgates for US NED (National Endowment for Democracy) funded ‘NGOs’, for Washington’s spies and anti-Castro propaganda machine; it would have free hand to destabilize the country. And what would Cuba gain? – Zilch, zero, nothing. Not even a gradual lifting of the embargo had been announced. To the contrary, it would open Cuba’s borders to the vultures of Florida Cubans, eventually to theirs and other foreign investments, subjugating the country’s huge social gains over the last half a century – universal free education and health services, by far the best social system of the Americas – to the sledgehammer of neoliberal privatization.

Why would Cuba now need a US Embassy? After 54 years of struggling and surviving against Washington’s nod? – In fact, nobody needs the empire – the empire’s consent to financially and economically survive. Suffice it to look at the ‘engineered’ decay of the Russian ruble which eventually will leave Russia better off than before the downward slide of its currency and the likewise ‘engineered’ downward spin of the price of petrol. Everybody knows that the Middle Eastern oil producers, Obama’s stooges, will not forever shoot themselves in the foot by flooding the petrol market and foregoing their oil revenues.

What Cuba needs is free access to international markets – outside and independent of the United States. Cuba needs to integrate into an independent financial and monetary system, detached from the corrupt casino dollar. Solidarity by the rest of the world which has already helped Cuba survive the illegal, inhuman US embargo is now more than ever of the order. The support of a unity of nations must now help stem the temptation to bend to Washington’s offer of ‘diplomacy’.

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.ca/

continuation and completion:


With the establishment of diplomatic relations, Cuba would be condemned to adopt the dollar as trading currency – no escaping the dollar, if ever Cuba wanted to hope for the good deeds of the empire – the lifting of the blockade.

Look what happened in Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador – once a US Embassy is established, all the nefarious destabilizing elements could sneak in, willy-nilly. Plus, economic ‘sanctions’, would be nearer than ever, if Cuba doesn’t behave. Both Bolivia and Venezuela have learned their lessons the hard way. After they closed the US Embassy and sent US organizations and NGOs home, they could breathe again. Though Venezuela is still suffering from Washington’s diabolical arm of propaganda and direct interference in domestic affairs, she has no longer the burden of maintaining a ‘diplomatic’ tie with the northern aggressor.

Most importantly, however – the US is vying for Cuban hydrocarbons, estimated today at 20 billion barrels of offshore oil reserves. Cuba, like Venezuela, is close to US Mexican Gulf shores, where the major refineries are waiting for the crude. During his tour of South America in July 2014, President Putin in a meeting with Cuban President, Raul Castro, signed an agreement whereby the Russian oil company, Rosneft, will assist the Cuban oil producer, Cupet, exploring and exploiting the island’s offshore petrol.

Is it coincidence or sheer self-interest, that just now, when Russia is digging for oil in Obama’s backyard that he is offering diplomatic ties with the 54 years embargoed Caribbean island? – Your guess.

Venezuela has the world’s largest remaining hydrocarbon reserves, about 300 billion barrels. They are close to the US shores and would be the best bet for US mega-oil. But the White House’s destabilizing efforts in Venezuela seem to fail. These efforts and other State Department blunders have helped increase US isolation in Latin America.

Why not trying another approach? – A well disguised lie; insinuating with the opening of an embassy in Havana that the deadly embargo might ease in some undefined future between the brutal Goliath of the north and castigated, downtrodden David of the Caribbean. An embassy in Cuba may also earn some much needed kudos with other Latin American neighbors which have been upset for years about the criminal strangulation by the empire of one of their brothers.

In fact, first reactions from Latin America to Obama’s diplomatic initiative were positive. But more than caution is in order. – The establishment of a US embassy in Havana might be more than just a floodgate for US secret service agents and anti-Cuba propaganda. A US Embassy in Havana might begin breaking down US isolation in South America, especially in Brazil and Argentina. It might become a backdoor for Washington to gain access to these countries huge natural resources.

Knowing about Washington’s agenda of world dominance, it would be difficult to imagine that there is even a shred of goodwill behind Obama’s move to ‘normalize’ relations with Cuba. – Havana beware!

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, the Voice of Russia, now Ria Novosti, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe.

[quote author=mapoui link=topic=94667.msg606928#msg606928 date=1419273660]
What Cuba needs is free access to international markets – outside and independent of the United States.
[/quote]
When I was there on a project (building Varadero) it was all Spanish and Italian money!

Mistakenly we shipped a sound system and forgot to remove the "made in USA" label.

It was sent back to Canada to our factory, label removed and shipped back  :-[

Quote:Knowing about Washington’s agenda of world dominance, it would be difficult to imagine that there is even a shred of goodwill behind Obama’s move to ‘normalize’ relations with Cuba. – Havana beware!

[size=14pt]Remember my Gadaffi warnings.  I have no idea why Cuba accepted this!  look out[/size]

Quote:It was sent back to Canada to our factory, label removed and shipped back

right!  send back the diplomatic relations too. it is 'made in the USA'

best move by Obama!!!  who vex, vex!

that includes you, Mapoui Rubio!  ::LOL:: ::LOL::

[quote author=Goog Lee link=topic=94667.msg607099#msg607099 date=1419363720]
best move by Obama!!!  who vex, vex!

that includes you, Mapoui Rubio!  ::LOL:: ::LOL::
[/quote]

who me :

wat I vex for..... ::confused::

I am not in danger from anythng associated with dat.  deh cyan do as deh please

but look at america nuh!  diplomatic relations but no easing of embargo.  anything more blatant that that.  deh have a need for Cuba but..and whatever it is that's it.  eff Cuba otherwise.

what they intend to do is to go in and make quick work of the established Cuban government using the CIA an all deh comes' NGO's..jess like deh did with Libya/Gaddafi
I hope Cubans knows wat deh in for.

within the next 5 years Cuba will finally have a free and fair election!  watch the ride!