Controversy about Cuba

Double standards are kind of entertaining, right? 

As most people know, Pres. Obama made a historic trip to Cuba earlier this week. He's the first sitting US president to visit the island nation since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. Unfortunately, no one is really talking about his trip to the land of cigars, mojitos and old-timey cars, but rather his visit to negotiate with a communist and betray our system.

Obama has gotten a lot of flack since opening communication with the country back in 2014. Obama wants to ease tensions between the two countries and establish a friendship despite our history and our current differences. This is a travesty to a number of people, like Armando Valladares, who wrote a commentary in the Washington Post (mentioned in this link but not printed in its entirety). Obama's desire to end animosity towards Cuba is interpreted as weakness and his excuse to make waves in his last year of presidency; he's giving in and allowing the communist government to do whatever it wants. Marco Rubio, born to Cuban parents, is perhaps the most vocal in his problems with Obama's visit to the country.

Here's the thing: the worst thing to happen to Cuba isn't a dictatorship. It's the blockade. It's killed more people than the Cuban government and is a much bigger struggle in the everyday lives of Cubans than politics. Cubans call the blockade "the country's biggest genocide." And this embargo has been in place for the past 50 years to discourage their form of government - guess what, it hasn't worked. And it probably isn't going to. Something that bothers me the most about American foreign policy is that we stick our noses in business that isn't our own. I agree, people all over the world shouldn't be suffering at the hands of their government. But if the rest of the world has decided that trading with Cuba and allowing Cubans to survive and eat more food and get cheaper goods, why is America lagging behind?

If you talk to the Cuban people, they are very pro-Americans. They dislike our government, sure, because why wouldn't they after the conditions we've imposed on them? They're very nationalistic and they believe they are still fighting the revolution. And they won't forget their wars and their suffering, but they see it as part of their history, not something that they are fighting against today. Cubans want to meet Americans, they want to have a relationship with us. I think we should be able to do that despite our differences. Sure, it would be cool if they would adopt a democratic government system but that's clearly not going to fix our problems - remember when Gaza held their first democratic election which we ruled undemocratic because we didn't like the winning Hamas?

(For the record, if you want to put aside all of this political stuff and look at the beautiful country of Cuba, I've got some pictures from my trip over Winterim - look out, I must be a communist!)

Used in this post:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35874559

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2016/03/20/marco-rubio-obamas-cuba-trip-is-a-disgrace-n2136923