JMHO Loc: Utah

Contrary to what President Obama has asserted, U.S. sanctions have worked. C*******t Cuba is so economically weak it cannot export Marxism-Leninism as in the past, and pro-democracy advocates have become emboldened.

For more than five decades, presidents, Democratic and Republican, politically isolated and economically sanctioned C*******t Cuba for the best of reasons. Here are four of them:

1. Cuba has been a c*******t prison since Fidel Castro came to power. From 1959 through the late 1990s, more than 100,000 Cubans were placed in forced labor camps, prisons and other places of incarceration. Between 15,000 and 17,000 people were shot. Castro justified his reign of terror with these words: “The revolution is all; everything else is nothing.”

2. C*******t Cuba exported Marxism-Leninism throughout Latin America, in Colombia, Guatemala, Venezuela and especially Nicaragua, which was taken over by the Marxist Sandinistas in the late 1970s. Another target was the small island nation of Grenada, which was to function as the third leg of a c*******t triangle of Cuba, Grenada and Nicaragua. President Reagan foiled the c*******ts’ plans by freeing Grenada from a pro-Moscow radical regime. As a Venezuelan c*******t leader explained, the Cuban revolution was like a “detonator.”

3. C*******t Cuba often provided the ground troops for the Soviet Union’s strategy of inciting Third World revolution, especially in Africa. From 1975 to 1989, according to “The Black Book of C*******m,” Cuba was the major supporter of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. Castro sent an expeditionary force of 50,000 men to Angola, explaining in part why for decades Moscow propped up the Castro regime in the amount of $5 billion a year.

4. C*******t Cuba brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in 1962 when it allowed the Soviet Union to build sites for offensive nuclear missiles aimed at major cities in the United States. Castro knew what he was doing: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev has said that Castro requested a Soviet nuclear attack on the United States.

As The Washington Post editorialized, President Obama pledged to lift economic sanctions and establish diplomatic relations at the precise moment when Venezuela’s economic miseries seriously threatened its huge billion-dollar subsidies of Cuba and when more and more Cubans were pressuring the Castro regime to allow fundamental human freedoms.

The Castro regime was on the ropes, but in the words of Cuban dissident Yoani Sanchez, “Castroism has won.” Today, Fidel must be smiling and lighting up a large El Rey del Mondo cigar in his Havana palace.

http://dailysignal.com/2014/12/18/isolated-cuba-53-years/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=saturday&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRoluqrJZKXonjHpfsX57%2BktWqWxlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4FScpnI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D

moldyoldy

Cuba has always been poor. The sanctions did not help, but mainly they just restricted the flow of money to families there from their US relatives. Otherwise, the c*******t system controlled everything that was imported. The mafia and rich Cubans owned everything before Castro. The people suffered then, and now, not much change. I know everything Obama does has to be called bad, no matter how good it is. The Castro's will die soon, and so will the rich Cubans in Florida, if we want to change Cuba we need to get a foothold there now.

Blacksheep

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Several issues with this, and there's probably more I'm not aware of.

First, the reason Russia started putting nuclear ICBMs in Cuba that were threatening the U.S. is because we'd already put a bunch of them in Turkey that were aimed at Russia, and when the Russians demanded their removal, we refused. The missiles in Cuba changed our minds, we took ours out of Turkey and the Russians took theirs out of Cuba.

That "precise moment" with Venezuela was preceded by other "precise moments" including when the Soviet Union collapsed and they stopped sending money to Castro. My point being that Castro's regime didn't fail then, either. Those people have been on the ragged edge for decade after decade and can stay that way for many decades more. After Castro and Raul are long gone, there will be others in power replacing them. It happens that there's a big oil deposit just off Cuba, and we want to pump it out. That's what this is really all about, and chances are that the Cuban people won't get a cent of the revenues, either. I doubt very much that a single thing will change.

PoppaGringo Loc: Muslim City, Mexifornia, B.R.

It isn't the USA that is, or will be extracting the oil, it is, I believe, the Russians.

moldyoldy

Actually China has been doing oil exploration in the area.

Blacksheep

Maybe not. Sherritt, a Canadian company, has been pumping Cuba's oil out for years. The Russians signed agreements with Cuba in July to explore offshore deposits but have yet been unable to hit oil. Meanwhile, Venezuela's been supporting Cuba economically as well as sending them cheap oil, and that's all come to a halt with the steep drop in oil prices.

Which is why Cuba reached out to us instead of us reaching out to them, something the news doesn't seem to want to tell us.

Recap: No more money or cheap oil from Venezuela.
No oil found offshore by the Russians.
Cuban oil prices down with the rest of them.
Cuban economy suddenly worse off than ever.
Cuba appeals to the U.S. to stop sanctions. Obama lifts some of them.

Anyone who tries to tell me that we aren't getting in on the offshore oil search as reward for lifting sanctions, will be met with my disbelief.

Caboose Loc: South Carolina

Obama is really sucking up to his c*******t trash.

PoppaGringo Loc: Muslim City, Mexifornia, B.R.

Thank you for the correction. I knew it wasn't the USA, but had forgotten who was doing the exploration for oil in the Gulf between Cuba and the U.S.

Blacksheep

Russia. Not China. Russia. Russia signed a contract with Cuba for oil exploration in Cuban territorial waters last July. That's the area between Cuba and the U.S.

moldyoldy

After being rebuffed by U.S. Congress in a previous bid, China National Offshore Oil Corp., or CNOOC, is trying to drill for oil in U.S. waters in the Gulf of Mexico. The Los Angeles Times reports:


China’s push to enter U.S. turf comes four years after CNOOC’s $18.5-billion bid to buy Unocal Corp. was scuttled by Congress on national security grounds. The El Segundo oil firm eventually merged with Chevron Corp. of San Ramon.

Whether CNOOC’s second attempt to lock up U.S. petroleum assets will trigger a similar political backlash remains to be seen. The sour U.S. economy and the need for Washington and Beijing to cooperate on potentially larger issues could mute any outcry.

The U.S. could also find it difficult to rebuff China when it has long welcomed other foreign investment in the gulf. In addition to StatoilHydro, foreign oil companies with stakes in deep-water projects there include Spain’s Repsol, France’s Total, Brazil’s Petrobras, British oil giant BP and the Dutch-British multinational Shell.

The U.S. risks undercutting its foreign policy goals as well. Concern is growing over China’s aggressive investment in oil-rich nations with anti-U.S. regimes, including Iran and Sudan. Denying China a shot at drilling in U.S. waters would only encourage Beijing to make deals in volatile regions given that new oil reserves in stable, democratic nations are getting harder to find.

moldyoldy

(Reuters) - PetroChina's move to take a big position in Caribbean oil storage should give the state oil company immediate muscle in the region's residual fuel trade and open up longer-term options for crude trading.

PetroChina's assumption this week of Saudi Aramco's lease on 5 million barrels of oil storage capacity at the strategically located Statia terminal in the Caribbean signaled its intent to build a global oil trading network.

moldyoldy

(Reuters) - PetroChina's move to take a big position in Caribbean oil storage should give the state oil company immediate muscle in the region's residual fuel trade and open up longer-term options for crude trading.

PetroChina's assumption this week of Saudi Aramco's lease on 5 million barrels of oil storage capacity at the strategically located Statia terminal in the Caribbean signaled its intent to build a global oil trading network.

Blacksheep

In other words, China is stockpiling cheap oil now while the price is down. No intent is "signaled" to build anything, that's media hot air. We all know that oil may drop to $40 a barrel from a high of $109, I think it was, and the Chinese are buying storage space to pump it into from area producers. From there it will be tankered to China. If anything is "traded" in a "network" it will be Chinese Yuan for barrels of oil and the "network" will be anyone willing to sell. The oil will all go to China.

moldyoldy

Because this was a couple of years ago, I think they had plans for the keystone oil.

Blacksheep

So why bring it up now when it's irrelevant? :roll: :roll: :roll: