United Liberty

Glenn Beck reveals, in a television special, the real story behind Che Guevera.

A poll conducted by the International Republican Institute shows that Cubans don’t trust their government and would overwhelming support economic reforms, including exercising their natural right to private property (emphasis mine):

A year-and-a-half after Gen. Raúl Castro assumed the presidency of Cuba, more than four in five citizens on the island (82 percent) do not believe things are going well, according to a recent survey sponsored by the International Republican Institute (IRI). The survey, which was fielded on the island last summer, showed a vast majority of Cubans would vote for fundamental political change (75 percent) and economic change (86 percent) if given the opportunity.

“The data reveals Cubans’ strong dissatisfaction towards its leadership and their indisputable preferences for political and economic change,” said Lorne Craner, President of IRI.

Other significant findings from the IRI survey:

Given all the priorities he is compelled to adhere to, common sense dictates that the last one on Barack Obama’s mind would be launching a full-scale invasion of Cuba. Nevertheless, the Cuban leadership is sending a different message:

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba began its biggest military maneuvers in five years on Thursday, saying they were needed to prepare for a possible invasion by the United States.

Despite a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations and assurances last week by President Barack Obama that the United States has no intention of invading the island 90 miles from Florida, Cuba’s state-run press quoted military leaders as saying there “exists a real possibility of a military aggression against Cuba.”

The war games, which are being called “Bastion 2009,” also will get the military ready to deal with social unrest the United States may try to foment in this time of economic crisis in Cuba, ahead of an invasion, they said.

The claims of formenting “social unrest” are critical here. Cuba is likely in a precarious leadership spot. With the elder Castro no longer in power and the entire world facing a collective economic recession, the country may be more ripe for change that any time since the 1950s. The Cuban government is playing the paranoid card that the world’s despotic regimes play in order to place fear and hatred into the minds of its starving citizens. It’s a move right out of 1984.

In the wake of a recession, Cuba is getting away from its collectivist economic beliefs and looking at some free-market reforms (emphasis mine):

As the Cuban government struggles through a deep recession, its leaders have begun picking away at socialism in order to save it. But experts say the latest buzz by the Cuban government is simply another desperate fix to stem the slide of a failed economy that buckled long ago.

Even one of Havana’s leading economists recently said Cuba’s economy needed to be turned upside down — “feet up.” So taxi drivers got private licenses, farmers now have their own plots of land and government workers have to pack their own lunches.

“I think what they are trying to do is prepare the people for a hard landing,” said Cuba expert Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado of the University of Nebraska. “The government is really saying in so many words: We’ve got limited resources and can only do so much. I think they are stuck.”

Since he took office early last year, Raúl Castro has been saying that the country’s severely battered economy needs fixing. In a widely quoted August speech, Castro said Cuba was spending more than it made.

“Nobody, no individual nor country, can indefinitely spend more than she or he earns. Two plus two always adds up to four, never five,” he said. “Within the conditions of our imperfect socialism, due to our own shortcomings, two plus two often adds up to three.”

Amazing how a communist leader can grasp that basic principle, but our leaders, both Republicans and Democrats, cannot.

Barack Obama will continue our misguided policy towards Cuba:

President Barack Obama has extended the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba for one year, the White House said in a statement released on Monday.

The extension was expected and has been the practice of all U.S. presidents dating to the 1970s under a section of the so-called “Trading With the Enemy Act.”

[…]

In signing the extension, Obama was taking a symbolic step because existing law, the Helms-Burton Act, requires Congress to take action specifically ending the embargo.

But Obama also bypassed an opportunity to suggest a willingness for easing U.S.-Cuban animosity.

While I understand that Obama has relaxed some travel restrictions, keeping the trade embargo in place is unacceptable. It’s time to normalize relations with Cuba and to stop allowing ourselves to be the Castro brothers scapegoat.

Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA) recently told a group of supporters that the reason people oppose Barack Obama is because he “looks like [her]” (Watson is an Africian American). It can’t be because he promotes statist economic policies.

Watson also had some nice things to say about health care in Cuba and Fidel Castro. I guess she visited the hospitals that the government directed her to, not the hospitals for average Cubans:

Cuba is running out of toliet paper:

Cuba, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, is running short of toilet paper and may not get sufficient supplies until the end of the year, officials with state-run companies said on Friday.

Officials said they were lowering the prices of 24 basic goods to help Cubans get through the difficulties provoked in part by the global financial crisis and three destructive hurricanes that struck the island last year.

Cuba’s financial reserves have been depleted by increased spending for imports and reduced export income, which has forced the communist-led government to take extraordinary measures to keep the economy afloat.

H/T: Club for Growth

There is a lot of rhetoric being bantered about by political partisans from all parties over what to do about detainees at our naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Republicans are outraged that President Barack Obama would dare think about allowing any of them to come to the United States. Let’s face it, right now, the fear is the only card Republicans have against Democrats, who have felt the heat andrejected funding to close the facilities at Gitmo.

Let me tell you something, there are already terrorists imprisoned in the United States who have committed or were planning to commit acts of terrorism, including several al-Qaeda members, both before and after 9/11.

The rhetoric from the right is dishonest and it plays on the short-term memory of the electorate who may not remember what happened to Ramzi Yousef or Richard Reid or any other terrorist responsible for killing or plotting to kill Americans.

Below are the names of more than 20 terrorists currently imprisoned at ADX Florence, a supermax prison in Colorado:

Several senators are stepping up to re-examine the trade embargo with Cuba:

At a Capitol Hill news conference scheduled for tomorrow, a wide array of senators and interest groups — including Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Byron L. Dorgan (N.D.); Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.); Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Human Rights Watch — will rally around a potentially historic bill to lift the travel ban.

This seems like a complicated situation. There would be alot of benefits to having Cuba opened up to American dollars and business, and the embargo is a failure in crippling the communist regime, which has had a stranglehold on its people for fifty years.