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Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Obama Recognizes Cuba; Rubio Gets Upset; AND WHAT A NIGHT FOR NEWS

I have long wondered how long it would be before there was some kind of change between the official relationship between Cuba and the U.S.

I am old enough to know that the course of history is weird; it is good news/bad news all the time, and full of surprises.

The Berlin Wall comes down but the MidEast becomes a war again; suddenly there is peace in Northern Ireland but North Korea becomes a nuclear power and builds missiles capable of going who knows how far.

This may seem wishy washy but I am reserving judgment on what is happening now with Cuba. 

The way politics are in the U.S., the reaction will be purely on partisan lines I suspect.

Of course Rubio will make a big deal out of this and again repeat the slogan " another reason Obama is the worst president the U.S. has ever had."

Well, here is what the NY Times is saying:

WHAT A NIGHT FOR NEWS! CUBA, NIGERIA, RUSSIA, SYRIA...THINGS ARE BREAKING OUT ALL OVER...

I WILL MAKE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THIS AS I CAN BUT THIS IS JUST ONE OF THOSE 'BIG ' NIGHTS WHERE THE NEWS IS SORT OF OVERLOAD-STATUS





Photo

President Raul Castro addressed Cuba on Wednesday. CreditYamil Lage/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images 

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Following months of secret negotiations with the Cuban government, President Obama on Wednesday announced sweeping changes to normalize relations with Cuba, a bold move that ends one of the most misguided chapters in American foreign policy.
The administration’s decision to restore full diplomatic relations, take steps to remove Cuba from the State Department list of countries that sponsor terrorism and roll back restrictions on travel and trade is a change in direction that has been strongly supported by this page. The Obama administration is ushering in a transformational era for millions of Cubans who have suffered as a result of more than 50 years of hostility between the two nations.
Mr. Obama could have taken modest, gradual steps toward a thaw. Instead, he has courageously gone as far as he can, within the constraints of an outmoded 1996 law that imposes stiff sanctions on Cuba in the pursuit of regime change.



“These 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s time for a new approach.”
Cuba’s president, Raúl Castro, deserves credit for his pragmatism. While Cuba remains a repressive police state with a failed economy, under his leadership since 2008, the country has begun a process of economic reforms that have empowered ordinary Cubans and lifted travel restrictions the government cruelly imposed on its citizens.
“We must learn the art of coexisting with our differences in a civilized manner,” Mr. Castro said on Wednesday.
TO READ MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/opinion/a-new-beginning-with-cuba.html?_r=0





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