Bush to Warn Cuba on Plan for Transition

[cal04]

Source: NYTimes

President Bush is planning to issue a stern warning Wednesday that the United States will not accept a political transition in Cuba in which power changes from one Castro brother to another, rather than to the Cuban people.

As described by an official in a background briefing to reporters on Tuesday evening, Mr. Bush’s remarks will amount to the most detailed response — mainly an unbending one — to the political changes that began in Cuba more than a year ago, when Fidel Castro fell ill and handed power to his brother Raúl.

The speech, scheduled to be given at the State Department before invited Cuban dissidents, will introduce the relatives of four Cuban prisoners being held for political crimes. The relatives, who fled Cuba years ago for the United States, will attend the gathering. A senior administration official said the president wanted to “put a human face,” on Cuba’s “assault on freedom.”

In effect, the speech will be a call for Cubans to continue to resist, a particularly strong line coming from an American president. He is expected to say to the Cuban military and police, “There is a place for you in a new Cuba.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/washington/24cuba.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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Castro claims Bush could spark WWIII
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071024/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cuba_castro

[Bonobo]

1. I want to make the same thing clear about Dubya's brother too! I will NOT accept it!

[PATRICK]

24. El Presidente Jeb

welcomes new President of Cuba, his son and dual citizen....

You will see that day before Bush utters anything that is not hypocritical or absurd.

[Yael]

2. When do we stand up to China?

Oh wait...

[Botany]

3. Senor Bush

Let me tell you about my little friend

[Robbien]

4. Most of all the Cubans who hate Castro are living in Miami

How the heck does Bush plan to spread this democracy of his? Bomb the place back to the stone ages and have a mock court sentence to death the Castro family?

Our invasion force will be greeted with parades of flower petals I am sure.

[madrchsod]

5. are we going to invade cuba ?

the last time did`t work very well,we had to buy them back from fidel. fidel is going to make it a point not to die before bush leaves office

[Old and In the Way]

6. It's not your country, George.

You've already wasted one country, threatening a 2nd, and ruining this country in the process....enough is fucking enough.

[gratuitous]

13. Yeah, no kidding

I really like to see Bush's mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging fans (to whom he's pandering with this nonsense) and their hyperventilating overreaction when someone like Ahmadinejad says something very similar about the United States and its prospective transition. Totally without irony or self-awareness.

[classysassy]

33. My planet

its all mine,so sez da monkey.

[PDJane]

7. Jail the Megalomaniac.

Bush, I mean. Don't just impeach him. Jail him. Send him to the Hague. Send Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Kissinger with him.

[NoGodsNoMasters]

14. Ditto.

We are in total agreement. THAT would be justice.

[Mika]

8. How about a transition plan for America?

This country could use one.

[razors edge]

9. Give Bush a break,

He is speaking from experience about the problem.

[gulfcoastliberal]

10. Uh-oh: whole lotta fuhreedum

cut

The administration official said Mr. Bush was expected to tell Cuban viewers that “soon they will have to make a choice between freedom and the force used by a dying regime.”

cut

The administration official said Mr. Bush was expected to tell Cuban viewers that “soon they will have to make a choice between freedom and the force used by a dying regime.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/washington/24cuba.html?hp

It should really be called the "Shock Doctrine Fund".

[Robbien]

12. A choice between freedom and force? I expect Bush doesn't see

the irony of that. Not many Cubans will be believing that bombs dropping on their heads and an invasion force entering their country is the "freedom" part of that question.

[Purveyor]

11. Ring, ring Vlad Putin. Time to install some 'missile defense systems' in Cuba...perhaps? eom

[NoGodsNoMasters]

15. I'm really tired of this shit...

It's been going on since the Kennedy years and it really needs to end now. The thing that angers me most is that the Bush administration has the audacity to claim it is motivated by a desire for democracy. Washington has NEVER cared about the wants of the Cuban people. Our embargo costs them much needed goods for economic, social, and even physical health. The federal government spends more time tracking the finances of this little island than Al-Qaeda. This has nothing to do with liberty for people and everything to do with liberty of markets. The united States must do everything in it's power to undermine and destroy alternative economic systems, that is why they destroy the Mossadeghs, the Arbenzes, the Allendes, the Lumumbas, the Sandinistas, etc. It's for the very same reason Ford and GM recalled and DESTROYED the electric automobiles they had been forced to build by public mandate (They were really cool.) even the IDEA that another way is possible must be ANNIHILATED IN TOTAL, for this germ of an idea could spread and become a plague of Keynesian or Socialist economies. Cuba has never harmed the United States in any way, and even respectable news agencies like U.S. News and World Report, print half-truths or outright fabrications to support the US = Good, Cuba = evil scenario. This is propagandizing at it's worst. What I fear is a CIA-led political coup, like they tried to do in Venezuela, and has the previous far-right types have done in Guatemala, Chile, etc. I do not love Fidel Castro by any stretch, but i fear that Washington will take advantage, and Cuba will be cleaved in half, between casinos and resorts, and just over the hills, out of the line of sight of vacationing CEO's, sweatshops and shantytowns, just as the Freidmanite "washington Consensus" has done in Latin America.

[Mika]

20. Good post.

:thumbsup:

Although I doubt the CIA/coup scenario that you describe. Cubans know all too well the designs and goals of the US government and the US gov/exile "transition" plans. If you think that the people's rejection of the recent coup attempt in Venezuela was huge, I suggest that an attempt at the same type of event in Cuba would result in a massive rejection by the poeple. Cubans won't give up the infrastructure and systems they have worked long and hard to build. They are well aware of The Shock Doctrine aims of the disaster capitalists.


-

[saigon68]

32. K & R

[The Sushi Bandit]

16. FUSK BUSH

NUFF SAID!

[TomClash]

17. Paging JudiLynn, paging JudiLynn

:) :)

[bluedog]

18. who the f' is he to "warn" any country

in managing their own affairs? This piece of swine should be forced to stfu!

[allisonthegreat]

22. so true...n/t

[Carni]

19. An entire state is on fire while the asshole....

Plans yet another nation building exercise.

Where in the fuck am I living?

This country cannot withstand another year and 2.5 months of this deranged man.

Congress had better freaking wake up.

[killbotfactory]

21. The Bush administration is run by fucking terrorists

This is absurd.

[Vinca]

23. Is Shrub entirely incapable of minding his own business????

This country is going to hell in a handbasket and he's fretting about the Castro brothers. Maybe if we extended a hand of friendship instead of continual threats, we'd develop the same cozy relationship we've got with the country FKA Communist China and now known as America's banker.

[Judi Lynn]

25. Bush offers oddly timed attack on Cuba's Castro brothers

Bush offers oddly timed attack on Cuba's Castro brothers
By Ginger Thompson and Brian Knowlton
Published: October 24, 2007

~snip~
...Cuba specialists said the president's warning seemed oddly timed and his analysis outdated, part of a policy that is meant to isolate Cuba but that increasingly leaves the United States as the international odd man out.
(snip)

There were few details of how the president's proposals would work - even if Havana accepted them, which appeared unlikely. In addition to the offer of scholarships, computers and help with Internet access, Bush was to ask cabinet officials to work with other countries to constitute a "freedom fund" for Cuban reconstruction, if the country moves toward democracy.

John Kavulich, senior policy adviser at the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said those demands would likely be nonstarters. He said the technology and educational opportunities Bush intends to offer are being provided to Cuba by Venezuela and China.

Philip Peters, an expert on Cuba at the nonpartisan Lexington Institute, said Bush appeared to be trying to reorient a policy that has fallen behind the times.
(snip)

Smith said that most Americans, and increasingly even Cuban-Americans, favor normalization with Havana.

"Business organizations want to lift the embargo and begin to trade, agricultural interests want to take steps to increase exports to Cuba," Smith said. "No one except for this ever-diminishing little knot of exiles down in Miami - no one favors our policy to Cuba, which doesn't make any sense at all."
(snip/...)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/24/america/cuba.php?page=1

[Maribelle]

26. Before invited Cuban dissidents? Some of those so called dissidents are terrorists.

How the corrupt Bush family love the criminals Bosch and Posada. Courting these terrorists is truly a national disgrace.


http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/042606.html

[ngant17]

27. Cuba's socialist principles

In Cuba, its Revolution is loyal to its principles, to its martyrs and to its people.

Its Socialist Principles are the highest ideals in the form of Equality, Liberty and Fraternity.

The main container of these Principles are the working class, which has been the most exploited class in the world.

The working class has as its supreme mission the eradication of all social classes, as it is the mission to which it has been assigned.

Cuba's Revolution has passed from National Liberation to the social domain, and it will continue to be engaged in the construction of socialism, as it is convinced that this will be the future of humanity, although the specific directions of that struggle will be seen in the concrete historic traditions of each country.

Someone needs to drill the last statement into _Bush's simple-minded head. Repeat, Cuba's Revolution has passed from National Liberation to the further advancement and betterment of its own society under socialist principles. Capitalism was little more than a brief and unpleasant stage in history for the Cuban people. It is gone forever.

[Cha]

28. Fuck OFF ..you little pretender to the throne..

your daddy's friends on the very unsupreme court got you that coup..so just Shut The Fuck UP.

[Gloria]

29. The Cubans are well aware of the policy book on how to turn Cuba into

an playground for corporations, extending to education and healthcare. As a fairly regular listener to Radio Havana via shortwave, I've heard them read the damned book from cover to cover over the air. It is CHILLING! They recognize that all the work they've done to have excellent literacy rates and decent healthcare for all will be destroyed by American policy of handing over everything to corporate interests!

I wish Bush would take a hike...

[Mika]

31. Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine is a big hit on Cuban TV discussion show 'The round table'

This short film has played several times there, and exerpts of her book are being examined also.

-The Shock Doctrine-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc


It would be great if there was a prime time TV show in the US that covered such a timely and important topic. But, alas, corporations rule America now.

[Javaman]

30. Castro has survived them all, he will survive pissypants* as well. nt