Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.): Lifting the travel ban would prop up Castro regime

[Mika]

From Floriduh,

Lifting the travel ban would prop up Castro regime
http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/111739-lifting-the-travel-ban-would-prop-up-castro-regime

The Castro regime is in dire financial trouble. The state-run economy is in crisis, foreign trade declined by a third this past year, the tourism industry is declining and the government is several billion dollars in debt to foreign lenders. Meanwhile, Venezuela — where despot Hugo Chavez is usually happy to help out Fidel and Raul Castro — is unable to provide much assistance due to the failings of its own communist rule.

Emboldened by these developments, Cuba’s dissidents have grown increasingly active, sensing change is finally imminent.

The Castros, not ones to go down easily, have responded by desperately seeking new sources of revenue to keep their floundering regime alive. They are hoping to land the big prize — an easing of sanctions by the United States. This would provide the hard currency they need to continue their evil, authoritarian rule.

Unfortunately, on June 30 the House Agriculture Committee played right into the Castros’ hands, approving a bill that would lift the travel ban on Cuba and bolster the Castro regime with American tourism dollars.

Why would we lift the travel ban now and let our tourism dollars prop up the Castro regime? Lifting the ban while this regime is on the ropes would just be another bailout — only this time, we’d be bailing out a brutal dictatorship on the brink of collapsing. Every dollar spent by American tourists in Cuba would help the regime’s bottom line, providing the Castros with the resources they need to maintain their army, secret police and political prisons.

According to the State Department, Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism with close ties to Iran and North Korea. The country also provides a safe haven for terrorists from around the world. Lifting the travel ban would funnel American tourism dollars to finance state-sponsored terror and help provide refuge to terrorists, jeopardizing our national security. As a congressman from Florida, I cannot in good conscience support any bill that lets American dollars provide refuge for terrorists 90 miles from the shores of our state.

Shockingly, this bill requires no human-rights concessions from Cuba. The proposal rewards the Castros for decades of human-rights abuses, and it opens relations with a regime that routinely imprisons citizens and journalists who disagree with their government. This bill is a symbolic abandonment of our commitment to the brave pro-democracy movement in Cuba.

According to democracy advocate Freedom House, Cuba holds at least 167 political prisoners. Just a few months ago, political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after a hunger strike. And today, American citizen Alan Gross is being held prisoner without charges for his efforts to help the small Jewish community in Cuba use cell phones and laptops.

Supporters of this bill claim allowing American tourists into Cuba would weaken the regime. History does not support this claim. European, Canadian and Latin American visitors have been visiting the island regularly since the 1990s. While these visits have brought money to support the government, they have done nothing to undermine Castro or improve the lives of Cuban people. In fact, not only has the influx of European and Canadian tourists failed to bring greater freedom to Cuba, the tourism industry has instead become a tool for the Castro regime to expand its control over the Cuban people.

The Castros have used their control over the tourism industry to create a national system of apartheid and segregation. They forbid Cuban citizens from entering the hotels, resorts, beaches, restaurants and stores where foreign tourists visit. The government sharply limits the interactions tourists can have with the Cuban people. The State Department warns against interacting with Cuban citizens, because any interaction could be monitored by the secret police and can subject that citizen to harassment, detention or other repressive actions. The Castro-run tourism industry abuses the most innocent and defenseless of its population by openly promoting child prostitution.

There is no evidence to suggest liberalizing our travel policies with Cuba would fare any better than the efforts made by Europe or Canada.

Ultimately, we have a choice. We can strengthen the pressure on the Castro regime and help bring about a post-Castro government prepared to leave communism behind. Or we can lift sanctions, give the Communist party the means to persist and legitimize their horrible treatment of the Cuban people over the last 50 years.

I support sending a clear message to the next generation of Cuban leaders after the Castros: They can maintain a defeated evil regime, or be welcomed as a free nation with the United States as partner.

Rep. Rooney serves on the House Agriculture and Armed Services Committees.

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[Judi Lynn]

1. Ha, ha ha. What this beanbag has said about Cuba is just going to kill them.

When they hear what Rep. Tom Rooney thinks, it will send them all to an early grave from grief.

http://www.out2martincounty.com.nyud.net:8090/images/Cong%20rooney%20photo%2003.09%20resize%202.jpg

After all, he's a total genius. You can just see it in his face!
People really DO give such a ##### what this fine Republican "thinks."'

http://www.traveladventures.org.nyud.net:8090/continents/asia/images/tibetan-pilgrims03mini.jpg

They've been pining away, love sick, waiting for him to visit Cuba.
They are practising prostrating themselves for when he arrives.

[Mika]

2. Gotta love his clear message to Cuba.

They can maintain a defeated evil regime....

I'm sure Cubans just love language like that describing their successful system.

....or be welcomed as a free nation with the United States as partner.

Who could resist such a generous offer. ;)

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[Judi Lynn]

3. Oh, COOL! A partner with the U.S. like New Honduras!

Those Honduran troops look ready for anything, Mika.

What a record they've set for themselves, torturing, beating, kicking, murdering Honduran citizens, saving the Honduran government the trouble of having to think up charges to take them to jail, and the expense of taking them all to another country the way they did the elected President.

And of course we know they are led now by the resurrected death squad leader, S.O.A.-trained killer Billy Joya.

McCain, with his Honduran sweatshop connections and investments, and coup-loving Hillary should be so proud.

Wonderful picture choice, you should be commended.

[Mika]

6. Obviously, there was a "transition plan" for Honduras on the shelf.

Not as publicized as the Transition Plan for Cuba primarily because the Honduran influence is much less that the Cuban influence over American politics. Much the same, I'm sure.

=

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[Judi Lynn]

8. That kick-off murder was their celebration of the hell to come for citizens who didn't like the coup

What a strange coincidence the young man in the crowd coup-serving military opened fire upon just happened to be the son of a prominent anti-coup activist, a teacher whom they already had targeted prior to this day the people of Honduras gathered at the airport to await for the airplane carrying their elected President Zelaya as it attempted to land.

Very odd coincidence, isn't it?

[Billy Burnett]

4. US Gov/ IRI message to Cuba ...

The Breckenridge Memorandum

We must clean up the country, even if this means using the methods Divine Providence used on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

We must destroy everything within our cannons’ range of fire. We must impose a harsh blockade so that hunger and its constant companion, disease, undermine the peaceful population and decimate the Cuban army. The allied army must be constantly engaged in reconnaissance and vanguard actions so that the Cuban army is irreparably caught between two fronts and is forced to undertake dangerous and desperate measures.

-
To sum up, our policy must always be to support the weaker against the stronger, until we have obtained the extermination of them both, in order to annex Cuba - the Pearl of the Antilles.

J.C. Breckenridge, U.S. Undersecretary of War in 1897

[flamingdem]

5. Who is this douchebag?

Please excuse my language but first I've heard of him.

[naaman fletcher]

7. The whole premise

That our trade policy with Cuba ought to be based on influencing the political regieme in Cuba is stupid. It might have made sense during the cold war, but hell that was 20 years ago.

[Judi Lynn]

9. I need to mention just for venting it's a shame to see the same people who bargle 'til they drop

over their savage hatred for the Cubans who fought for their country against a torturing, mutilating, murdering US supported monster like Batista are also the same people who don't see a thing wrong with the genocide, the torture, the land theft from Colombian campesinos, the absolute evil in Colombia, and this filthy whore serving the coup in Honduras, also utilizing newly restored death squads, and hired maggots from the Colombian paramilitaries.