Howard: Obama too quick to embrace Cuba

President Barack Obama could be the embodiment of naivete. In his diplomatic dealings with… President Barack Obama could be the embodiment of naivete. In his diplomatic dealings with other countries, he has shown a complete lack of understanding in terms of dealing with both allied nations and opposition states, and he has been all-too-willing to flaunt tradition and good judgement in an effort to appear progressive and diplomatic.

In his previous foreign adventures, Obama certainly displayed artlessness when he gave Prime Minister Gordon Brown a set of DVDs and the Queen of England an iPod. He then uncritically swallowed Turkey’s shameful lie that more than 1 million Armenians died in that nation as unavoidable casualties in a time of war, and not in a systematic ethnic genocide.

And now, making it clear that he represents all that we understand to be naivete, Obama has credulously accepted the Cuban dictatorship as an honest diplomatic partner.

The New York Times reported Saturday that the Obama administration was preparing to abandon some of the long-standing restrictions on Cuba in ‘a possible warming of relations with the Castro government.’

Then on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that six members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Cuban president Raul Castro for some four hours on Monday. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., said that the president and the congressional delegation chatted ‘like old family members.’

But where Obama sees a government he can work with and members of the Congressional Black Caucus see someone they can relate to like an old family member, history records a brutal communist dictatorship that murdered thousands of its own people, confiscated billions of dollars in private property and interned homosexuals and political prisoners in concentration camps.

Such a dictatorship that counts the governments of Russia, China and Venezuela as its close allies cannot be trusted, nor should its existence be dignified with U.S. diplomatic recognition.

Rush and his compatriots, who studiously avoided meeting with opposition leaders and spoke proudly of their cordial reception by one of the world’s most brutal governments, do nothing to contribute to the eventual liberation of Cuba and instead aid and abet the rule of communist thugs.

Indeed, the Castro brothers seized on the recent congressional visit as a propaganda coup, with Fidel Castro writing, ‘They are witnesses to the respect with which Americans who visit our homeland are always received.’

But what Obama and the Congressional Black Caucus don’t understand is that respect is a totally foreign concept to the Cuban dictatorship.

How can a government confiscate the property of both Cuban and American citizens and still claim to respect people? How can a government intern homosexuals and political dissidents in concentration camps and still claim to respect people?

And more importantly, how can the Obama administration expect such a government to respect treaties, Americans or basic human rights?

While I do not support the existing travel ban and do not believe that the U.S. government has the constitutional right to restrict the movement of its citizens, I am concerned that Obama’s move to ease the travel ban is a pretense to rapprochement with the Cuban dictatorship.

The U.S. government should be working toward a free Cuba, rather than a Cuba that Americans are free to visit at will.

And although the embargo has not been successful in toppling Cuban despotism, it has served as a message to the world that the United States strongly condemns the actions and existence of the Castro government.

Abandoning the embargo would send the wrong signal to Cuba and the wrong signal to Cuban exiles who have pinned their hopes on this nation and its commitment to liberty.

Regrettably, the president that many of us voted for because we perceived him as an idealist committed to liberty both abroad and at home has proven to be a man committed to neither. The principled foreign policy he promised to enact has failed to materialize.

The easy way in which he and his congressional allies approach opening relations with a dictator is disgusting. It constitutes a transgression against the values that our republic is founded on and functions as a clear message to thugs and despots the world over: Oppress your people, confiscate private property and ally yourself with our enemies. If you wait 50 years, maybe we’ll forgive you.

E-mail Giles at gbh4@pitt.edu.