Friday, July 14, 2006

ENCASA's Top Ten Absurdities in the Cuba Report

Taken from Oscar Corral's Cuba blog:
http://blogs.herald.com/cuban_connection/

ENCASA: Washington's New Cuba Report Full of "Absurdities"

ENCASA, the group of Cuban-American academics and artists that formed recently to criticize the U.S. embargo of Cuba, fired off a top 10 list of reasons why they believe the Cuba commission report released in Washington this week is a loser:

"Rather than attempt here a detailed, reasoned analysis of a report that is based on anything but reason or analysis (although we have prepared just such an analysis in a separate document), we have chosen to make use of the finest traditions of Cuban and American irreverence to respond to this second edition of the CAFC (Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba) report in the manner that it deserves."

"Top Ten Signs that the CAFC Report is Bad":

10. It is an exercise in political opportunism. How coincidental is it that the Bush administration rediscovers Cuba on even years (2004, 2006) just before tough elections?

9. It is contemptuous of international law and world opinion.

8. It is a failed welfare program for the professional anti-Castro set. Much of this money is sure to end up in the bank accounts of people who have made a lucrative career out of fighting Fidel Castro from the safety of the United States.

7. It is a combination of political science fiction, wishful thinking, delusions and sour grapes. The tone of much of the report is almost surreal and delusional in its talk about a hypothetical Cuban “transition” government and its detailed description of the policies such a government might undertake and the U.S. government actions that would result.

6. It is a model of cynicism and cruelty disguised as concern. The report is replete with crocodile tears and expressions of concern over the humanitarian needs of the Cuban people and promises of help--but only after a transition is under way. What about the problems faced by Cubans today?

5. It infringes on the freedom of American citizens. What ever happened to the U.S. government’s pious pronouncements of the “free exchange of ideas”?

4. It is not about the desires and dreams of Cubans abroad. Is the Commission speaking in a code in which reconciliation means confrontation, isolation, and economic strangulation?

3. It is not transparent. One can only imagine what items of dubious legality and sheer lunacy may be contained in this classified portion of the report.

2. It is not about sovereignty. The report’s emphasis on “restoring sovereignty to the Cuban people” is one of its most Orwellian aspects. A state that respects the sovereignty of another nation and its people does not produce a detailed script for the political future of that nation and that people.

1. It is about regime change, stupid. Make no mistake about it; this is a blueprint for accelerated regime change. Evidently, the Bush Administration has not been sobered by the disastrous result—for Americans for sure but especially for the Iraqi people and its devastated nation—of its recent adventure in U.S.-imposed regime change. Nor has it learned how far astray certain kind of exiles, with their own agendas and delusions and totally disconnected with the people back home, can lead this country.

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