The newspaper headlines this morning, and the online news reported yesterday, were pretty dreary: a report on the president’s actions to normalize relations with Cuba and a report that Sony is cancelling its planned distribution of The Interview, in reaction to terrorist threats.
With respect the latter: well, what can you say? Or, rather, what can I say? It’s terrible, and Sony’s excuse that they don’t want to have a bad Christmas earnings from fearful Americans in Everytown, USA, staying at home because they’re afraid of a massive strike at all movie theatres, just doesn’t cut it. Clearly they’re cowed by the threats to them as an organization (which also makes it likely that they wouldn’t even release it in some digital manner, if they’re afraid of retaliation for any kind of release — maybe someone needs to pirate a copy for the common good). And that’s a bad thing.
But I think everyone is pretty much on the same page on this.
So let’s talk about Cuba. (Not that I really have much to say on this, but it’s more worthy of a conversation, rather than just a collective expression of frustration and unhappiness.) Here’s an article from the Tribune; not sure if this is behind a paywall or not: “Secret diplomacy with Cuba ends in breakthrough deal.”
Now, the ironic thing is that most of the changes, in and of themselves, are hard to argue against. China is hardly a model of diplomacy, and for all that it’s adopted free-market reforms, it still imprisons people fairly frequently for political or religous reasons, compels women to have abortions even of nearly full-term babies, and so on. Yet we still trade with them and, exept for tongue-lashings in human rights reports, don’t punish them for their misdeeds.
Heck, even in the midst of the Cold War, we still traded with Russia and had an embassy there.
And spy exchanges were routine — or, rather, we’d catch one of their spies, they’d imprison a few journalists with the claim that they were also spies, and we’d negotiate a swap, with the men crossing some bridge in Berlin in opposite directions.
Yes, it’s true that Cuba is different largely for its proximity to the United States. But our policies are largely driven by history, and the political influence of Cuban exiles.
So, the first thought experiment is this: imagine that President Romney presented a proposal to Congress to dismantle the embargo against Cuba. Do you think that the House and the Senate would have voted for it? What if Obama had presented the very same legislation?
One suspects that it wouldn’t have passed, and that Obama knows that it wouldn’t have passed, and it wouldn’t even have passed earlier in his presidency when he had the numbers on his side. Obama’s actions now, in doing everything he can to “normalize” relations with Cuba that doesn’t directly contravene this law, are not justifiable as a “this is in accordance with the will of the people and simply done in advance of anticipated approval of Congress.” This is a matter of doing everything possible to violate the spirit of a law that is, in fact, still law, and will still be law for the foreseeable future.
Here it is, from an article that generally reports on this change as a positive outcome:
In addition to reopening its embassy in Havana, the administration plans to significantly ease trade and financial restrictions, as well as limits on travel by Americans to Cuba, by using its regulatory and enforcement powers to evade limits imposed by a congressionally mandated embargo.
Now, the article doesn’t outline what “enforcement powers” this refers to, but this does imply that the administration is playing the game of, again, announcing an intentional non-enforcement of the law. Is this all even constitutional? Could an exile who had property expropriated by the Cuban government 50 years ago, and thus could make a claim that the administration’s attempt to unilaterally lift the embargo harms them because the embargo is, after all, supposed to be pressuring the Cuban government to return their property, make a case?
(Further reading turned up an article from The Hill, which says,
Meanwhile, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who herself fled Cuba, suggested that Obama’s decision to unilaterally normalize relations with Cuba could be unconstitutional.
“It is quite possible that this unilateral action by the President without Congressional consultation is in violation of the following U.S. laws: Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996, Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, and the Trading with the Enemy Act,” Ros-Lehtinen, a former Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman, said in a statement.
“The White House attempts to normalize relationships with Cuba without the approval of Congress,” she said, “may be in direct violation of Helms-Burton that specifically states that all political prisoners must be released, and free and fair elections must be held before establishing a diplomatic relationship.”)
What’s more: the Tribune reports,
Obama and Castro — who spoke by phone Tuesday, the first such exchange between leaders of the two countries since the 1959 Cuban Revolution — thanked Pope Francis and the Vatican, which they said were instrumental in promoting their dialogue, and the government of Canada, where secret talks that began in June 2013 were held.
But what did Obama achieve?
The release of Goss and a high-value Cuban spy for the U.S., in exchange for the release of three Cuban spies, who, in addition to spying, actually were convicted of murder.
That strikes me as fairly routine, in a Cold War-ish sort of way, and far more proportional than the Bergdahl exchange.
But the second part? Obama gave Castro a generous basket of goodies: primarily the opening up of all kinds of trade, travel, and banking opportunities, but also opening an embassy, a promise to “review” the designation of Cuba as state sponsor of terrorism, and a plan to ask Congress to lift the embargo.
What did Obama get from Castro? Squat.
OK, Castro promised to release 53 political prisoners and “agreed to expand Internet access and other freedoms” (vaguely stated in the Trib, and I imagine just as vague in reality). This is the hard-won concession that took years of negotiation to achieve? Give me a break!
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