Tag Archives: Cuba

Blockade of Iran, Iraq, MENA, Regime Change, Sanctions, Turkey, U.S. Foreign Policy, War

The World’s First Sanctions Nation: Starvation vs. Bombs……..

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“The U.S. has prepared a list of Turkish entities and individuals to target should it decide to impose sanctions on Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government for imprisoning U.S. citizens and employees of its diplomatic mission, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The lira slid. While negotiations to release one of the people, evangelical Pastor Andrew Brunson, are ongoing, the preparation of the so-called “designation packages” shows how close the U.S. has come to imposing unprecedented penalties against a NATO ally……..”

Turkey is just the last one. It is not only Turkey, hardly that.

Sanctions have become the favorite weapon used by US administrations in the past few decades. They are now more prevalent under Trump than ever before. Other NATO nations will also face sanctions, especially those major allies doing trade and investment deals with the Iranians. Companies from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other NATO members will face American sanctions.

There is hardly a country in the world where US sanctions are not imposed, either on the whole country, on its officials, or on some of its companies and individuals. Cuba was probably among the earliest ones, and is still a target of sanctions: it was sanctioned long before the Soviet missiles showed up on the island.

Excuses for sanctions/blockades range from repression (for non-allied poorer or non-rich countries only), to support of terrorism (for non-allied poorer countries only), nuclear activity (for non-allied countries that have no nuclear weapons only), an unacceptable regime (for non-allied non-major-trade-partner countries only), to more petty political excuses or other disputes.

Truly this has become the First Sanctions Nation in World History. And it is a bi-partisan policy. But I suppose it is better to squeeze nations, starve them, than bomb them. But yet the bombs keep falling anyway…….

P.S: Some Middle East media, especially pro-Iranian ones,now claim/report that the Trump administration is insisting on a particular candidate to be Iraq‘s prime minister, regardless of his coalition votes. They claim the administration is threatening to “sanction” any Iraqi politician or parties who oppose this US stance.

Cheers

Mohammed haider Ghuloum

Arab Revolutions, Cuba, Human Right, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Foreign Policy

From Cuba to the Arab World: America and the Dissidents…….

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Reports tell us that American diplomats in Cuba met with Cuban dissidents yesterday. They shared a meal together and talked. That is in Communist undemocratic repressive Cuba. The Cuba that restricts its people from coming to the USA even more than the USA restricts its people from going to Cuba.

Now to U.S. allies, non-communist anti-democratic allies:
A few months ago an American undersecretary of state was kicked out of Bahrain because he talked with some opposition leaders. Three years earlier another American diplomat was hounded out of Bahrain because he talked about human rights.
Can an American delegation meet and talk with local dissidents of whom there are many (in and out of prison) in Saudi Arabia? Or in the United Arab Emirates? Or even in Egypt? Would they dare?

Of course it is possible that because Cuba is in the Western Hemisphere, geographically and culturally, we should expect more of her. Which is like saying that Arabs (and Muslims) either do not deserve or don’t want democracy and freedom of expression. Which may not be as bigoted as it sounds. I know that, based on painful experience, most Arabs (outside Lebanon) are wary of the freedom of expression: mostly it gets you prison, torture, premature death, exile, or a combination of the above.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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China, Cuba, U.S. Senate, US Foreign Policy

The GOP Senators and Free China vs. Communist Cuba……..

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Sunday morning saw Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on one TV network interview blasting the new Obama policy towards Cuba. One of his main objections, one of them, was that Cuba is not ‘free’ and not democratic but communist.
The senator almost certainly was watching himself on a television set made in China at the time. After that he probably made some phone calls in an American iPhone or Android phone assembled in China. He probably went home and had cold drink, kept cool in a fridge made in China. All courtesy of dividends he received from American corporations that are in partnership with the rulers and the oligarchy of China. That is democratic non-communist China………

I forgot other democratic countries the senator and others do not object to the USA having close relations with. Like Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Burma, Zimbabwe, and many others. All free and democratic……
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Cuba, Russia, U.S. Foreign Policy

Cold War Relics: from Ukraine to Cuba………

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Pundits and columnists in the West have been recently mentioning that Vladimir Putin seems to be going back to a Cold War stance (speaking especially of the Ukraine crisis). That Putin is following aggressive Soviet-like policies toward his neighbors that are similar to those of the Cold War days that ended around 1991. Mr. Putin has been in power for about 13 years. His new image of the aggressive cold warrior is more recent, a function of his recent strong objections to European Union attempts at expansion into what Russians consider their traditional sphere of influence.

Which made me think quickly of that other, more enduring even more ridiculous relic of the old Cold War.  The foreign policy relic that never went away, that will likely remain in place as long as the “Cuban vote” is important for winning Florida. The unilateral and senseless U.S. economic blockade of Cuba that has been around for more than half a century, longer than the original Cold War. It will almost certainly survive Fidel Castro, it might even survive the last of the Castro brothers.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

CIA, Cuba, Espionage

Bay of Piglets: a New Gentler Softer Attempt in Cuba………

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“An Obama administration program sent a dozen Latin American youths to Cuba with the secret purpose of sparking political change. Starting in October 2009, the U.S. Agency for International Development sent young Latin Americans from Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Peru to Cuba under the guise of health-care programming. They entered the country with the “perfect excuse” of providing HIV prevention training, but sought political actors to lead a potential revolution. The U.S. reportedly paid them as little as $5.14 an hour, and they were offered as little as 30 minutes of training on how to avoid Cuban intelligence officials. The youths sent encrypted emails that could have set off alarms and put them in obvious danger. Creative Associates, the contractor employed for the job…………..Alan Gross, who worked for the U.S. government’s U.S. Agency for International Development, has been jailed in Cuba since 2009……………..”

Bay of Piglets. We can surely call this newest attempt that. if they would lift the stupid blockade and allow the “freedom” of travel, there might be no need for all this.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Corruption, Cuba, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Senate

Bob Menendez Revisits Cuba and Woodrow Wilson, Sort Of………

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Which reminds me: did everyone see the absurd charges by Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) blaming his whoring and corruption scandals on Cuba? I have heard of the excuse: “the devil made me do it”, but a Castroite devil? Does he mean the Cuban comrades supplied the paid women? That they paid for the services to the questionable Central Americans in Miami? Some might consider this allegation ridiculous nowadays since Cuba has not been a major brothel for American politicians and tourists since 1959.

Or was he saying that Marxism made him do it? I am surprised he did not blame the usual suspects: Hezbollah or Hamas or Al-Qaeda or IRGC, names that resonate back there as well as with the media.  

Not that the voters of New Jersey are particular these days; in fact they haven’t been too particular for decades, maybe since Woodrow Wilson left the statehouse.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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