The Cuban Delusion: Facts and Obama's Fancy Fallacy.

by Robert Janicki

President Obama has, for some reason only known to himself, decided that now is a good time to reevaluate America's embargo sanctions on Cuba as if he has a better perspective on these sanction then have all the preceding American presidents in the past 50 plus years.  It's as if lifting these sanctions will somehow mystically and magically bring the communist dictatorship in Cuba to see the error of its ways and open up Cuba to a new and democratic nation.  It won't happen and Raul Castro, operational Thug in Chief and speaking for Thug in Chief Emeritus, older brother Fidel, has said there is no way Cuba will discard communism as it political basis.

I agree with Raul and kind of think that 50 years of communism under the Brothers Castro speaks volumes as to whether Cuba will ever move toward a democratic form of government while a Castro or an acolyte is in power.  It's a dictatorship and dictators only relent when faced with death.  Any other economic deterrent or incentive Obama could imagine is simply a delusion.  You cannot make nice with a communist dictatorship, period and that's an historical fact.

But, won't economic trade with Cuba force the Castro dictatorship to open up its society?  Absolutely not and here is why.

Obama claims that American trade will open up Cuba.  What makes Obama believe that something is unique about American trade?  Cuba has been trading, albeit in a very limited means, with over 100 nations around the world and communist Cuba has not changed one iota.  What, exactly, does Obama believe that Cuba has to offer America in trade?  Other than sugar, I can't think of anything that Cuba has that America wants or needs and sugar is readily available on the world market, not to mention that Cuban cane sugar competes with American beet sugar, which will not endear Obama with American beet producers.

There are foreign investments in Cuba that have gone nowhere in 50 plus years of communist Cuba's existence.  What makes Obama believe American businesses will rush to invest in Cuba?

Here's the unspoken reality about trade with Cuba.  Every foreign trade venture in Cuba is run through and by the Cuban government.  Foreign dollars (US$) come in and support the Cuban government desperate for American dollars, since the Cuban peso is valueless or to the extent that the Cuban government sets a fictitious trading value of their peso.  Cuban workers are paid by the government in pesos.  Guess who keeps the US dollars brought in with foreign trade?  You guessed it, the brothers Castro, Cuba's first family of institutionalized criminality.  It's reported that there are around 8,000 political prisoners in Cuba and another 50,000 Cuban 'dissidents' toiling away in "reeducation" camps throughout the Cuban Caribbean paradise.

Every time Obama has tried to make nice with authoritarian dictatorships around the world, his policies have failed miserably.  There is no known reason to believe that a similar rapprochement with Cuba will be anything but another failure.  Saying it will be different for some reason will not make it so.  The economic facts are what they are and they tell us that on an economic basis it will be failure.  One only has to look at a similar situation with Vietnam, which has failed to open up any democratic trappings in their government and economy since trade was established with America. 

The only tangible result from Obama's actions to date has been to alienate the Cuban American population, which I suspect Obama has already written off as Republican supporters and thus of no concern or consequence in his political calculation to lift sanctions on Cuba.  Meanwhile, Obama tries by dint of his own personality and salesmanship to project an aura of action as an example of his hope and change delusion.  

We all know where that's gotten America.