Eric Margolis

WILL McCAIN WIELD THE BIG STICK?

NEW YORK - Barak Obama says he’s happy to see his primary race with Hillary Clinton continue right up to the bitter end. But there is deepening worry in this overwhelmingly Democratic Party city that the fratricidal battle between Obama and Clinton is tearing apart the party and boosting Republican hopes of victory in November.

Obama leads by almost every measure, but not decisively. Hillary Clinton appears determined to fight right up to this summer’s party convention. Many senior Democrats fear she will wreck her party’s chances rather than gracefully withdraw. As a result of the damage caused to the images of both Obama and Clinton by their bitter fight, Republican candidate Sen. John McCain is now the front-runner for president.

Republicans are praying Clinton will defeat Obama. There are rumors Republicans may even be secretly helping finance her campaign. Polls show McCain would defeat Clinton, whose very high negative rating among men more than offsets her strong support by older women and feminists. If Clinton wins nomination through back room deals by party super-delegates, many angry black American will boycott the November vote, ensuring a Republican victory.

What would McCain’s foreign policy look like? This week, he made a major policy address in Los Angeles that gives a preview.

On the most important issue, Iraq, McCain still insists he backs the five-year old war that has so far cost nearly 40,000 American dead and wounded, and untold Iraqi casualties, and created 4 million refugees as a result of ethnic cleansing of Sunnis by Shia militias which the US did nothing to stop.

Sen. McCain insists US troops must stay in Iraq until it became a `peaceful, stable, democratic state.’ Battered, strife-torn Iraq is as far as one can get from McCain’s goal.

The Iraqi Humpty Dumpty is broken and unlikely to be repaired. The US occupation has caused Iraq to split into Shia, Sunni and Kurdish mini-states. The US-installed Baghdad regime controls nothing but the Green Zone. Real power is held by the Iranian-backed Shia Islamic Supreme Council and its Badr militia which was fighting across Iraq this week with the Shia Mahdi Army.

The US created and armed Sunni militias who will one day fight their Shia foes. The Kurdish region is independent in all but name and is flirting with Israel. . There is no real Iraq. It has ceased to exist.

Iran now dominates 60% of Iraq, and its power there continues to grow. Meanwhile, the war is costing cash-strapped Washington at least $3 billion weekly at a time when it owes China $1.3 trillion in loans. McCain says he’s not strong in economics. He clearly has no understanding of how much this war is costing. Latest estimates put the bill at nearly $1 trillion by next year. This is all borrowed money. The administration has refused to finance the war by normal budgetary means, instead choosing emergency allocations.

McCain is proposing a continuation of the Bush/Cheney mess in Iraq. The big question is, will the Bush White House stage a serious military incident with Syria, Lebanon or Iran soon before November elections to mobilize votes for the Republicans. There is increasing talk in the Mideast of an Israeli attack on Syria and Lebanon, designed to punish Hezbullah for its success in last year’s mini-war and to boost Republican fortunes in the United States.

Senator McCain did make a very welcome call to end Bush/Cheney’s unilateralism and begin working with allies and international organizations. But then he snarled at `revanchist’ Russia, warned of Moscow’s aggressive designs, and called for its eviction from the G8 group of nations. His bellicosity is ominous. McCain sounds like he wants to restart the Cold War – and probably does.

McCain’s recent Mideast trip also offered more of Bush’s policy, but perhaps even harder line. McCain strongly supported Israel’s expansionist rightwing parties, vowed Washington would never pressure Israel into a peace deal it did not favor, and denounced Saudi`autocrats’. He called for their removal without explaining who or what should replace them.

All the while Sen. Joseph Lieberman, often called `Israel’s senator in Washington,’ was whispering lines into McCain’s ear. When McCain foolishly claimed Iran was in cahoots with al-Qaida, Lieberman had to sort him out. Other necons have also flocked to McCain’s banner, meaning if he wins, any real Arab-Israeli peace appears unlikely. Look also for possible further US military action against Israel’s enemies.

McCain tried to sound moderate and statesmanlike in his speech. So did President George Bush when he first came into office, decrying `nation building’ and foreign entanglements. But a genuine moderate statesman does not sing `bomb, bomb’ bomb Iran’ in public and call for perpetual war in Iraq.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2008

HOW TO RESOLVE THE TIBET CRISIS

The current Tibetan rebellion against Chinese rule has captured world attention and sympathy. Protests from Katmandu to New York have ensured it stays on TV screens almost everywhere – except China, of course.

China’s government, which has been preparing a massive, carefully orchestrated Olympic summer extravaganza in Beijing, has been deeply embarrassed and lost a great deal of face. The latest Tibetan `intifada’ erupted just after China’s party congress was celebrating the nation’s economic upsurge and orderly development.

Who is right about Tibet? Beijing claims Tibet has always been and remains an integral part of China. The Dalai Lama, insists Beijing, is a dangerous `splittist’ fomenting rebellion with Western help. Chinese civilians have been attacked by Tibetan mobs, says Beijing.

The Dalai Lama, his followers, and international supporters assert China is conducting `cultural genocide’ in Tibet by bringing in settlers and drowning its ancient Buddhist traditions in a flood of Han Chinese newcomers.

Is Tibet historically part of China, as Beijing claims? Yes and no. The thirteenth century Mongol emperors adopted Tibetan Buddhism as their new state religion and hailed the Dalai Lama as their `teacher’ and spiritual guide. When the Ming Dynasty took power in China around 1370, it adopted and continued this `priest-ruler’ relationship.


Tibet’s Buddhist theocracy recognized the ultimate political mastery of China’s emperor, while he recognized the spiritual primacy of the Dalai Lama in Lhasa and Tibet’s total autonomy. Lhasa became the Vatican for the Mongol Empire and China’s Ming Empire.

In 1913, while China was in chaos, Tibet, backed by the British Empire, declared independence. War-torn China had no chance to reassert its claim to Tibet until the end of the civil war in May, 1950. Four months later, China’s People’s Army invaded Tibet and declared it `reunited’ to China. Many Tibetans, particularly the warlike Champa, resisted furiously. A year earlier, Chinese troops had invaded and crushed the independent, four-year old Muslim Republic of East Turkistan - today called Xinjiang - whose Turkic-Mongol Uighurs, long fought Chinese rule and Han Chinese immigration.

The world laments for the Tibetan cause, but utterly ignores the unfashionable cause of Tibet’s northern neighbors, the Uighurs. After 2001, the Bush Administration even branded Muslim Uighur resistance movements `terrorists.’

How many Tibetans are there? China has obscured census figures. When I met with the Dalai Lama, who inspired my book, `War at the Top of the World’ - which is in part about Tibet - he told me there were over seven million Tibetans. About three million are in Tibet proper, and the rest in the neighboring Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai, to which protests have spread. The last two Chinese provinces used to form part of historical Tibet.

A primary cause of the Tibetan `intifada’ is continuing settlement by Han Chinese. After what I call `ethnic inundation,’ ethnic Chinese settlers now outnumber Tibetans. The same process of inundation occurred in Inner Mongolia, whose people are ethnically close to Tibetans.

But we should be aware that China has also uplifted Tibet from frightful poverty and medieval superstition, brought education, hospitals, electricity, roads, and ended widespread serfdom. Last year, a remarkable new high altitude rail line linked Lhasa to Beijing.

When I last visited Tibet in 1993, people came up and begged me with tears in their eyes for a photo of their beloved exiled Dalai Lama. I saw anti-Chinese demonstrations in Lhasa, and regiments of Chinese paramilitary police and soldiers. Resistance has simmered for decades. Now, the pot has boiled over.

So far, China, keenly aware of the upcoming Olympics and its world image, has been fairly restrained so far in suppressing the uprising. As of this writing, the uprising appears to be abating. But if it flares anew and gets out of hand, China will use much more force.

Another danger: China’s giant rival, India, would dearly like to drive China from the strategic Tibetan Plateau, which looms over northern India. China has built a score of air and missile bases in Tibet that deeply alarm India. Growing unrest could tempt India to back Tibetan resistance. In the late 1940’s, India also had its eye on Tibet but lacked the military power to take action. But it seems likely that had not China annexed Tibet, it would have become an Indian protectorate, like those other forgotten Himalayan kingdoms, Bhutan, Sikkim and Ladakh( known as `little Tibet’).

Any Indian or American move to destabilize Chinese rule over Tibet would be met with a fierce response from Beijing, which considers the Tibetan plateau its most militarily sensitive region after the coastal stretch of territory opposite Taiwan and the Beijing military region.

So what can the world do? Some EU members urge boycotting the Olympic opening ceremonies. Similar calls are coming from North America. Others demand outright trade sanctions.

Such overt action won’t work. China will never voluntarily relinquish control of Tibet. No one is going to tell China what to do. A face-saving compromise needs to be found for this confrontation.

The best solution is the one proposed by the Dalai Lama: Beijing restores the old `priest-ruler’ relationship. Tibet recognizes China’s political mastery and military presence, China accepts Tibet’s genuine internal autonomy, ceases Han immigration, and allows the Dalai Lama to return.

As globalization plays an ever larger role in China’s economy, its positive image abroad is extremely important. Stomping on Tibet is counter-productive. Beijing should respond with patience, and accord the Dalai Lama, a fierce pacifist and great soul, the same reverence and respect as did the Mongol and Ming emperors.


copyright Eric S. Margolis 2008

LIES AND TORTURE

NEW YORK - America was riveted last week by the lurid spectacle of the humiliation of New York State’s former governor, Elliot Spitzer who resigned office after be exposed as a long-time client of an escort service.

As a notoriously tough, some said ruthless, former prosecutor, Spitzer relentlessly crusaded against financial, political and moral malefactors, including a number of prostitution cases. Some saw him a future presidential candidate.

That was until what was described as a `routine’ federal tax investigation uncovered payments to a high-end prostitution service by a certain `Client 9’ – who turned out to be a modern Savolarola, that scourge of sinners, the upright, unforgiving Elliot Spitzer. Worse, it seemed the governor paid up to $80,000 for call girls, apparently at up to $4,000-5,000 per one hour session. This alone qualified him for a dunce cap.

It’s always satisfying watching hypocrites and moralists exposed to public humiliation. Except, of course, for the humiliation inflicted on his brave, loyal wife who stood by the embattled governor and even urged him not to resign.

US media overflowed with endless hours of silly, hypocritical commentary by feminists, psychiatrists, and pundits about `why did he do it,’ as if infidelity was an aberration or disease.

Spitzer did it because he was a typical man genetically programmed to lust after other women. As the old saying goes, if a man isn’t thinking about sex, his mind is wandering.

Too many Americans still have adolescent views of sex and sugar-coated images of marriage. Europeans, by contrast, shrug off men’s need to stray as normal and acceptable, provided done discreetly. An infidelity scandal would not have gotten far in continental Europe – except France, where, unfortunately, the hyperactive, publicity-seeking Nicholas Sarkozy has for the first time made politician’s private lives fair game for media.

However ruthless, self-serving and hypocritical about prostitution, Spitzer was doing one good thing: going after Wall Street’s crooks and fraudsters largely responsible for the current financial crisis shaking world markets. His resignation at least temporarily removes pressure to investigate this den of thieves that had, with tacit administration blessing, brought Enron-style fraud to America’s finances, then exported them around the globe.

Spitzer’s downfall unfortunately obscured two far more important events. First, the White House’s refusal to release an exhaustive Pentagon review of 600,000 Iraqi documents that found no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any links with al-Qaida.

This was the second big lie after the `weapons of mass destruction’ canard propagated by the Bush White House to justify invading Iraq. So successfully was it spread by the administration and tame media, that on the eve of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, 80% of Americans blamed Saddam for the 9/11 attacks. A small, al-Qaida Iraqi affiliate only appeared in Iraq as a result of the US invasion. It was not part of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida but Washington inflated this small group into the second coming of bin Laden and misled Americans still believe they are fighting his men in Iraq. All 22 of Iraqi organizations fighting US occupation are now called by Washington, `al-Qaida.’ No wonder the White House is trying to suppress the Pentagon study.

Spitzer’s pillorying also masked another profoundly shameful act. On Tuesday, 188 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to uphold President George Bush’s veto of a Democratic-sponsored bill to ban CIA from using torture to interrogate enemy detainees. Their party-line vote was strong enough to prevent the 225 Democrats who voted to overturn the president’s veto from achieving the required two-third majority.

Republicans have now become the party of torture. Never has the Grand Old Party sunk so low. Those great Republicans, Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan, must be weeping in their graves.

Among tortures America now routinely inflicts on mostly Muslim captives: water torture, near suffocation, beatings, confinement in cramped positions, sleep and sensory deprivation, freezing rooms, ear-splitting noise, mock executions, psychotropic drugs, food laced with pork or excrement. Even KGB did not use all of these tortures.

However, the White House and Republicans insist none of this is really torture. Republicans just love euphemisms. These tortures are merely `enhanced interrogation.’ Overthrowing foreign governments is `regime change;’ murdering foreign leaders, `taking them out; ’ water torture is, `water-boarding.’

George Orwell warned such double-talk was the hallmark of totalitarian regimes.

The president and his party are violating existing American and international law, and UN agreements against torture. Their sanction of torture, and its apotheosis in the Guantanamo gulag, has disgraced America’s name around the globe and will continue to haunt the United States for decades to come. Captured American soldiers now know what to expect.

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama and John McCain – the latter a torture victim – all properly condemn the White House for promoting torture. But McCain, who should know better, fudges, saying he won’t restrict CIA interrogations. That is ominous.

The Spitzer follies should not distract us from the Bush Administration’s continuing violations of American and international law, and growing violations of the values America used to hold dear.


Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2008

***

SALUTE TO WWI's 'VIEUX SOLDAT'

France’s last living veteran of World War I, Lazare Ponticelli, died Wednesday, aged 110. His death marks the end of France’s final human link to the terrible 1914-1918 Great War that killed 20 million soldiers and civilians.

The passing of France’s last `poilu,’ as its infantrymen were called, reminds us of that nation’s epic heroism and unimaginable suffering during the Great War. Know-nothing American conservatives have been slandering France’s military record for years, accusing French of being cowardly `surrender monkeys’ because they were swiftly defeated by Germany in 1940. How quickly they forget America’s defeat in Vietnam three decades later.

Out of 8.6 million troops France mobilized during the Great War, 1.4 million were killed in action and 4.5 million seriously wounded. That is 68% of troops mobilized became casualties.

Every little French village bears a war memorial listing a horrifyingly long roll of names: fathers and sons, brothers, cousins. After the war, the French countryside was denuded of people. Fields lay fallow. Women found no husbands. So awful were France’s loses on the nightmare Western Front that its population barely grew from 1890 to 1945.

France’s `poilus’ fought in some of the most hideous conditions ever faced by soldiers: a nightmare landscape of mud, muck-filled shell craters, barbed wire, corpses and human parts. They lived under frequent bombardment of heavy shells up to 420mm, often went hungry and thirsty, and saw their friends blown to bloody pulp before their eyes. The Germans suffered too, but their trenches were better and their commanders less likely to throw their men into the meat grinder of suicidal frontal attacks.

Anyone who doubts the courage of French soldiers should go to the battlefield of Verdun, where some 600,00 died in a year of battle waged with poison gas, millions of heavy shells, machine guns, and flamethrowers. France’s rallying cry was, `they shall not pass,’ and they did not.

Until the 1980’s, Frances metros and buses had special reserved seats for mutilated war veterans. Hospitals were packed with veterans blinded or hideously burned by mustard, chlorine and phosgene gas. Most divisions of France’s Army were rotated into the hell of Verdun, ensuring its horror became a national Calvary.

Other nations also suffered deeply in World War I. Britain lost 885,000 men, Canada, 65,000, the US 116,000. Germany lost 2 million dead, but from a population almost twice France’s. Austro-Hungary lost 1.1 million and Turkey 800,000. Russia lost 18 million men. Even Italy lost 651,000 dead in a lunatic war in the high Alps and Dolomites against the Austrians and Hungarians. Ponticellil, who was born in Italy, ended up fighting there, too, after his French army service.

France, however, suffered more than any other combatant, save perhaps Serbia, which had provoked the war. France strained every national sinew to stop the German Army, the world’s best trained, most efficient military force. Had the US not intervened in 1917, the exhausted warring powers would have been forced to make peace, perhaps averting the Russian Revolution and Hitler.

In 1940, France faced the world’s most modern, high tech military, Germany’s Wehrmacht. France fought bravely, losing 600,000 casualties, but was overwhelmed by Germany’s new form of warfare. France fought, but without its usual `élan.’ France’s heart had been broken at Verdun. There is no dishonor being defeated by Germans. Had Americans faced Germans in 1940, they, too, would have been quickly whipped.

So we salute `vieux soldat’ Ponticelli and his gallant Great War comrades. The old warrior refused a state memorial ceremony, asking only his comrades in arms be honored. He told Reuters, `war is completely stupid.’

30 MARGOLIS

A NEW `RED SCARE’ FROM WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON: For old timers like me who miss the Cold War, Washington’s increasingly heated rhetoric over China and various other malefactors brought back piquant memories of the bad old days.

The US Department of Defense warned last week, `China threatens the stability of Asia.’ Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized the 17.6% increase in China’s 2008 military budget ads dangerous and provocative.

China’s official military budget is $58.8 billion, but the real figure is estimated at around $110 billion. Beijing’s claims its hike in defense spending were solely to boost military pay were believed by no one. Even so, Washington’s warning was pretty rich coming from the sole superpower that spends ten times more on its military than China – a nation with four times the US population.

Secretary Robert Gates unblushingly accused China of `lack of transparency’ in concealing major defense programs. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Some 25-30% of the Pentagon’s trillion-dollar budget is believed to be hidden in secret `black’ projects, or concealed in other government departments. The US intelligence community’s budget alone is 40% of China’s total military and intelligence spending.

Washington’s constant warnings about Cuba, Syria, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea make it look like a spinster terrified by a mouse. These nation’s combined military sending is a paltry $10 billion. The US and its closest allies account for two thirds of the world’s military spending. Trying to keep up militarily with the west drove the old Soviet Union to bankruptcy.

The US spends more on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq than Russia and China do on defense.

Now, the Bush Administration is trying a re-run of Reagan years by goading Russia into more military spending to justify continued high US military spending, which doubled since late 2001. The relentless expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders, Bush’s proposed anti-missile system in Eastern Europe, and increased US military operations or political machinations around Russia, notably in the Caucasus and Central Asia, have infuriated and alarmed the Kremlin.

Without the `threat’ from China and Russia, how will the Pentagon justify new generation of super expensive F-22 and F-35 fighters it wants, new tankers, heavy bombers, submarines, carriers and other surface warships?

You don’t need any such fancy hardware to fight rag-tag jihadis armed with rifles and home-made bombs.

But there’s a deeper issue with China. The US has yet to come to terms with China’s rise as a major modern military power. The US Navy has dominated South Asia’s littoral since 1944. By 2015-17, perhaps sooner, China will inevitably become the dominant East Asian power. This means US geopolitical influence will be pushed back from the Asian mainland into the Pacific.

This process will be gradual but inevitable. Today, China has only around 350 modern warplanes, a weak navy, and little ability to project power more than 160kms from its coasts. Beijing is following the late, great Deng Xiaoping’s advice to build military power slowly as China’s economy grows.

China is rapidly developing the capability to conquer Taiwan and neutralize US Navy task forces coming to its rescue by barrages of air and sea-launched anti-ship missiles, and electronic warfare. China also threatens to attack America’s Achilles Heel: vulnerable space-based communications and targeting satellites upon which US forces have become dangerously dependant.

But Taiwan aside, military tensions between the US and China are totally avoidable – unless stoked by neocon Republicans longing for war with China. What is even more bizarre, while the Pentagon fulminates against the dangers of China, Iran, etc., the US is helping build the military power of a huge nation that one day could become a serious strategic rival to the United States - India.

The Bush Administration is striving to conclude a deal to supply Delhi nuclear fuel, technology, and billions of high-tech weapons. Meanwhile, India is developing nuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missiles and sea launched strategic missiles that might one day pose a challenge to the United States.

Why, no one in Washington is asking, does India need 7,000-mile range ICBM’s, nuclear-powered missile submarines and powerful anti-ship missiles? Its current medium-range missiles cover all China and large parts of Russia – a close ally of India. Japan will shortly be in range of India’s new generation of more powerful, intermediate range Agni-III ballistic missiles.

India ICBM’s would only be needed to reach Europe, North America or Australia. India has no conceivable conflicts with the EU or Australia and is thus unlikely to target Paris, London or Perth. But India will one day compete heavily with the US for Mideast oil, other resources, and regional influence in the Gulf, Arabian Sea and even East Africa.

China will inevitably join this strategic, three-way rivalry as Beijing and Delhi’s economies and ambitions grow, as I predicted in my book, `War at the Top of the World.’ By aiding India to develop strategic nuclear weapons programs, the US will needlessly antagonize China.

The astoundingly incompetent Bush Administration is thus seeding future conflict in Asia. But that’s tomorrow. Today, by creating a monstrous debt and loan credit bubble, wildly printing money, and recklessly spending, the Bush White House is spreading dangerous inflationary forces throughout the world economy. That’s the real danger to everyone, not China’s moderate-sized defense budget.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2008

Sorry for the delay in posting this column. We had technical difficulties.

BACK TO THE PAST IN CUBA

TULUM, MEXICO

Out with the old, in with the old. Last week, Cuba officially replaced 81-year old leader, Fidel Castro, with his 76-year old `baby’ brother, Raul. Promoted to positions just below Raul were two of his closest supporters and political cronies, 77-year old Ramon Machado Ventura and 72-year old Gen. Julio Casas Regueiro, both Stalinist hardliners.

Not since the 1980’s era Soviet Politburo and post-Mao China have we seen such political gerontocracy. Being of certain years myself, I have high regard for maturity, but what we’ve just seen in Cuba, a vibrant, peppery nation filled with youngsters, appears more like old timer’s nostalgia than a plan to lead the island nation into the future.

I’ve been just across the water from Cuba these recent days, and busy reading Fidel Castro’s daily commentaries with high interest. El Maximo Leader has retired to become El Maximo Commentator. Columnists of the world, unite!

The next generation of Communist leaders who almost everyone believed would succeed Fidel was put on hold. But the current gerontocracy won’t last long. Keep you eyes on VP Carlos Lage, foreign minister Felipe Roque, and National Assembly president, Ricardo Alarcon. They are likely to soon replace Raul’s Old Guard and start dismantling the Stalinist economy that has largely broken down.

So what next for 11 million long-suffering Cubans? Slow speed ahead, for the present, with modest reforms. The army has assumed more power. The economy will remain on life support, kept going by free oil from Venezuela and tourism. Cuba will remain a tropical police state with a clapped out Marxist economy.

Foreign visitors enthuse over Cuba’s laudable achievements in public health, education and science, but hardly ever see the ubiquitous apparatus of apartment, neighborhood, office and factory informers and secret police that keeps the Communist regime in power.

French intelligence sources tell me there is a growing risk of major street violence by poor blacks, who make up 60% of the population and live in slums ringing Havana. Army units have been deployed around the capitol.

As for Fidel, this writer, who remembers boisterous Cuba in pre-Castro days, believes he will still pull strings from the background, much as China’s Deng Xiaoping did during his last years of infirmity. Interestingly, Deng’s only official title was Chairman of the Chinese Bridge Assn., but everyone knew who was boss.

Ditto Fidel, who is adored and respected in Cuba as the national father figure. As I previously reported from Cuba, major change, including a move towards Chinese-style reforms, is unlikely to occur until after Fidel’s death. To do so while he lives would be an insult, and show lack of respect to the man who defeated scores of attempts by the United States to assassinate him and force Cuba back into the US orbit. I don’t think Cuba will really change until Papa Fidel is gone from the scene.

Cubans are a proud, highly capable people. I have faced their soldiers in Angola and can certainly attest to their bravery. They have always been the aristocrats of the West Indies since Havana was founded in 1519. By contrast, `Johnny come lately’ New York City was not founded until 1625, nearly a century later.

Washington’s power brokers would do well to understand that Cuba is not a little banana republic that can be ordered about by US multinationals or Washington Congressmen in the pay of the Florida sugar lobby.

The nearly half-century US blockade of Cuba is incredibly stupid and must be ended. It probably will be if the Democrats win the White House, in spite of rightwing Cuban exile voters in south Florida who keep the embargo alive.

If Americans really want to help long-suffering Cubans, they must engage politically and economically with Havana and end the embargo.
But the Bush Administration insists it won’t even talk to Cuba until Havana releases political prisoners and begins recognizing human rights.

The US is right to call for freedom and democracy in Cuba. But most people outside the US see this policy as highly hypocritical.

Cuba’s human rights violations are deplorable, but certainly no worse, and in fact less severe, than those of China and Vietnam, not to mention Egypt, Iraq or ally Israel. Washington sponsors dictatorships across the Mideast, Central Asia and, until lately, Pakistan. It has good relations with Communist Vietnam and China, and backs the bloody-handed Afghan Communist Party. Washington can just as well deal with Havana’s Marxists.


Besides, the Bush Administration that created Guantanamo and made torture the American way of life is hardly in a position to lecture Cuba or anyone else on human rights.

Candidate Barak Obama is being realistic when he offers to sit down with Raul Castro. He is acting the statesman and realist. Hillary Clinton and John McCain should be ashamed of themselves for loudly criticizing this sensible proposal.

Cuba will change, but more slowly than we would like. Washington must also change, ending its foolish, unseemly fifty-year vendetta against this small but proud nation. The US should extend the hand of friendship rather than trying to make Cuba crawl. That’s acting like a true great power.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2008