Rubio Yes, Cuba No -- But Is Guantanamo Obama's Goal?

Florida Senator Marco Rubio spoke to Megyn Kelly on Fox TV yesterday. His core comment on the Obama deal to normalize relations with Cuba was : "What's hurting the Cuban people is not the embargo. What's hurting the Cuban people is the Cuban government. Look, Venezuela's economy looks like Cuba's economy now. You can't even buy toilet paper in Caracas. And there's no embargo on Venezuela. What Venezuela has in common with Cuba, is they both have adopted radical socialist governmental policies. And I would expect that people would understand that if they just took a moment to analyze that, they would realize that the embargo is not what's hurting the Cuban people. It's the lack of freedom and the lack of competent leaders." ~~~~~ Senator Rubio has become the Republican whipping boy for the White House because of his blunt opposition to Obama's latest foreign policy gaff. Yesterday, the White House hit back at Rubio, saying he should back the deal because he supported the confirmation of an ambassador to China earlier this year. White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at a news briefing : "One of the leading proponents of this strategy of shutting off funding for the construction of this embassy and appointing an ambassador to Cuba is Senator Rubio, of course." Earnest was answering a question about whether a new embassy would be needed, since American diplomatic personnel now work out of the "US Interests Section" in the Switzerland Embassy in Havana. Earnest was not asked about Rubio's criticism of Obama's Cuba deal. But Earnest took the opportunity to gratuitously belittle Rubio's statements from the confirmation hearing of former Democratic Senator Max Baucus as Chinese ambassador. Earnest hinted that those comments conflicted with his statements about Cuba, saying China has long been under attack for its human rights abuses, but Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, voted for Baucus's confirmation. Earnest told the press corps : "...it occurs to me that it seems odd Senator Rubio would be...actively seeking to block the appointment of an ambassador to Cuba when earlier this year he voted to confirm the ambassador to China....The other thing I noticed [was] that, in the context of those hearings, Senator Rubio said something that this administration wholeheartedly agrees with." Earnest read Rubio's remark as the press corps laughed : "I think you'll find broad consensus on this committee and I hope in the administration, that our embassy should be viewed as an ally of those within Chinese society that are looking to express their fundamental rights to speak out and to worship freely." Earnest said : "We think the exact same thing can be said of the new embassy in Cuba." Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, fiercely opposes Obama's plan, a deal reached after 18 months of secret talks brokered by Pope Francis and the Canadian government. Raoul Castro agreed to free American Alan Gross, imprisobed for five years in Havana, in exchange for three Cubans who had been convicted of spying on the United States. The plan includes opening embassies in both countries. Washington ended diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 - two years after Raul's older brother, Fidel Castro, came to power - and a year after the US began its trade embargo. (Note that the embargo was initiated after Fidel Castro's seizure of $7 billion of American-owned assets on Cuba, a point apparently neither dealt with, nor compensation made, in Obama's rush to agreement.) Rubio and many other Republicans and some Democrats bitterly attacked Obama's plan while praising Gross's release. Rubio vowed to use his new position as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Western Hemisphere subcommittee to try to block Obama's efforts : "This notion that somehow being able to travel more to Cuba, to sell more consumer products, the idea that's going to lead to some democratic opening is absurd. But it's par for the course with this administration constantly giving away unilateral concessions…in exchange for nothing." Rubio strongly objected again yesterday, calling it "a victory for oppressive governments the world over," charging that it would "have real, negative consequences for the American people." Rubio said on his website : "since the US severed diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, the Castro family has controlled the country and the economy with an iron fist that punishes Cubans who speak out in opposition and demand a better future. Under the Castros, Cuba has also been a central figure in terrorism, narco-trafficking, and all manner of misery and mayhem in our hemisphere. The opportunity for Cuba to normalize relations with the US has always been there, but the Castro regime has never been interested in changing its ways. Now thanks to President Obama's concessions, the regime in Cuba won't have to change." ~~~~~ Otto Reich, former US Ambassador to Venezuela who worked with three Republican Presidents and advised President Reagan in Cold War battles between the US and Cuba in Latin America, was even more blunt than Rubio, telling Newsmax : "Cuba's communist leaders must be ecstatic - and a little stunned - over the deal they just got from President Barack Obama because it rewards them handsomely and requires little in return. This is one of the most inexplicable initiatives by a United States administration in the history of foreign policy." Reich said that by re-establishing diplomatic relations, Obama "has thrown a lifeline to a sinking ship where the longest-lasting enemies of the US are standing on the deck : the Castro brothers. Nobody has been in power longer than they have who are still alive," said Reich, referring to Fidel Castro, 88, and his brother and successor as communist Cuba's ruler, Raoul Castro, 84. Reich asked, "Why is he replacing American taxpayers' dollars for the money that the Cubans used to get from the Soviet Union until they ceased to exist, and then [from] Venezuela? Nobody really knows. The Castros cannot believe their luck. Never in their wildest dreams did they think the President of the US would come begging them for an agreement. The word is getting out that the reason the President reached out to Pope Francis was because the Cubans were not responding in the way he wanted them to." Reich doubted that the Pope's intercession had much of an impact : "Raoul Castro did this because he could not believe that he was getting American money, American investment, American trade and American tourists...in exchange for simply a promise that he was going to be a good boy for the next 10 or 20 years - of course, he's not going to last that long." Reich said there was no reason not to continue to apply pressure and wait for a bankrupt Castro regime to succumb to economic pressures : "When the Soviet Union disappeared, Hugo Chavez stepped in with huge amounts of money - up to 25% of the gross domestic product of Cuba. If the administration would've waited just a little while, we could've negotiated. I'm not against negotiation, but I am against us giving away our bargaining power to a bunch of people who have literally tried to destroy the US." Reich also said Obama had proved himself to be a poor negotiator. "For an 83-year-old general, Raoul Castro, who's not in good health, the head of a bankrupt government, to out-negotiate the President of the US so clearly humiliates him, [and] really undermines the image of the US around the world. People are laughing." Reich speculated that Obama acted out of ideological conviction and political vanity. "The left-wing Obama is coming out now that he's been unshackled from any political requirements. He doesn't have to run anymore, he's lost control of the Congress, and he's not going to get any legislation through the Congress. So he's using his executive authority to reshape the world in the way that he wanted to...but couldn't do it before....He figured, where can he give away the store and look to the leftist side of the world [like] a hero? And that's what he did....He doesn't care what it does to American prestige or our posture in the world." ~~~~~ America and the world are trying to make sense of Obama's inexplicable gambit, but Kelly told Rubio : "we are being told that in some military circles there is concern that the reason may be something to do with the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility." Kelly said the treaty that gave the US control of this part of Cuba and put Gitmo there, says it may be modified if both governments - Cuba and the US - agree.Kelly said Presidents have unilaterally modified other treaties without Congress. ~~~~~ Dear readers, is Obama using Raoul Castro to achieve his first campaign promise - close Gitmo - without asking Congress for the permission he knows he will never get, by acting unilaterally under the treaty, and complying with the Helms-Burton law by leaving the remaining detainees in Raoul Castro's hands.