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Havana Daydreamin’

Posted By Ray Walser On May 6, 2009 @ 12:01 pm In American Leadership | 3 Comments

Results from President Barack Obama’s recent overtures ^[1] to the Cuban regime are coming in:

Raul Castro has extended the warm hand of friendship to the peripatetic North Korean Foreign Minister ^[2]
Cuba’s United Nation’s representatives continue to defend their sovereign right to censorship ^[3]
Fidel still fulminates against the same commercial and trade values Washington promises will change life on the island ^[4]

In short, Cuba lurches forward with mummified grace, controlled by grumpy old men, devoured by memories of the heroic, anti-American past, and blinkered by decades of rigid belief in the correctness of Communist theology.

Change may be sweeping Washington, but not so Havana. Perhaps, it’s time for Congress and Washington to leave off “Havana Daydreamin ^[5]” and do something radical, like pass pending free trade agreements with Panama, where a pro-American candidate just won the presidency, or with Colombia, a democratic nation of 44-plus million, with a dynamic economy, and oil, natural gas, coal, and “green” potential far superior to Cuba’s

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URL to article: http://blog.heritage.org/2009/05/06/havana-daydreamin/

URLs in this post:

[1] recent overtures: http://www.reuters.com/article/internalReutersGenNews/idUSTRE52A7GA20090311

[2] Raul Castro has extended the warm hand of friendship to the peripatetic North Korean Foreign Minister: http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=333850&CategoryId=14510

[3] Cuba’s United Nation’s representatives continue to defend their sovereign right to censorship: http://www.invasor.cu/sistema/paginas/default.asp?lang=en&id=06052009_Cuba%20Again%20Denounces%20US%20Illegal%20Broadcasts

[4] Fidel still fulminates against the same commercial and trade values Washington promises will change life on the island: http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/reflexiones/2009/ing/f010509i.html

[5] Havana Daydreamin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hava%C3%B1a_Daydreamin%27

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