New Day In American-Cuban Relations..

After more than five decades of frozen rela­tion­ship between the United States and the People’s Republic of Cuba the Cuban Flag went up at the State Department in Washington DC Monday.
This is a major step for­ward and a endur­ing lega­cy accom­plish­ment for Barack Obama who at this moment seem intent on run­ning up the score on his accomplishments.
Obama promised to be a trans­for­ma­tion­al President and he is being just that whether one agrees with his poli­cies or not.
Passing Universal Health Care. Having Marriage Equality become the Law of the land. Beginning the nor­mal­iz­ing rela­tions with Cuba. Completing the recent deal with Iran. Being the first President ever to vis­it a Prison, the list of out­side the box accom­plish­ments is long.
Obama’s lists of firsts con­tin­ue to pile up despite endur­ing the most obstruc­tion­ist Congress any pre­vi­ous American President had to deal with.
Agree or not Obama who seemed timid , ten­ta­tive and uncer­tain of his pow­ers at times is now dis­play­ing a new sense of assertive­ness in this the fourth quar­ter of his Presidency.

Obama argued that the 54-year-old American Policy is regres­sive and that a change is war­rant­ed. The change in pol­i­cy will mean that both Nations will have Embassies in each oth­er’s Capital . However the Embargo can only be lift­ed by Congress.
By Law there are stip­u­la­tions which makes removal of the Embargo con­tin­gent on Cuba com­pen­sat­ing American indi­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies to the tune of bil­lions of dol­lars for prop­er­ty the Cuban Government con­fis­cat­ed after the Revolution.

If the intran­si­gent Republican Congress’ pre­vi­ous behav­ior is any­thing to go by the Embargo will be in place long after President Obama has left office. Many Cuban Americans par­tic­u­lar­ly in Miami Florida who large­ly vote Republican sees this is a bad deci­sion by the President.

The Cuban-American Community mono­lith­ic posi­tion may be encap­su­lat­ed in the views of Congresswoman Ilena Ros Lehtinen, Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and a host of oth­er Cuban-American elect­ed offi­cials who believe if the strat­e­gy does not work you sim­ply admin­is­ter more of the same and expect some­thing different.
That is the def­i­n­i­tion of stu­pid . The President thank­ful­ly rec­og­nizes that stu­pid­i­ty is not a strat­e­gy which will bring peo­ple around to his way of think­ing . The strat­e­gy of Republicans to show force to all around the Globe with whom they dis­agree has yield­ed America a bunch of headaches and much ene­mies. Unfortunately they are blind­ed by American’s Military strength believ­ing that that is a panacea to all of America’s problems.
President Obama may not be able to see a full nor­mal­iz­ing of rela­tions with Cuba dur­ing his Presidency but he must be com­mend­ed for hav­ing the wis­dom and com­mon sense to under­stand that if some­thing does not work for fifty four years , it prob­a­bly will not work ever.

♦Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑Texas), a prospec­tive 2016 GOP pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, argued that Cuba will retain long stand­ing ties with “hos­tile nations, notably Russia, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela.“They will con­tin­ue their sup­port for ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions from FARC to Hezbollah and Hamas,”.
♦Former Florida gov­er­nor and prospec­tive pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Jeb Bush: react­ed to news of President Obama’s plans to soft­en the U.S. stance on Cuba on Wednesday after­noon, call­ing it a “dra­mat­ic over­reach” of pres­i­den­tial authority.

♦Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (R‑S.C.) Blast­ed the Obama admin­is­tra­tion over the announce­ment, call­ing it a “bad idea at a bad time.” He also promised to do “all in my pow­er” to block fund­ing for the reopen­ing of a U.S. embassy in Cuba.
♦Rep. Matt Salmon (R‑Ariz.) said the pol­i­cy announced by the Obama admin­is­tra­tion Wednesday “sends a mes­sage to every rogue gov­ern­ment and ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion that this admin­is­tra­tion is will­ing to nego­ti­ate with them, even if it under­cuts U.S. inter­ests and values.”

Just a few of the com­ments com­ing from Republican offi­cials on the Administration’s pol­i­cy shift toward Cuba. The sin­gle thread which binds the com­ments may be char­ac­ter­ized as the stu­pid thread. Confrontational, machis­mo poli­cies which have not worked are what Republicans are advo­cat­ing even as more threats emerge in the world and at a time when America should be seek­ing allies not cre­at­ing enemies.
For years Cubans defect­ing to America has had spe­cial priv­i­leges in a pol­i­cy dubbed wet-foot/dry-foot which allows Cuban defec­tors to stay in the United States and nor­mal­ize their sta­tus to full cit­i­zen­ship while Haitians and oth­ers are uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly sent back home nev­er elicit­ed any objec­tions from the sin­gle-mind­ed Cuban com­mu­ni­ty in the Country.
Now that the pol­i­cy has shift­ed which is a decid­ed step in the right direc­tion every­one is up in arms.
The rhetoric of Cubans like Cruz, Rubio and oth­ers have had an amaz­ing­ly self­ish slant. They sim­ply kicked the lad­der away as soon as they climbed to the top.

Neither Cruz, Rubio,Lehtinen or any of the oth­ers care about Cubans liv­ing in Cuba. In fact they do not care about the like of  American con­trac­tor Alan Gross, who was returned to his fam­i­ly after been incar­cer­at­ed in Cuba for five years, as a pre­cur­sor to the pol­i­cy shift.
What they care about are their own grand ambi­tions after them­selves hav­ing ben­e­fit­ed from the American experiment.
This is a good day for both Countries, President Obama should be com­mend­ed for his vision. Cuban-Americans can either embrace change or head back home if they do not like the new pol­i­cy. They are in America and that’s all that mat­ters to them.
A myopic,selfish, and vision-less bunch if you ask me.