Gitmo hunger striker speaks out

By Mustang Bobby

This op-ed in The New York Times by a prisoner at Gitmo is going to get a lot of pixels:

One man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago.

I've been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity.

I've been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.

The prisoner, Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, dictated his story over an "unclassified" phone line through a translator.

I am certain the orcosphere will attack the Times for giving the man the opportunity to speak; how dare they let a dangerous terrorist mock the First Amendment? Except if the man's story is to be believed, he was in the wrong place in the wrong time and no one has been able to prove he's guilty of anything more than that. But, hey, it's not like we lock up innocent people, right?

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Behind the Ad: Mitt Romney and the spirit of Joe McCarthy

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our extensive " Behind the Ad" series.)  

Who: The Romney-Ryan campaign.

Where: Florida.

What's going on: This Spanish-language ad uses comments by Fidel Castro's niece and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that they would vote for Barack Obama. As The National Memo points out, so would most everyone else around the world. The ad also suggests Obama's policies resemble those of Chavez and Castro:

Romney is targeting the Cuban population of Florida who are the only Hispanics in America he is having much success attracting. President Obama garners nearly 70 percent of the Latino vote nationally, but in Florida his lead is a mere 4 points. The Cuban community makes up about 60 percent of Miami-Dade County’s Republican voters, where the ad is airing.

Separate Cubans out and the president leads with Hispanic voters in Florida 65-32. The connection with Castro is clearly designed to incite memories of the island regime that many Cuban-Americans or their relatives fled.

Romney is so pathetic. Red-baiting in 2012. Imagine. The stench of desperation is in the air.


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The many terrible ideas of Paul Ryan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Bain Capital and my tax returns? Let's distract voters with Paul's crazy ideas instead!

He's known for his plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system, but, as Jon Chait notes, that's actually one of the least terrible of his budgetary ideas:

The real radical elements of Ryan's plan lie elsewhere. There's his huge tax cuts for the rich combined with hide-the-ball mumbo jumbo to obscure its costs, his enormous and wildly disproportionate cuts in programs for the poor, his callous proposal to uninsure everybody who got insurance from Obamacare and then many millions more, and then his crazy budgeting that would slowly phase out the entire non-defense, non-entitlement functions of the federal government. These ideas are all individually dangerous, and collectively extreme almost beyond description. By the current standards of Ryan-esque radicalism, the Medicare component is positively quaint.

And then, of course, there are his other ideas. Take his anti-choice views:

He has said he's "as pro-life as a person gets" (opposing any and all compromise and objecting even to having a "truce"), which makes him radical extremist even by the radically extremist standards of the Republican Party. He doesn't just oppose Planned Parenthood, he would prosecute women for having abortions. As Michelle Goldberg writes, "when it comes to women's control of their bodies, he quickly turns into a statist," in stark contrast to his Ayd Rand-inspired fight for absolute individualism (which is basically the foundation for his economic policies). "To him, a woman's claim to bodily autonomy or self-determination doesn't merit even cursory consideration."

Paul Ryan isn't just the leader of the Republican Party's anti-government movement, which dominates the party, he's the poster boy for its war on women.

He's also stridently against marriage equality (and opposed the repeal of DADT), and so very much in line with his party's anti-gay bigotry, and radically pro-gun, well beyond basic gun ownership. As the Times notes, "He voted in 1999 against a proposal that would have established much more stringent requirements for background checks on people buying firearms at gun shows. He voted last year for a gun-rights bill under which a permit to carry a concealed firearm in one state would be valid in almost every other state." 

And of course he would repeal the Affordable Care Act and is opposed to the contraception coverage, which like other opponents he says is about "religious liberty" but which is really about the imposition of theocracy, the imposition of his religious views on everyone else.

On foreign policy, the one good position he's taken was to end the embargo on Cuba, but otherwise he's a typical George W. Bush-style conservative, but without any significant experience or understanding of the world, much like Romney.

I'm not sure terrible is a strong enough way to put it.

Marco Rubio denies embellishing family history but continues advancing politically convenient lies

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In a much-quoted and widely-circulated piece, The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, one of the party's wunderkinder (and a possible vice presidential choice next year), embellished the facts about his parents' departure from Cuba and status as exiles in the U.S.:

During his rise to political prominence, Sen. Marco Rubio frequently repeated a compelling version of his family's history that had special resonance in South Florida. He was the "son of exiles," he told audiences, Cuban Americans forced off their beloved island after "a thug," Fidel Castro, took power.

But a review of documents — including naturalization papers and other official records — reveals that the Florida Republican's account embellishes the facts. The documents show that Rubio's parents came to the United States and were admitted for permanent residence more than two-and-a-half years before Castro's forces overthrew the Cuban government and took power on New Year's Day 1959.

The supposed flight of Rubio's parents has been at the core of the young senator's political identity, both before and after his stunning tea-party-propelled victory in last year's Senate election. Rubio — now considered a prospective 2012 Republican vice presidential candidate and a possible future presidential contender — mentions his parents in the second sentence of the official biography on his Senate Web site. It says that Mario and Oriales Rubio "came to America following Fidel Castro's takeover."

Writing for Politico yesterday, Rubio defended himself, calling the Post report "an outrageous allegation." But the facts are clear. His parents came to the U.S. before the revolution, not after it, as he has alleged, including in his own official bio.

And he continues to advance this lie.

Even if it's okay, however misleading, to call his parents "exiles" -- or, as Steve Benen puts it, "after-the-fact exiles" -- it makes a big difference whether they left Cuba before or after Castro took power. If, contrary to his claim, it's before, his own narrative, a narrative that allows him to score political points, particularly in Florida, falls apart.

But the thing is, does it really matter? Did Rubio have to embellish his parents' story? No, because the truth is almost as compelling. They left Cuba for the U.S., watched as their country was taken over by totalitarians (as opposed to U.S.-backed goons), and as their countrymen suffered, end ended up being effectively exiled. Does it really add all that much to their credibility, and to Rubio's personal story, that they escaped from Castro? Well, maybe a bit, sure, but I hardly think Rubio needed to lie.

But lie he did. Over and over and over again.

 

Below is a clip Benen posts at his place showing Rubio lying.

 

He can defend himself all he wants. And I doubt this is enough to hurt him (or destroy his veep chances -- embellishment is fairly common (see Biden, Joe), and Republicans will see this as a partisan media attack, even if the Post is hardly a bastion of liberalism these days). But he can't run from the truth.

Havana wonderful time, wish you were here

By Carl

I think I speak for anyone with a lick of sense when I say, At last!

HAVANA, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The decision by the U.S. government to change its strategy and lift some restrictions on Cuba have aroused multiple reactions in the island, among which there are hopes of a start to the end of the decades-old economic blockade.

On Easter Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama lifted restrictions on travel and money transfers to Cuba, opening a crack in a 47-year-old embargo against Havana.

Obama also authorized U.S. telecommunication firms to open up investments in Cuba, as well as to hire radio and television satellite services for people in the Caribbean nation.

The new measures overturned the policy imposed in 2004 by the Bush White House. The "Transition Plan toward a Free Cuba," also know as Plan Bush, limited money remittances from Cuban Americans to their families to 300 U.S. dollars every quarter, and visits to the island once every three years with each lasting no longer than14 days.

The blockade and embargo of Cuba made sense when it was a close ally and satellite of the long-defunct Soviet Union. After all, it was only 90 miles from the shores of America, and the Soviets had already shown a propensity for dangling that fact in front of our faces. Even the retention of a foothold on the island (Guantanamo Bay) has become a bit of an anachronism and even a sore spot for American foreign policy.

I've flown over Cuba. Looking down from 35,000 feet, it looks absolutely beautiful, unlike nearly every other Caribbean island I've ever been to or flown over. Hardly like this massive threat to American security and interests that Republicans and Cuban-American partisans have painted it to be.

Which highlights the narrowness of American policy towards Cuba. A lot of what we've done recently has been to placate a bunch of people who are 50 years beyond ownership of land and property on the island, whose families now have stronger ties to Nebraska than to Havana. The pitiful "reforms" accomplished under Plan Bush were nearly meaningless and paid lip service to the greatest weapon America has in transforming Cuba back to our greatest ally: economic strength and generosity.

You say you want a revolution? Free the minds of the people. Right now, every European nation has visa exchanges with Cuba, including our strongest allies. The average Cuban gets American culture second- or third-hand. Why not give it to them, straight up?

Once Cubans see images that aren't Elian Gonzalez-ised, once they see that America is a great and good land filled with great and good people, once they see that the vast majority of Americans would love nothing more than to point a boat south and hit the tropics rather than stand around government offices in Miami, shouting "Death To Castro", they'll get it.

They'll see us. We'll see them. And we'll understand that these people, these resilient and stoic people who for fifty years have lived in fear and hatred of a nation that truly means them no harm-- save for a bunch of arrogant assholes and their political operatives who have all been marginalized now-- have much to teach us.

After all, they've lived in a northern umbra of fear and hatred and assumed it was universally shared in the lands above them on the globe. We need to free these people, both of their fears of us, but also of their fears of freedom. This will not require guns or weapons or armies or even money.

It will require me with a camera, and you with a passport, and him with some scuba equipment, and her with a phrasebook. Shiny happy people. Real Americans.

Wherever I go in the islands, I am struck by how negative the image is of Americans "except for you guys, of course". It could be the Caymans or Bahamas or Bonaire or Aruba or Jamaica. It doesn't matter. There is this amorphous image of Americans as fat, lazy, stupid and arrogant people.

Here, in Cuba, we have a chance to work with a fresh slate. In the course of this rollback of the embargo and blockade, I urge President Obama to encourage Americans to become involved in Cuba and with Cuban lives. We're all of us responsible for the tragic policies of the past fifty years, even if at times they were deemed necessary evils.

We have voices. We did not use them. We let others with an agenda speak for us, and they said the wrong things in our names.

We need to show the Cuban people that we want to help bring them up to speed, to enjoy the bounties of our friendship and good relations with among neighbors.

After all, there's only so many Cuban cigars I can smoke! You guys are going to have to help pick up the slack a bit.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Opening the door

By Mustang Bobby

The response here in Miami to the lifting of travel and money restrictions for Cuban-Americans has been interesting: some of the people you'd think would be in favor of the action are opposed to them -- liberal Democrat Rep. Kendrick Meek, for example -- and those you'd think would be against them are in favor of them -- Cuban-born and Operation Pedro Pan passenger Republican Sen. Mel Martinez offers "nuanced" support for the move. But if there's one thing I've learned about dealing with Cuba and the people who are connected with that enigmatic island, nothing can be taken for granted.

I have no dog in the fight; I don't have family there, I've never been there, and all I've ever seen of it is what you could see from 35,000 feet on a Pan Am flight from Miami to Montego Bay in 1967. But you cannot live in South Florida without getting a sense of what Cuba means to a lot of people here, even those like me who only know it from the stories you hear from friends and co-workers who came from there and who still have family there. It goes far beyond the politics; had it not, we would have re-established relations with the regime the same way we did with Vietnam, a nation that is still a dictatorship, holds political prisoners, and denies the basic human rights as efficiently and as brutally as the Castro brothers do, not to mention the thousands of lives lost and scarred by the war we fought and lost there.

The long and sometimes contentious history between Cuba and the United States, dotted with colonialism, imperialism, Mafioso capitalism, and exploitation, pre-dates Fidel and Raul. In some ways I suspect there's a subliminal feeling among Americans, both within and without the Cuban community, that we were in part responsible for what happened there in 1958 and we owe it to them and ourselves to be accountable for the past and help shape its future, even if it's by finally letting go of the hold we've had on it. Opening the door -- even if it's just a crack -- to let people here go back and forth may provide us the opportunity to get some fresh air into Cuba, and give us the room to get out of the way of those who can really change the country: the Cuban people themselves.

As I've noted many times before, the embargo against Cuba has been a complete failure except in one area: it has given the Castro regime and its khaki thugs the excuse to continue their brutality for fifty years, and since the day it was imposed it has worked for them beyond their wildest dreams. As long as they can play the victim -- and are enabled by the experts of victimology in the Republican party who know all too well how to manipulate los historicos (see the Diaz-Balart brothers) -- they have been able to keep their heel on the necks of the Cuban people by demonizing los yanquis and conveniently ignoring the millions of Canadian dollars, euros, pounds, yen, and every other currency that flows in from every other country in the world that trades with them. As long as we don't, they will blame us and get away with it.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Sneaking into Cuba

By Mustang Bobby.

It didn't attract much notice, but some members of Congress are moving to lift the travel restrictions to Cuba.

The Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 4 would allow American citizens unrestricted travel to Cuba for the first time since 1963. The bill by Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., and eight co-sponsors would also lift limits on travel by Cuban exiles living in the United States. The president would not be able to regulate travel to the island unless an armed conflict or armed danger arises.

The bill has gone too far, said Francisco "Pepe" Hernandez, president of the Cuban American National Foundation. Cuban exiles should visit their families whenever they want, but tourists shouldn't spend money in resorts that Cubans are barred from. "It's improper and should not be allowed until the Cuban government makes some reforms," he said.

[...]

Many expect President Barack Obama to back a change in the policy. As a candidate for the presidency, Obama spoke in favor of reducing restrictions on remittances and travel to the island.

Co-sponsors to the bill include representatives Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Sam Farr, D-Calif., and Ron Paul, R- Texas.

Not to put too cynical a point on it, but I'm pretty sure that some of the people who are screaming the loudest against lifting the restrictions will be the first to line up for a flight to Havana.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the embargo and travel restrictions have done nothing to change the mind of the Castro brothers and their dictatorship. If anything, it's shored it up by giving them an excuse to stay in power, keep up the repression, and blame all of their self-inflicted woes on the Yanquis. And since only one other country -- Israel -- enforces an embargo, it's a flimsy barrier and excuse for both sides. It's time for this pecker contest to come to an end.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Is he dead yet?

By Mustang Bobby

Still another report of the imminent demise of Fidel Castro.

''High sources in Washington are saying that reliable sources have said that he has taken gravely ill,'' said University of Miami's Andy Gomez, who serves as an advisor to the U.S. Task Force on Cuba, an arm of the Brookings Institution think tank comprised of academics and former diplomats. ''They are monitoring this very closely, including looking for additional movements of security and troops. So far, none of this has happened.''

Castro's continued absence from public view, an unusually long break from published essays, failure to schedule private chats with recent visiting presidents and veiled remarks by Venezuelan ally Hugo Chávez has elevated the unconfirmed reports of the Cuban leader's pending death.

U.S. officials from the State Department acknowledged that they were aware of the reports on Castro's health but denied they were monitoring troop activities on the island.

For those of you outside of the Miami area, this is a regular feature in our news here. Rumors start to spread: somebody heard from their cousin who got a late-night phone call from their sister's neighbor in Havana that Castro had fallen off the perch, and pretty soon everybody from Calle Ocho to Hialeah is sure that not only is he dead, but he's been dead since July 2006 and all the pictures of him have actually been of his brother Ramon, who's been his stand-in, and what we've been treated to for the last two years is the Latin version of Weekend at Bernie's. But then... nothing. No somber music over Radio Havana, no black-draped editions of Granma, and pretty soon it's all forgotten until the next one.

This time around there's little more than tea-leaves and vague signals, and The Miami Herald's Cuba watch-blog, Cuban Colada, is being very cautious. But the timing would be interesting; Fidel Castro goes out, the Obama administration, which has promised to lift the Bush administration's travel and money restrictions, comes in, and one of the unspoken requirements for lifting the embargo -- Fidel's passing -- is met.

It would be one of life's little ironies that Castro, who made his career out of being larger than life and who dominated the Latin American policy of the U.S. for fifty years, should fade away with barely a whimper on the eve of the inauguration of a president who is willing to deal with the Cuban government rather than isolate and lecture them.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

It's about time

By Mustang Bobby

A poll in Miami-Dade County among Cuban-Americans indicates a marked change in attitude about the embargo and diplomatic relations with Cuba.

The poll, conducted by Florida International University's Institute for Public Opinion Research and funded by the Brookings Institution and the Cuba Study Group, indicates that 55 percent of those polled favor discontinuing the trade embargo imposed in 1962. Sixty-five percent favor reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba.

''The poll has an extraordinary historical importance,'' said Guarione Díaz, president of the Cuban American National Council, a nonpartisan advocacy group in Miami.

The results, particularly as they relate to the embargo, reflect ''the fact that the Cuban Americans who were born in the United States or left after 1980 do not have the same vision as those who came in the 60s,'' Díaz said.

Ninoska Pérez, director of the conservative Cuban Liberty Council, dismissed the results.

''I am tired of these polls that mean nothing,'' she said. ''The point is that three Congress members who support the embargo were elected by an overwhelming majority of the people. The reelection of these Congress members tells me that this sample is not a majority. I don't believe this poll.''

The embargo question has been consistent since FIU began conducting the poll in 1991. Beginning in 1997, the trend showed a gradual decrease of support for maintaining the embargo. But this year's poll is the first to show a majority in favor of lifting it. In 2007, 42 percent of those polled were in favor of ending the trade ban.

''It's a significant jump,'' said Hugh Gladwin, director of the Institute for Public Opinion Research at FIU.

''I'd give two explanations. The first one is that there's been this continuing demographic change. The other factor is the election of Obama. There's a process of change. People see the handwriting on the wall,'' he added.

I've been around long enough to have seen the embargo in place from the beginning in 1962 -- I was ten -- and I have never understood the reasoning behind it, then and now. When I moved to Miami in 1971 to go to college and then again thirty years later, I asked some Cuban friends to explain why the embargo, which by then was clearly not having the desired effect, still had their unshakable support. The answer boiled down to "It's a Cuban thing; you wouldn't understand."

Okay, well, then don't expect me to be sympathetic to a policy that seems both pointless and harmful, and not to the intended targets. There is no doubt that the Castro brothers are thugs and dictators, but all the embargo did was give them an excuse for prolonging their "struggle," and we couldn't have handed them a better gift of legitimizing their regime if we had delivered it to them with candy and a stripper. The tightening of the travel and financial restrictions by the current Bush administration did nothing to Fidel and Raul, but it imposed more misery and family separation on the exile community here in Miami. And yet every time someone mentions loosening the restraints and dealing with a dictatorship on the same level we deal with all the other non-democratic governments around the world, including Vietnam, where over 58,000 Americans lost their lives (and a country that now sells us tennis shoes) and China, which basically holds the mortgage on our financial system, we hear the knee-jerk responses like those of Ms. Pérez, who shuts her eyes, sticks her fingers in her ears, and basically says that she doesn't believe the polls.

While I may not understand the Cuban thing, one thing that's clear to me is that unlike Vietnam and China, the Cuban embargo is based not on practical policy but on a personal vendetta that is deeply felt by every exile who blames Fidel Castro personally for their plight and everything else that goes wrong in their life. The car won't start or the hot water heater leaks? Fidel did it. The dog crapped on the carpet? Again, Fidel. It's as if in 1959 Castro himself marched into their home in Pinar del Rio, parked his ass on the couch, put his combat boots on the coffee table, ground out his cigar in the family portrait, and told everyone to get out and leave the keys to the Desoto by the door.

And I know any number of people in the exile community who are prepared for their own version of the Rapture: As soon as word comes that Fidel and Raul have shuffled off this khaki coil they will be on the first plane back to Havana, property deeds and house keys in hand, ready to resume their life as if they've been off on a vacation. They carry on about how they are dreaming of a "free Cuba," as if the previous regime of Batista was a model of Jeffersonian democracy. This, more than any economic or political logic, is the mindset that keeps the embargo in place, refusing to acknowledge the possibility that if we had flooded Cuba with McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and -- most importantly -- a chain of NAPA auto parts stores, the Cuban revolution's dictatorial and Soviet-style elements would have been deeply challenged by the time we started shipping them Ford Pintos in 1972. Capitalism may have its flaws, but it is undeniably human nature to try to make a buck, and it's awfully hard to chant revolutionary slogans when you're listening to the Beatles on an iPod.

Perhaps with a new administration in Washington -- the eleventh since Castro came to power -- will come some enlightenment about the embargo. And while there will be an uproar from some on Calle Ocho if the restrictions are loosened, you can be pretty sure that some of the first in line for the first flights back will be those who protested the loudest. But then, it's a Cuban thing; you wouldn't understand.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Terrifying the Jews

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In other words, McCain's latest campaign strategy.

We saw it in Pennsylvania, where prominent Republicans sent out an e-mail to Jewish voters likening the situation in 2008 to the situation in Europe in the 1930s and '40s (with Obama akin to Neville Chamberlain, an enabler of evil -- then the Nazis, now Iran).

And we're seeing it again in a new McCain ad likely to be aired in Florida (if it hasn't started airing already).

Via Benen, the ad says this:

Iran. Radical Islamic government. Known sponsors of terrorism. Developing nuclear capabilities to 'generate power' but threatening to eliminate Israel.

Obama says Iran is a "tiny" country, "doesn't pose a serious threat." Terrorism, destroying Israel, those aren't "serious threats"?

Obama -- dangerously unprepared to be president.

Let's go to the video tape!

What Obama actually said, back in May, was that Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela are "are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us." (And his point was that the U.S. engaged a superpower like the Soviet Union diplomatically, so why not an enemy like Iran?)

Which, of course, is absolutely true. Cuba isn't a threat at all, Venezuela has oil, and Iran may or may not have nuclear weapon capability sometime in the future. Last time I checked, these rogue states didn't have thousands of missiles pointed at the U.S. (or anywhere else, for that matter, including Israel). (As for Iran, Ahmadinejad is mostly bluster aimed at domestic consumption. I don't like him, and I certainly don't approve of such anti-Israel sentiment, nor of Iran's sponsorship of some terrorist organizations, but let's not exaggerate the threat. It's not in any way an immediate one.)

But no matter to McCain, whose campaign is all about lying and smearing and deceiving and otherwise trying to scare the hell out of voters, to portray Obama both as a dark and dangerous Other and as an enemy to Israel.

Fucking nonsense on both counts.

Good landings

By Carol Gee

"Go for the de-orbit burn" -- These dead stick glides to earth of the big old heavy warhorse shuttles remain an absolute miracle to me and other incurably addicted "space junkies." Listening to the NASA channel, it is a tense process. You can hear it in the voices of the people at the consoles and in the pilots' flying the Atlantis shuttle -- voices just a bit rushed report the minute by minute landing sequence. "Copy, good config for the burn," says Commander Steve Frick. The engines will burn for a little over two minutes in a braking maneuver. The shuttle will drop out of orbit at 16,000 miles an hour towards its inevitable fiery 2500 degree reentry into the earth's thin blanket of atmosphere. It has been a 5.1 million mile mission.

The shuttle comes in just west of Cuba, a small country attempting to make a good a landing, itself, after Fidel Castro's resignation from office. We wish them well. Atlantis does a series of "s-turns" to slow its speed. For direction, NASA makes use of the GPS positioning technology, just as if they had "OnStar" and were lost outside of Poughkeepsie. Eighty miles out we get the first dim view of the still upturned shuttle. Twin sonic booms "heralded the arrival of Atlantis." With s-turns to slow their speed, and a big overhead turn towards the field, the shuttle makes an amazing landing at 8:07 CT, with Commander Frick at the controls. We get to see this landing through the same "heads-up display" used the Commander and Pilot in Atlantis -- another one of those "Wow!" things for space junkies.

This was a big trip for the STS-122 crew, and for the cooperating international space community. The 12-day mission completed the installation of ESA's Columbus science module, complete with a French crew member Flight Engineer Leopold Eyharts, deployed to see to the activation of the module and its experiments. It was also a big trip home for Mission Specialist astronaut Dan Tani, who has lived for an extended four-month period at the International Space Station. He lost his mom in a car accident in December and now he is coming home to the arms of his family.

A long convoy of vehicles meets the shuttle crew after the landing. After a period of "safe-ing" the hot, huffing and puffing vehicle, a flight surgeon checks out the crew. There is a private disembarkation, because coming back to earth is a rough experience, particularly for Tani, who will get several weeks of rehab for the after effects of his 120 days of weightlessness. The crew will have lunch with their family members.

"Next stop for Atlantis, the Hubble Space Telescope in late August," says the familiar voice of the NASA announcer. The boys are home and I can breathe again.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

Thoughts on Cuba

By Carl

As you must certainly know by now, Fidel Castro has formally renounced the presidency of Cuba. His brother, Raul, will assume permanently the role he's held for two years now, and hints at democratic reforms.

Naturally, and desperate for any win in a time of political cholera, elements of the right wing in this country are hooting how America's embargo forced this change.

Is it not ironic that those who most loudly espouse democracy and freedom for Cuba are in favor of the embargo that imprisoned and tyrranized her people?

To a point, the embargo had a point. That point was lost at least thirty years ago. Rather than collapse the Castro regime along with the Soviet Union and other communist and socialist states, we allowed it to fester by imposing our will on it. Why? It certainly on its own was no military threat to us, and it espoused no dangerous, violent theosophy to kill us in our beds. Indeed, one would be very hard pressed to find where any terror cell would have stood a chance in operating out of Cuba, no matter how much money they were to throw at Castro.

One gets the impression that Castro actually liked America, he just couldn't stand its leadership. Guantanamo Bay exists not in a vacuum, and indeed, America had to ask Castro's permission to use it as a prison for Al Qaeda suspects.

And perhaps he had a good reason for disliking American presidents and congresses.

By banning Cuban goods (something we had never done with Soviet-produced merchandise, or Chinese, for that matter), we enforced a poverty-stricken people with surveillance and hunger. Poor, hungry people act out. They must be controlled, a lesson not seemingly lost on this nation's government, as it imposes non-FISA surveillance, torture, and national identity cards upon us.

We defeated Communism with butter, not guns. The Beatles brought the West to the Soviet Union. Wrangler jeans. A United States-style union freed Poland. A playwright, Czechoslovakia. Reaganauts can claim the armament race put the Soviet Union out of business, but it was the will of its people who pulled the gates down and padlocked them.

I am fully in favor of ending the embargo now, and I think it's not soon enough. Indeed, Raul Castro had already made inroads into incorporating a China-style fusion of socialism and capitalism, by allowing free market farmer's markets to be established.

The best evidence we can give the Cuban people that freedom, democracy and free enterprise work is by lowering the embargo and opening trade with this nation, by allowing American tourism and business development interests to come in and demonstrate new ideas and new ways of thinking.

And in return, we could learn alot about the Cuban way of doing things, and learn ideas that could benefit us back here at home. These folks have been stuck in a fifty year time warp. There is much they know that we've forgotten in our full court press towards the 21st century.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Viva Cuba Libre!

By Capt. Fogg

Update: For how Castro's resignation might affect U.S.-Cuba relations, and how the leading presidential candidates (Obama, Clinton, and McCain) might respond to it, hopefully by changing course, see Steve Clemons over at The Washington Note. -- MJWS

**********

Bush began to talk about the "blessings of Liberty" like some Chatty Kathy Doll when he heard of Fidel Castro's resignation as President of Cuba. He launched into a typically rambling riff about unfair elections and people rotting in prisons while the gods of hypocrisy smiled down on him like a proud parent upon a favored child.

No, I'm not a fan of Fidel, but many Cubans are and they see him as having provided a better life than they had when Cuba was run by a feudal corruptocracy owned by American interests, legitimate and otherwise. Many Cubans see their financial problems as something done to them out of spite and malice by our fair country and indeed our policies have hurt the common man while strengthening Castro and his party. I would hardly be surprised to hear that many Cuban patriots wonder if those blessings of liberty Bush extols are like the blessings we have afforded other countries whose resources we crave and the "fair" elections he describes would be like those we have squashed or rigged in places like Iran and Latin America and Vietnam.

It's not that I'm sad to see him step down and I'm hopeful that Cuba will be allowed to rejoin the world and its economy in my lifetime. As a lifelong fan of Earnest Hemingway I would love to follow his route from Key West to Cuba in my own boat and be free to return home without reprisals from my own government. Who knows? It may happen, but not now. The embargo will remain in place, no move toward reconciliation will be made for despite the rapturous rhetoric about liberty, it's still all about the nationalization of US owned assets that offended our sense of entitlement so badly over 50 years ago. Cubans in Miami may be cheering Viva Cuba Libre, but in Washington the unheard prayer is Viva Coca Cola and Viva Cosa Nostra.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Around the world: Serbia, Sudan, Kenya, Cuba, Switzerland, and Germany

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Wait, you mean there are things going on in the world other than the presidential primaries in the U.S.? Sure, and here are some stories you might find interesting:

1) Serbia: The (deputy) leader of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radicals, Tomislav Nikolic, defied the polls and beat the incumbent, President Boris Tadic, in the first round of that country's two-round presidential election, 39 to 35. Nikolic and the Radicals are anti-European, pro-Russian, and basically pan-Slavic nationalists. They oppose independence for Kosovo. And their leader, Vojislav Seselj, is currently on trial in The Hague. If you're wondering, no, many Serbs haven't learned anything from their country's recent (and historical) travails. For some background, see here.

2) Sudan: One of the leaders of the genocidal Janjaweed militia in Darfur has been appointed to a high-ranking position in the Khartoum government. Hmmmm.

3) Kenya: It seems that some of the appalling violence that has rocked that country since its corrupt and contested presidential election was both "premeditated and organized," with both government and opposition elements stirring up ethnic hatred even before the vote. "It wasn't like people just woke up and started fighting each other," said Dan Juma, the acting deputy director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission. "It was organized." More echoes of Rwanda.

4) Cuba: Cubans went to the polls yesterday to "elect" 614 deputies to the National Assembly. Actually, there were a total of 614 candidates for 614 seats -- all ran unopposed. Fidel Castro was one of them. Good times.

5) Switzerland: One of the country's national foods is under attack from the E.U. It's called cervalat, it's a type of sausage, and it's made with cow intestine imported from Brazil. "Swiss butchers produce 160 million cervalet sausages per year, which works out to about 21 links per person." That's a lot of intestine. The E.U. imposed the ban a couple of years ago on the grounds that Brazilian beef intestines could carry mad cow disease, but Swiss stockpiles are just now running low. And the Swiss are pissed, not least because the European soccer championship is being held there this summer. "Switzerland has surrendered itself in the case of our national sausage to technocrats in Brussels, of all people," wrote one newspaper. "I simply cannot imagine Switzerland without the original cervelat," said one member of parliament. "We cannot stand for this," said one chef, "We have to fight for our sausage!" (Note that Jim Hacker brilliantly played the British sausage card against European technocrats on his way to #10.) By the way, the intestines are just the casing, but it seems that to the Swiss no substitute will do. I think we need to ask Clinton and Obama about this.

6) Germany: A prominent German historian has likened Tom Cruise's performance on that Scientology recruitment video to the propagandistic style of Joseph Goebbels. And he's right, to a point. It's not that Scientology is akin to Nazism in all ways -- and, as much as I dislike Scientology, I would hesitate to make such a comparison -- just that propaganda is propaganda, which is to say, all propaganda, and particularly all cult of personality propaganda in support of quasi-religious cults, is similar. There is, in my view, no good reason why Scientology should be taken seriously or even treated as softly as it is in and by the media. It is a cult of lies, and it should be laughed at, repudiated, and, where possible, exposed for the massive fraud it is.

How about No Press Secretary Left Behind?

By Edward Copeland

You'll have to scroll down a bit through the story to get to the details, but as further evidence of the pisspoor historical education received by people in this country (and unfortunately way too many members of Dubyaland), Bush spokeswoman can't remember what that Cuban Missile Crisis deal was all about:

Appearing on National Public Radio's light-hearted quiz show "Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me," which aired over the weekend, Perino got into the spirit of things and told a story about herself that she had previously shared only in private: During a White House briefing, a reporter referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and she didn't know what it was.

"I was panicked a bit because I really don't know about . . . the Cuban Missile Crisis," said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown. "It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure."

So she consulted her best source. "I came home and I asked my husband," she recalled. "I said, 'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana.'"

If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people

By Edward Copeland

On my film site today, I review Michael Moore's Sicko. Here is an excerpt:

The title of this post comes from Tony Benn, a longtime member of Britain's Labour Party, who discusses the history of his country's National Health Service with Michael Moore in Moore's new documentary about the U.S. health care system, Sicko, which not only proves to be Moore's most solid work since Roger & Me but may be his best documentary ever. Of course, any Moore film isn't a documentary in the strictest definition of the word: Moore's a propagandist and provocateur but, in most cases, he's also right and Sicko may be his most dead-on film in that regard, refusing to point the finger of easy blame at one party or the other and, more importantly, focusing like a laser on the subject at hand.

To read my full review, click here.

Two of a kind

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Hugo and Fidel.

This is supposed to be some sort of "working visit," according to Cuban TV. Maybe Fidel and his brother Raul can show Hugo La Cabaña prison, where their pal Che presided over the mass execution of Hugo's opponents, or maybe they can talk about Che's Soviet-style labour camps and other good ways to brutalize the people in the name of totalitarian revolution.

The Tyrant of Caracas can surely learn a lot from the Tyrant of Havana.

Cuban rodeo

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Hey, it's another installment in our Amusing Photo of the Day series!

From the Globe: "A Cuban cowboy slips from his horse while trying to grab a steer during the 12th Boyeros Cattleman's Fair in Havana."

Boo-hoo. I feel far worse for the poor steer. But -- uh -- is that a Green Bay Packers helmet he's wearing?