Bush walks right into Castro's trap

Fixer touched on this in his post yesterday:

A word of warning to the Chimp and the neocons. Don't think, because Fidel is ailing, you can dick around in Cuba. You don't need an Iraq 90 miles off our coast.

David Sirota, obviously a daily reader of The Brain, follows up:

Open today's New York Times, and you will see that the Bush administration is now publicly bragging that once Castro dies, America is planning for a full-on take over of Cuba. In one story, we find out that "Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, made it clear on Tuesday that the United States would take an active role in shaping events on the island if the Cuban leader dies." That is the kind of declaration easily interpreted/spun by anti-democratic forces in Cuba as no-holds-barred diplomat-ese for the very imperialism Castro has been warning his people about for the last half century.

In another story, we discover that the administration is now announcing that if Castro dies, "the United States would also send special monitors and advisers to Cuba in the weeks after a full transition began." In the wake of the Vietnam War, which infamously started out with U.S. military "advisers," again - this is clearly fodder that could be easily spun to confirm Castro's own message. And it is especially stupid and destructive to our long-term goals/credibitlity when, at the same time our government is haughtily strutting around making these proclamations, the White House is also saying "it viewed attempts by Venezuela or other countries to influence the transition in Cuba as unwarranted intervention."

The same thing goes in the situation with Cuba. The stupidest thing American officials can do is publicly walk into Castro's portrayal of our ambitions. By doing that, we are confirming the negative suspicions that many Cubans must have, considering they've been hearing about it over and over and over again for the last 50 years.

I think I can safely say that whatever Bush does will be wrong, and that we and the Cubans will pay for it for years.

If it was up to me, I'd drop the embargo, permit and encourage travel and trade, help 'em out with a little humanitarian aid should they require such a thing in a workers' paradise (rolls eyes), and let Cuba decide its own future for itself without foisting any Chalabi-type exiles off on 'em for his own gain at our expense. Fuck a buncha Republican votes in Florida.