Politics > Politics-USA > The Bush administration's regressive anti-Cuba policy takes a serious blow.
| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Tom Jefferson" |
| Date: |
24 Oct 2003 05:28:40 PM |
| Object: |
The Bush administration's regressive anti-Cuba policy takes a serious blow. |
In Blow to Bush, Senate Votes to Ease Cuba Travel Limits
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
Published: October 23, 2003
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 — In a firm rebuke to President Bush over Cuba policy,
the Senate voted overwhelmingly today to ease travel restrictions on
Americans seeking to visit the island.
The 59-to-38 vote came less than two weeks after President Bush, in a Rose
Garden ceremony, announced that he would tighten the travel ban in an
attempt to halt illegal tourism there.
The House passed a similar measure by a wide margin on Sept. 9. So today's
vote placed the president and Republican Congressional leaders uncomfortably
on a collision course, leaving an angry White House threatening to veto an
important spending bill and a growing number of lawmakers from both parties
demanding an overhaul of the American sanctions regime against Havana.
The vote also highlighted a widening split between farm-state Republicans,
who oppose trade sanctions in general or are eager to increase sales to
Cuba, and Cuban-American leaders, whom the White House views as essential to
the president's political strength in Florida.
Several influential Republican senators voted against the president,
including John Warner of Virginia, the chairman of the armed services
committee, and Pat Roberts of Kansas, the chairman of the intelligence
committee, as well as numerous conservatives from rural states, including
Senators James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Sam Brownback of
Kansas and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.
Senator Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican who co-sponsored the amendment,
criticized what he called an American "stranglehold" on Cuba, a nation of 11
million located within 100 miles of United States shores. The decades-old
travel ban, he said, merely deepens the misery of Cubans without providing
fresh ideas to the Marxist-led nation.
"Unilateral sanctions stop not just the flow of goods, but the flow of
ideas," Senator Enzi said. "Ideas of freedom and democracy are the keys to
positive change in any nation."
The White House countered that allowing unfettered American travel to Cuba
would provide the government of President Fidel Castro with an economic
bonanza, allowing him to cover up his shortcomings as a repressive dictator.
"It is vitally important to maintain these sanctions and restrictions," said
one senior administration official. Their purpose, he said, "is to prevent
unlicensed tourism in Cuba, which provides economic resources — American
dollars — to the Castro regime, while doing nothing to help the Cuban
people."
The official said the president's advisers would recommend that he veto the
bill if it emerges from a conference committee.
President Bush made his own case for the restrictions on Oct. 10, when he
pledged to step up enforcement of the travel ban, by intensifying
inspections of travelers and shipments to and from Cuba. The Department of
Homeland Security immediately announced that it would direct "intelligence
and investigative resources" to identify travelers or businesses that
circumvent the sanctions against Cuba.
Mr. Bush's announcement, which included the creation of a commission to plan
for a post-Castro Cuba, represented the first substantive response to a
mounting outcry among some Cuban exile groups over Mr. Castro's imprisonment
of about 75 Cuban dissidents last spring. In addition, some Cuban American
leaders had voiced outrage of the administration's decision to repatriate 12
Cubans accused of hijacking a government boat.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/23/international/americas/23CND-CUBA.html?ex=
1067955372&ei=1&en=d6b171d14e258dd0
--
A hard truth appears to have escaped the notice of the public and received
scant attention from the media: Bush is the first president in American
history to use deceptive propaganda as his main means of communications in
selling his policies. His pattern of deception continues unabated and in
direct conflict with the notion of the public's informed consent that is
central to American democracy.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/6378746.htm
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| User: "Laura Bush - Americas kid killer" |
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| Title: Re: The Bush administration's regressive anti-Cuba policy takes a serious blow. |
24 Oct 2003 10:24:12 PM |
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On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 16:28:40 -0600, "Tom Jefferson"
<tom@returndemocracy.now> wrote:
Hey jefferson - URANIDIOT. If you want people to even read your
posts, let alone respond, you need to cut them down to size.
Summarize the article in a few sentences and then give a link and
that's all. Thank you.
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