US/Cuba Look to Normalize Relations

This is in the category of things i didn't know, and wasn't interested in. They cannot have left those missiles and bombers in Cuba, however, under Cuban control--we'd have known about that sooner or later, and probably sooner rather than later. Overflights by U2 aircraft, or, later, Blackbird aircraft would have seen them. That was how we learned about missiles in the Cuba in the first place. What was significant was that it was, overall, a defeat for the Soviet Union. Khrushchev did not last much longer, and i suspect that this event was one of the contributing factors in his fall from grace.

I seriously doubt that the Cubans were capable, on their own, of operating their own weapons systems of those types. The negotiations for removing Soviet personnel from Cuba must surely have included removing the weapons systems. The bit about Ché Guevara suggesting tthat Cuba keep such weapons systems as a threat is an ugly joke. Had the launched any form of attack, Cuba would have been quickly been turned into a large, radioactive parking lot, whatever else may have happened.

I think he finds it painful using words like revisionist, clearly someone else, (someone with a much wider vocabulary,) is telling him what to think, probably another recidivist.

I think You are both too stupid to see that history is being retold, revisited and plainly manipulated. History is now a political tool and motives are dismissed or elevated depending on who is telling it.

Basically, Che was an animal, and any reference to garbage like him should convince anyone the left sets the bar awfully low.

I didn't suggest they could have pulled it off, seizing the missiles, but I certainly think Guevera may have been audacious enough to try it. In the scenario I read, Castro didn't even consider it.

Yeah, it would have been a dumb idea. Guevara has now reached the level of sainthood, but i suspect an objective review of his career would reveal that he really was not all that bright.

He would have had to kidnap the Soviet technicians. He let his zeal outweigh the practical.

Alternatively, he could just have started pushing buttons to see what would have happened.

As Lenin called em, Che Guevarra was one of the "Useful idiots" until Castro, after appointing him in several key spots, watched him fail miserably. Guevarra was also quite brutal in his handling of prisoners nd sending thousands to be shot.
Hed outlived any "usefulness"

They made a saint out of him in the 1960s, particularly with the popular poster. Then that goofy motion picture, The Motorcycle Diaries, started the whole hagiography up once again.

I still remember the last line of "The Motorcycle Diaries" here he is telling this old Farmer in Colombia how
"I was there to protect the people"

"Protect me from whaaat?" said the old man, as they took Che away never to be seen again

I disagree. Mr. Obama wasted all his political capital in a futile attack on the NRA back in 2013, and now he has no ability to push any legislation through Congress. He's been a lame duck for some years already now.

The one legislation he might have still achieved (immigration reform), he botched when he pursued extremist unilateral action instead of working with Republicans who also wanted to pass it.

Come next election it will have been a long six years since Mr. Obama has managed to get any legislation passed.

It was indeed. I was a newly reported pilot in an attack squadron on a carrier in the North Atlantic at the time of Kennedy's speech. We were initially in Defcon 3 , but it was elevated to 2 and I found myself overseeing the loading of nuclear bombs on our A 4 aircraft. Meanwhile the missile laden Soviet transports headed down the Atlantic towards the Bahama Straits and Cuba were approaching the line of submariunes waiting to sink them. They turned back and the moment of crisis passed. Two months later we were off the Florida coast and photographing Soviet Vessels returning their weapon s and troops to the USSR. We would make a low pass and the ships would then muster their men visibly on the decks so we could photograph them - in different groups wearing different colored shirts which were apparently of some significance.

I believe all the hype avout the US embargo having an adverse effect on the Cuban economy is a bunch of nonsense. They have open commercial relationships with most neighboring countries incluiding Mexico and most European nations. The truth is their stupid socialist economy is unable to produce goods and services even at the levels that prevailed diring the Batista era, and they don't have the money to buy anything. The only real hope for ther Cuban people is the collapse of the authoritarian regime that has subjected them to such misrule for the past generation.

Our pathetic president is working very hard to preserve the illusion that he is still relevant and important. He is neither.

Hey George, weve forgiven Germany and Japan for their Imperialist dreams. Is Cuba gonna attack us with an army of 80 year olds driving 57 Chevy "Technicals"?

I believe it was Ronald Reagan who first used the Shakespear term of "Constructive ENgagement" to address South Africa

It is then logical to conclude that it didn't work in favor of US interests.

And, ideologically, it backfired.... unless, of course, you were interested in keeping the domestic statu quo in both nations.

In other words, the embargo served as a justification on both sides of the Florida Strait,
Politics.
Bad politics.

I don't understand. If the embargo was ineffective, then shouldn't you be applauding Obama for ending an ineffective and wasteful government policy?

Obama grabbed an opportunity provided to him by the Vatican diplomacy. That is not very proactive but it least it is not foot-dragging either.

He is not pathetic, George...he is a guy trying to do a very difficult job in an environment that is toxic...mostly because of people you endorse.

Obamacare and the movement for normalizing relations with Cuba are very relevant and important.

But I understand that people who actually think Ronald Reagan was a great president have problems dealing with things like this.

Gotta give 'em a pass.

For anybody still wondering, the missile sites the former Soviet Union installed all over the place 90 miles from the United States were dismantled and shipped back to the USSR. Kennedy and his cabinet would have had to had proof they were gone, the first sin was the Russians establishing an offensive posture right off shore, the sin would have been doubled if we let them leave them there.