Last Friday Barack Obama and his new B.F.F. Raul Castro made a joint press appearance at the Summit of the Americas. It seems President-for-life, Castro was quite pleased with his fellow tyrant ~

“I think that what President Obama has just said, it’s practically the same as we feel about the topics, including human rights, freedom of the press.”

That’s comforting isn’t it? They certainly seem to have a shared aversion to Christians. (Obama’s was on display last week.) In Cuba, late last year ~

On 20 December, six members of an inter-denominational protestant group were beaten and imprisoned for nine hours in a windowless cell with no ventilation or light after attempting to carry out open air evangelism in the city of Bayamo.
 
A few days later, on 22 December, 60 women affiliated with the Ladies in White movement were arrested in the early hours of the morning and held in prisons, police patrol cars and police stations across the country to prevent them from attending Sunday morning Mass.

(Of course communists never have been big on Feliz Navidad – or any other aspect of Christianity.)
 

The thing is, despite Obama’s attempt to delude the drones, Raul Castro has already affirmed that Cuba will not abandon communism. Just last December ~

Castro’s speech to Cuba’s National Assembly was a sharp counterpoint to the message U.S. President Barack Obama gave in his year-end news conference the day before. Obama reiterated that by engaging directly with the Cuban people, Americans are more likely to encourage reform in Cuba’s one-party system and centrally planned economy.
 
 

“We must not expect that in order for relations with the United States to improve, Cuba will abandon the ideas that it has struggled for,” Castro said.

Translation: We have no intention of loosening the reins of totalitarianism.
 

As CNS News explains, our own state department’s documents officially acknowledge that Castro’s government is an autocracy with little regard for human rights ~

“Cuba is an authoritarian state led by Raul Castro, who is president of the council of state and council of ministers, Communist Party (CP) first secretary, and commander in chief of security forces,” said the State Department Country Report on human rights in Cuba for 2013, which was published in 2014, and is the latest available.

Although other political parties are permitted to exist, they’re irrelevant; only the Communist Party of Cuba is actually allowed to rule the island paradise.

“The constitution provides for freedom of speech and press only insofar as it ‘conforms to the aims of socialist society,’” said the State Department report. “Laws banning criticism of government leaders and distribution of antigovernment propaganda carry penalties ranging from three months’ to 15 years’ imprisonment.”

 
As recently as January 2013,

“The government did not respect freedom of speech and press, severely restricted internet access and maintained a monopoly on media outlets, circumscribed academic freedom, and maintained significant restrictions on the ability of religious groups to meet and worship,” said the State Department report.

 
Unfortunately, thanks to mainstream media malpractice, far too many Americans are clueless about the Cuban regime. In Panama last weekend ~

Obama declared that “There is majority support of our policy in the United States” and that “the American people don’t need to be persuaded that this is in fact the right thing to do.”
 
A new poll commissioned by my American Enterprise Institute colleague Roger Noriega for InterAmerican Security Watch finds that Americans do support Obama’s plan by a margin of 51 to 38 percent . . . until they learn some basic facts about Cuba.

 
For example, when they realize that Cuba…
 
• is hosting Russian ships in its harbors;
• has attempted to smuggle 240 tons of weaponry to North Korea;
• is harboring a cop-killer (murdered a NJ state trooper) and terrorists;

… Support for Obama’s sneaky plans for normalizing relations with the Communists drops below 20%.
 
 
The truth: Cuba is in fact a state sponsor of terror.

There’s a reason 10 presidents of both parties kept Cuba’s Castros on America’s bad-guys’ list for more than 50 years. Each leader understood a basic truth: Totalitarian Cuba is a sworn enemy of the U.S., a violent threat to the Western Hemisphere’s peace and prosperity and an ally of our worst enemies — including the former USSR.

Source: Investors Business Daily editorial

Global Repercussions

Restoring diplomatic relations with Communist Cuba only encourages every other evil dictator on the planet to indulge their imperialistic aspirations ~ Obama’s Move to Strengthen Cuba Will Also Help Russia, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela ~

In recent years, Cuba has aligned itself militarily with an international rogues’ gallery: Venezuela, of course, but also Russia, Iran and North Korea […]
 
So, by propping up Castro’s regime in Cuba, Obama can indirectly benefit all of America’s major adversaries, providing them with a more economically robust trading partner, a better source of illicit arms, and, most important, naval bases and intelligence outposts just miles from our shores. I think it is fair to say that for all past American presidents, even the Democrats, the prospect of aiding such bitter enemies of the United States would have rendered propping up Castro’s regime unthinkable.

Source: John Hinderaker at Powerline Blog

Proving this point, no sooner did Obama start to thaw relations with Cuba when Russia announced Monday (4-13-15) that ~

… it will sell Iran advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles. The decision, which ends an embargo dating back to 2010, shows that President Barack Obama is rapidly losing control of the international consensus on Iran […]
 
Effectively, then, Putin is calling the world’s bluff. He is setting a deadline for Israel to make a fateful choice, and daring the Obama administration to intervene.

It’s not just that Obama is re-aligning the United States with all the wrong tyrants – he’s destabilizing the entire globe –

What are American guarantees and promises worth if a fifty-year-old policy followed by Democrats like Johnson, Carter, and Clinton can be discarded overnight? In more than a few chanceries the question that will be asked as this year ends is “who is next to find that America is today more interested in propitiating its enemies than in protecting its allies?”

Source: Weekly Standard

 

Thank God John F. Kennedy was president of the United States in 1962. Even though he was a Democrat – he was an American first.
 
Did anyone who was around back then ever believe the country would survive five more decades – only to see a communist like Barack Hussein Obama in the White House?!

 
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Related:
Normalizing Cuba Ties Doesn’t Erase Castro’s Legacy

 
Cuban Democracy Advocate Viciously Beaten By Castro’s Thugs ~ an ugly little dose of reality that Obama ignored
 
The President meets the General: Dictatorship legitimized and misbehaviour whitewashed ~ Leftist myth busting, along with some excellent observations from (I think) a Cuban exile in Miami ~

This Panama edition of the Summit of the Americas gives an insight into the future of the region. Democracy and human rights will continue to decline in the Americas. The United States along with other remaining democracies will play some lip service while recognizing the new authoritarians and totalitarians as another example of “political diversity” and agreeing politely to disagree.

The Thing About Being Cuban Right Now ~ What’s really what with Obama’s new Cuban policy, from Marta at My Big Fat Cuban Family
 
Obama Strangles the Monroe Doctrine and Embraces Latin Dictatorships, Communists and Fascists ~

Obama has now stated for the world that the US will no longer act to resist overseas influence in the Western Hemisphere.