What Would Be Welcomed

Now that the most sweeping changes in restrictive policies regarding Cuba have been made official, it's important that we pay close attention to what is going on. Although all of rhe decisions made by President Obama are correct and completely justified, one thing needs to not be overlooked. In announcing the changes the president, along with a sizeable portion of the press, were clear in their explanation of the shift; the policies didn't achieve the goal. What was the goal? Reversing the Cuban revolution itself and re-asserting US dominance of Cuba.

The job of the US government is not to dictate to other nations, each just as sovereign as the other, what or how a government should be. This particular "goal" must be denounced and any uninvited interference in Cuba by the United States should not be something that anyone in the United States should support. The reverse wouldn't be tolerated and has never been even attempted.

This is not a secret. Domination of the island has been contemplated for way more than a century by politicians in Washington, sometimes in the past openly. Now fancy catch phrases are used such as "expanding democracy" and "supporting human rights".

As the politicians in our capital expand "freedom" around the world, actual lives are made worse. Just look at some recent "successes" in Libya or in Iraq. It seems that an appearance of democratic happenings regardless of its credibility suffices.

Tall tales of history claim that the United States help Cuba gain her independence from Spain. The treaty of Paris actually handed control over the island to the US and away from Spain. The newly "independent" Cuba's constitution was written basically under military occupation. In 1906 the then president T. Roosevelt signed an executive order giving the Secretary of War, Taft, the role of provisional governor of Cuba and again occupied the island. The fact that this happened is obvious evidence that independence wasn't truly achieved.

Over time certain treaties were changed allowing more independence but until 1959, a government of Cuba never did exercise actual independence with the the main goal of putting the Cuban people first. That was the only "offense" that was committed by the government of Cuba. And for that the punishment of the last half century is explained.

Whether a person is of the mind that the US has some sort of right to intervention or not,  as Obama said the policy pursued was fruitless.  Realizing this was politically easy given the desire of American companies to do business with the island. What Obama hasn't renounced is an intention to attempt to change the government on the island. He likely prefers to allow the business opportunities to be pleased while Washington searches for a new tactic for an old goal.

We can debate how free a people may be until the end of time, faults can be found, and improvements can be made everywhere. But we need to understand that the new language being used by our politicians is to justify the policy change as well as it will be used to justify continued interference. Congress needs to deal the actual death blow to the outdated legal restrictions written in to our laws.  But we need to demand from our own government a respect for the sovereignty of our neighbor. That is the true change that will be most welcomed if it is to come.