I want to see the SOB playing cards with Hitler, Stalin, and Mao by this time next week.

Have fun there Fidel. Say Hi to Marx while you are burning.

Wait, damn it. The fourth seat at the table is taken by Arafat already.

I just hope the regime won't be able to continue on without Fidel running the show.

Fidel Castro pulled the wool over the citizen's of Cuba when he planned his take over. Before Batista, Cuba was a thriving wonderful place to live. Between the two they managed to take a mostly middle class population and drive it into a impoverished dictatorship. I hope this evil dictator who has murdered and tortured his own people gets to feel some pain here on earth before he departs his body... Once again, Bad Zsa Zsa!

Didn't the US formally agree to leave Cub a alone as part of the Missile Crisis settlement?

Or are treaties now as quaint as the Geneva Conventions?

2 things

1. we don't know how things in Cuba would have gone without US (CIA) involvement. I agree it is a mess down there...but we really don't know how things would have turned out if we hadn't worked so hard to sabotage them (look this up on your own if you don't know what I'm talking about)

2. You want Bush to do something about Castro? You want Bush to get involved in "regime change" again? We're still stabilizing the last two countries we got involved with! What makes you think that Bush could pull off even a remotely successful operation down there? Really, I have no confidence that Bush wouldn't screw Cuba up even worse.

2 things

1. we don't know how things in Cuba would have gone without US (CIA) involvement. I agree it is a mess down there...but we really don't know how things would have turned out if we hadn't worked so hard to sabotage them (look this up on your own if you don't know what I'm talking about)

2. You want Bush to do something about Castro? You want Bush to get involved in "regime change" again? We're still stabilizing the last two countries we got involved with! What makes you think that Bush could pull off even a remotely successful operation down there? Really, I have no confidence that Bush wouldn't screw Cuba up even worse.

Sorry about the double post.... browser troubles...

So why exactly do we deal with communist china, but not communist cuba? Also have you been there recently...just because we don't go there doesn't mean the rst of the world has forgotten them...its very nice.

And you "non-intellectuals" think undermining the Castro regime at every possible turn is the humanitarian thing to do?? How exactly is that going to alleviate the suffering or improve the standard of living? Forcing a dictator to become even more entrenched is going to put more food on Cuban tables? Forcing a dictator to start mistrusting eveyone is going to result in more freedom for Cubans? I'll bet you think our pre-emptive attack on Iraq was the humanitarian thing to do too. If Bush IS working on putting a stake through the heart of Fidel Castro then he's only doing it to divert attention away from all of our monumental policy failures and disasters.

I'd wager Mr. McCraken's deep concern for the long suffering people of Cuba extends only as far as it serves as a convenient rhetorical stick with which to beat the "lefties". Conservatives, establishment Liberals and their corporate overlords are only to happy to do business with the biggest communist dictatorship on earth because of the huge financial profits to be made from all that cheap labor. Try to find anything in a Walmart that isn't made in China-not easy. Of course, it is prefectly reasonable to argue that the best way to alter communist ditatorships is through trade and economic ties. I certainly support that approach in as much as it doesn't work to the detriment of American workers. It's the course we should have taken with Cuba, were it not for the fact that our foreign policy toward the Castro regime has been held hostage by a small group of ex-pats in Miami who have voted solidly Republican for decades. The truth of the matter is that the people of Cuba continue to suffer, in part, because of the unwillingness of Repubs, and Dems, to normalize relations over the virulent objections of this group. BTW, a lot of you are too young to remember the bombings,murders, and intimidation of the past in Miami directed at anyone opposing this group. Maybe you, Mr. McCraken, would enjoy joining up with them? They, like Castro, often find it more convenient to liquidate their political opponents than carry on a rational dialogue.

You'd wager, and you'd lose R.Mutt.

I have long favored burying the Castro regime with Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Club Med. Open trade and normalized relations with Cuba would have ended communism there decades ago in my opinion.

P.S. Bravo, sir, for the Duchamp reference.

You 'anti-intellectuals' insist that the everyday people of Cuba should have continued to suffer under the corporate fascism of Batista and the corrupt rackets of the US Mob, because that is the corporatist status quo you idealize.

Because you did not have the moral courage to make life better for the Cubans (and the Cuban people did), you anti-intellectuals have been holding a grudge on behalf of the Bacardi family for more than 40 years.

Wow!!

A Rigoberta Menchu sighting!!!

Oh, and is it "non-intellectuals" or "anti-intellectuals"? The duplication is quite confusing.

Thanks in advance for clearing that up.

I was unaware it was America's job to make living conditions better for every country on earth. If that's the case, Cuba can get in line behind about 20 different African countries.

If you want to make life better, stop the embargo and trade with them. Just like we do with "red" China.

If the improvement you are offering is anything like the improvement we brought to Iraq, my money says they would prefer not. But why would anybody ask them?

MMMM, Bacardi.