[Marxism] Georgie Anne Geyer: "Courting Cuba"

[Walter Lippmann]

(She wrote a book many years ago called GUERRILLA PRINCE, a very hostile
book, and seems now to have changed her tune in a noticeably better way.
So at least there are SOME people in the US media corps who recognizez
that something is different in that the expected collapse of the Cuban
revolution, perennially predicted once Fidel Castro's hands were no on
the levers of power, has not occurred, and the revolutionary island is
moving right along, thank you very much.)
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Opinion

Georgie Anne Geyer

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucgg/20071030/cm_ucgg/courtingcuba

COURTING CUBA

Tue Oct 30, 6:09 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- Turn directly to the south and cup your ear toward
Cuba. You might just hear some mysteriously evocative new messages
flying back and forth between Havana and Washington.

In fact, there has not been a better chance for forging a truly
workable, if not creative, relationship between the two quarrelsome
nations since 1959, when Fidel Castro came to power and everything
shut down. But is anybody here listening? One fears, particularly
after President Bush's hostile speech last week, that instead of
rewriting history at this unique turning point, we are in danger of
repeating it.

A discerning observer might think, at a classic moment of change like
this in Cuba, that wise American leaders might tread carefully, speak
softly and hide their sticks behind new intentions. One might dream
that we could be on the watch for wise diplomatic openings to use to
our advantage after 48 years of alternating deadly silence with
explosive violence in the straits.

Look first at the lineup on one side: An extremely ill Fidel
voluntarily "retires" in the summer of 2006 before his 80th birthday,
naming "little brother" Raul, no kid himself at 76, to power. A
collective leadership, including top leaders of the Communist Party
and younger, more worldly generals, many of whom have traveled and
grasped the realities outside Cuba, is established.

In only this first year, Raul is daring: He not only allows, but
encourages, a genuine debate over Cuba's 90 percent state-owned
economy. He even talks of opening negotiations with the United States
-- and "in a civilized fashion"!

Small but real examples of the changes: Under Raul, the state has
raised $25 million in payments to milk and meat producers, is filling
the empty streets with new Chinese buses, and is even talking about
opening the economy to foreign investment.

In a brilliant piece in the summer issue of The Washington Quarterly,
former CIA top Cuba analyst Brian Latell, author of the informative
"After Fidel," pointed out that "the first months of Raul's
provisional government augured well for continuity and stability," in
part because "any serious instability would delegitimize the
successor regime in its infancy."

Most important, Latell also argued convincingly, "in a departure from
Fidel's standard rhetoric ... the new regime is admitting that the
country's economic problems are SYSTEMIC, the results of corruption,
inefficiency and overly rigid central planning. Internal scapegoats
and the U.S. economic embargo are no longer incessantly being blamed.
... Previously persecuted groups ... are beginning to see in Raul the
makings of a Communist reformer" and "a man of methodical
creativity."

But then, Raul has always been different. Unlike his messianic and
Machiavellian older brother, Raul is highly organized, an expert at
military management and a man whose mind is more open to the world
than his brother's.

And in a country where the numbers of youth are gaining, researchers
have found a direct correlation between the young and support for
democratic and economic changes. In fact, in an amazing recent survey
conducted by the congressionally mandated International Republican
Institute (IRI) in Cuba by Central American pollsters, nearly
three-quarters of the 584 Cubans surveyed said they would like "to
vote to decide who succeeds Fidel Castro as president." Indeed, a
stunning 83 percent of Cubans believe that transformations toward a
market-based economy would "improve their lives."

Meanwhile, one hears that the irreplaceable but still hidden Fidel is
writing "editorials" about the world. One would think that he might
leave us poor ink-stained wretches to our own business, but, no!

What would seem obvious to any thoughtful observer or analyst is
that, given this new situation and handed these new possibilities,
the United States, with its complicated history of intervention in
Cuba, should effectively do nothing. Let these changes work
themselves out. Make it appear that the United States is willing to
gradually build a new and mature relationship with the Cuban people.
In short, stop interfering!

Instead, President Bush's recent speech on Cuba exceeded even his
speeches toward Iraq in terms of ire and insults. Washington would
help the "new Cuba," the president said, with Internet access, with
computers, with scholarships -- but only if Cuba met American
conditions like total freedom of speech, action and political
processes.

The civilian brigades of Cuban doctors who are serving around the
world? Bush urged them to desert those contingents. The Cuban
military, which has been proud of its service to Cuba? Bush
disdainfully and high-handedly told them: "There is a place for you
in a free Cuba."

Seldom has one heard a speech so insulting to another people -- and,
therefore, so incapable of reaching the desired conclusion.

So here we are again -- still without the faintest idea of how to
deal with a tiny but obstreperous island that has caused us an
inordinate amount of trouble over the entire 20th century. One does
not have to be pro-Fidel or anti-American to see that this is hardly
the way to wean the old Castroite Cuba away from the dictatorships of
the past.