Based on a recommendation from the U.S. State Department, Cuba has been removed from the list of nations that sponsor terrorism – a spot it held for 33 years. In another sign of warmer relations, President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro met in Panama last week.
Cuba Off Terror List
The Editorial Board – The Miami Herald
As politically unpalatable as it may seem, the Obama administration’s decision to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism is an inevitable bow to reality. Cuba remains a repressive, one-party police state, but it no longer exports subversion throughout the hemisphere as it did when the Reagan administration placed it on the list in 1982 …
Today, as the State Department’s own Web site acknowledges, Cuba is brokering a peace agreement between the leftist group and the Colombian government. It is no longer the hemisphere’s beacon of revolution, in large part because the Cuban model long ago lost its allure for all but the most naive believers in Marxism.
Crossing Cuba off the list should not be deemed a reward but an acknowledgment of the change in behavior.
Reactions were strong, given the historical enmity between the United States and Cuba.
President Obama Cozies Up to Cuban Dictator
Peter Brookes – The Boston Herald
With the “historic” clasp of hands in Panama City, Panama last week with Raul Castro, President Obama took the next fateful step toward normalizing relations with the Western Hemisphere’s most repressive regime.
Seemingly desperate to move beyond a series of foreign policy flubs such as Iraq, Russia and Libya, cozying up to Castro’s Cuba — now officially removed from the U.S. terrorism list — still boggles the mind.
The idea that engagement is going to change Cuba is folly.
While we as Americans should have no issue with the Cuban people, who are victims of their government’s hard-line policies (like the Iranians, North Koreans and others), we should hold Havana’s jefes accountable for their authoritarian actions.
Normalizing relations won’t do that.
In defense of Obama’s decision, some editors argued that there exist several other nations that aren’t on the list, but should be.
Cuba Is Not a Terrorist State
The Editorial Board – Bloomberg View
President Barack Obama’sannouncement of his intention to remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism comes both far too late and at just the right time.
For well over a decade, Cuba has been an odd bedfellow among other terrorism sponsors such as Iran, Sudan and Syria (not to mention North Korea, which President George W. Bush delistedin 2008) …
The thawing of U.S. relations with Cuba does not mean that it has become a tropical democracy. The Castro regime’s repressive apparatus is intact and well-oiled. Its control over the economy remains firm. And it continues to act in ways that are inimical to U.S. interests.
But that description could apply to many countries that are not on the list — beginning with Russia, Syria’s patron.