It looks like the US is finally restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba...

Are you just being selectively choosy? My original post said "almost universally." Of course I knew there would be opposition to this. To be truthful, I meant to say almost universally here in CF. That's why I asked if people here on CF were against this. But I didn't make that clear so that's just my bad.

Still, aside from the Obama-the-King-doing-what-he-wants angle, what is wrong about this move? Yes, Cuba was a brutal regime decades ago. And that explains the older vs newer generational ideology Major was referring to. But a step toward peace is, in my eyes, a good thing.

 

Makes Americans vulnerable

still is

we are at peace.......

 

Ok, thanks for clearing things up.

 

Did they?

Obama received 65 million plus votes in 2012 - More than any individual Republican in History, and certianly more than the 40-50 million Republican ballots cast a few months ago.

The people have spoken. Obama is our leader. Democracy is a b****.

 

It doesn't look to me like the prisoner exchange was a big driver here. It's more like the holding of prisoners was an impediment to a deal we wanted to do, not a stick to use in negotiations. ISIS has beheaded a few American citizens now and Obama's not exactly giving them the shop to incent them to stop.

 

Capitulation. Rubio calls Obama the "single worst negotiator in my lifetime."

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really holds nothing back.

 

Didn't you hear? Obama sent Isis American trucks from Texas!

Spoiler

 

This will ruin him come election time.

 

So you're saying they voted for Obama before they voted against him?

/Kerry'd

 

Too bad Rubio got his basic facts wrong.

 

Hes saying that more voters turned out to vote for Romney than they did for this last congressional election and Romney still lost.

 

This is probably one of the best things Obama has done as President. He has my applause!

 

Ah if only that was relevant to how our representative republic works. Obama is a lame duck, and he's a lame duck because the American public overwhelmingly voted against his party. Of course that won't stop the spinsters from trying to twist an obvious and crushing defeat as if it was really a win.

 

Yes.

If it is universally seen as a good thing, why did Obama wait till after the election to do it? Why didn't Congress do it when the Dems had control of both houses?

Offering rewards to dictators for hostages sets a terrible precedent. Obama put a price on every American's head. Every totalitarian regime knows they can get significant concessions from Obama if they capture Americans.

Also, as Rubio said, the Castros made zero democratic concessions here. No free speech, no free press, no elections, no right to protest the regime.

The only way the Castros do any deal is if it makes them more wealthy and powerful, and that's what this has done.

The Left adores the Cuban dictatorship (as you can see from the squeeing here), and this legitimizes it and the empowers the tyrant Castro bros.

 

Sounds like we shouldn't be in any trade relationship with China and Vietnam. In fact, we should be embargoing them right now.

 

Yeah Isis sure got some nice swag from Obama for killing Americans after holding them hostage. This bombs he dropped on them sure did cost a bunch.

 

And so he's not a lame duck if American public overwhelming voted for his party? Dude, you are so anti-obama you forgot what lame duck means.

 

Only a select few people on the planet still think the Cuban dictatorship isn't legitimate. In reality it is no less legitimate than any other dictatorship that we don't embargo.

The embargo failed. It never toppled Castro, it only hurt the Cuban people. Cuba has normal relations with much of the world. We accomplished nothing.

Time to move on.

Open them up to the free market. If they had normal relationship with American the past 50 years, who knows where they'd be today.

 

Wait, have they not been in undisputed power since the 1950s or is there some shadow Cuban expatriate government with a rightful claim to power?

 

Opening up relations with the Cubans doesn't mean we're friends with them anymore than it means we're friends with the Chinese and Russians, and Cuba is just as bad as those countries, if not worse through certain avenues. Still, we stand a better chance of crushing their dictatorship under the banner of free trade compared to what we thought of China.