Looking beyond Castro


Could free trade end Fidel Castro's legacy of poverty?
Peggy Noonan outdoes herself here.

How about this: Treat it as an opportunity. Use the change of facts to announce a change of course. Declare the old way over. Declare a new U.S.-Cuban relationship, blow open the doors of commerce and human interaction, allow American investment and tourism, mix it up, reach out one by one and person by person to the people of Cuba. "Flood the zone." Flood it with incipient prosperity and the insinuation of democratic values. Let Castroism drown in it.

The American economic embargo of Cuba is 40 years old. It has been called ineffective--it did not produce Fidel's downfall. It has been called effective--it kept the squeeze on, demonstrated what communism reaped and reaps. In any case it was right to deny a monstrous regime contact with, and implicit encouragement from, the American democracy.

All fair enough. But the monster may be dead and is surely dying. In any case, what remains of Cuban communism dies with him. Cubans don't know what they are economically except one thing: poor.

Castro survived the ruin of his economy--he had the guns--and he used his resistance to isolation to enhance his mystique. Fearless Fidel faced down the yanqui. Still, he was forced to swerve and pivot. In 1994, after Soviet cash supports had ended, he was forced to allow some modest individual self-employment.

With Castro gone, why not seize the moment for some wise, judicious, free-market love-bombing?

This might be premature. I personally would want to hold off until the man is dead and buried.

But oh what a strategy, even if it would take major changes in U.S. law to make it legal.

And without Cuba, the whole Central and South American situation changes.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Thu - August 3, 2006 at 08:29 AM  Tag


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