Friday, August 7, 2009

George Shultz, off the reservation (again)

President Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, was interviewed by the Peruvian magazine Caretas; here are excerpts (my translation):

It doesn’t seem to me to be an intelligent decision to maintain it [the embargo]. I would not negotiate with Castro over that. I would simply lift it…I would let people travel there to contribute to the opening of the economy and also on the political side. The Cuban American community should have access to the island. The more contact Cubans have with open societies, the better.

(H/t: Rui Ferreira)

9 comments:

leftside said...

Is there ANYONE who was in office and now out of office (ie. free) that actually still supports the embargo?

Anonymous said...

hundreds of people, leftcrank. its just the media that rushes to quote the relatively few who now profess that they don't.

Anonymous said...

Sec. Schultz' idea may be just what is needed. Reuters was reporting that Cuba is running out of toilet paper.

Vecino de NF

Anonymous said...

relatively few who don't support the embargo? how about 70 per cent of the american people. man you guys just cant stand living past 1962. how must it feel not to think, just to react on instinct.

so what purpose does the embargo serve then, please explain

vecino, that's quite witty. you should be on the stage -- there's one leaving in five minutes.

Anonymous said...

name high level officials, outside of florida, that support embargo. give it your best shot

leftside said...

I just learned something interesting (watching CSPAN). That is that in the signing statement for Helms-Burton, Bill Clinton's said he considered the law to be "precatory" and thus "not derogating the President's prerogative in foreign policy."

This book on the embargo confirms those facts and adds a lot more interesting detail (like how rare this strong statement was for Clinton - and how it was much more about general Presidential powers than his love for Cuba).

It just reminded me how rare it was for Congress to pass such an intrusive foreign policy law.

The CSPAN professor/author Lars Schoultz suggested Obama just ignore the law and set up a juicy court case. The exact law on signing statements is still undefined.

Anonymous said...

when it comes to cuba though, american politics has always framed it as a national issue, not a foreign policy one. if congress passes any of the travel bills this year obama has already said he'd sign them, then the next step would be to end the embargo. i'm not sure if any president would follow that advice, it'd be interesting to see. whatever path is taken, lets some sort of political sanity finally prevails.

Anonymous said...

nitwit 11:53, how about Presidents HW Bush, Clinton, and W Bush for starters? Have you heard Bill Clinton say he's against the embargo now?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous August 7, 2009 7:46 PM,

I did not mean that the paper with Secretary Schultz printed words should be used as TP. Rather that in view that Cuba is going through a consumer goods crisis lifting the embargo might be just what is needed at this time.

In the other hand I am sure that that by now there are more than a few humorists in Cuba that have suggested the stockpiling of the dictionaries of Fidel Castro's thoughts as an alternative source of toilet paper.

It is interesting that you advocate a Zelaya treatment for me("... you should be on the stage -- there's one leaving in five minutes.").

Leftside,

Good insight on the constitutionality of Helms-Burton and by extension Torricelli!

Vecino de NF