Can Americans Finally Trust Communist Cuba?

Also don’t forget what Raúl Castro said in regards to its renewed ties to America not changing a thing about how the Communist nation is run.

 

Likening the United States and Cuba to long-estranged brothers struggling to reconnect, President Obama said in his televised address: “I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas. I have come here to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people.”

Why Did Pope Francis Push for a U.S.-Cuba Thaw?

The surprise restoration of relations between the United States and Cuba represents a major victory for the pope. Is it cause for celebration?

“How many divisions does the pope of Rome have?” That was Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s reply after British Prime Minister Winston Churchill advised him, in the aftermath of World War ii, to consider the Vatican’s perspective while laying out a plan for the future of Eastern Europe.

Stalin respected only brute force. The Vatican had none, so he dismissed it as irrelevant.

But today Stalin and the Soviet behemoth he led are long gone, while the papal system remains. And it was actually a pope—blending politics with religion—who sparked the revolution that eventually toppled the Berlin Wall, and brought down that Soviet system.

The Cuba Deal: Why Now?

At this point it time it’s a complete waste of time to ask “why?” as the floodgates have now been opened. Immigration is not the point behind the concern, although it is a concern. The main concern is that Cuba, with one of the world’s most renowned spy and espionage capabilities (after the USA/Russia/Israel), is a hornets nest of intelligence gathering. Russia has in the past, as now, state-of-the-art intelligence gathering equipment that listens over all aspects of American communication in the region. Cuban spies were also trained by Russians during the Castro revolution and have continued to be ever since. Once that floodgate to opens, you’re opening the door to this, plus inviting the Russians right in — in addition to whatever else Pandora’s Box has to offer.

 

On Wednesday, Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced the most profound change in relations between the United States and Cuba in decades.

Why now? What explains the timing of this historic change to a policy in place for over half a century? The short answer is that the decision to restore diplomatic ties between the two countries was driven by a surprising convergence of biology and technology. Biology dictated the aging of the Castro brothers and other leaders of their revolutionary generation in Cuba, as well as the graying of the Cuban exile population in Florida. This dynamic altered old political balances both inside the Cuban regime and in U.S. electoral politics. Technology—especially innovations in the extraction of shale oil and gas—allowed the United States to upend the world’s energy map and push down the price of oil, thus undermining the ability of Venezuela, a major oil-exporter, to continue providing a lifeline to Cuba’s bankrupt economy. Cuba needed an economic alternative, and the U.S. became one.

US alarmed with Russia-Cuba oil exploration

Russia has agreed to join the search for oil in deep waters between Cuba and Florida, thereby reviving fears among Americans of a possible environmental catastrophe – a large oil spill. Last month, under the supervision of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian companies Rosneft and Zarubezhneft signed an agreement with Cuba on the exploration of offshore oil deposits off the coast of Cuba.

The agreement also covers the construction of the equipment of offshore drilling rigs in the Cuban port of Mariel, as well as the creation of a pipeline network and a helipad.