From the Naples (Florida) Daily News, as reported on NapleNews.Com:

"Now that Fidel Castro is no longer officially in power in Cuba, 60 percent of likely voters believe the U.S. should revise its policies toward Cuba — even more believe all U.S. citizens should be allowed to travel to Cuba (68 percent) and that U.S. companies should be allowed to trade with Cuba (62 percent). In a Zogby Interactive survey conducted in July 2007, slightly more than half (56 percent) of Americans said the U.S. should remove travel restrictions and end the embargo on trade to Cuba."

American citizens are wising up. Too bad their government is so far behind them. Soon, however, like the French ruler looking out the window at the people moving away, Washington is going to have to say: "Wait, wait, I'm coming! Don’t leave me behind." That isn't exactly leadership, but it will have to do.

-Lawrence Wilkerson

Remarks, as delivered, by Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, USA (Ret), the Visiting Pamela Harriman Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on 26 September 2008, at the Conference on "The United States and Cuba: Rethinking Engagement" sponsored by the Institute for the Study of the Americas.

Thank you for that very kind introduction. And thank you to Lou Pérez and to Shelley Clarke and to all the wonderful, warm people at the University of North Carolina and at the Institute for the Study of the America's for such a superb and warm welcome that we have all experienced. And for an extremely well-run conference.

I must do a little due diligence at the start and say that I am a lifelong Republican. I'm a conservative—an Edmund Burke conservative. Not one of the radicals such as we have in this country calling themselves conservatives today.

Being a Burkeian conservative means I believe that the best that has been thought and said and done in human history should be conserved and that it should be amended and altered only when there is positive practical proof that it should be.

Please remember these points about me while I speak what I am about to speak. I place my patriotism and my devotion to my country beneath no one's. After 31 years in the U.S. Army, I feel I have the bona fides to say that.

One of the confusing aspects of Cuba to those who only observe it from a distance is that its people are both impoverished (in consumer goods) and wealthy (in health and education), a developing country (in the agriculture sector, housing) and a donor of humanitarian aid (doctors).

Accordingly, it is hard to judge what the effect of the storms will be. I share these observations from a personal letter I recently received from Havana. --John McAuliff

Amigo,

There is no doubt that a worsening of economic and social conditions in Cuba will provoke an increase in legal and illegal immigration, mainly to the US. It can get out of hand, but not easily.

In previous situations, Boca de Camarioca in the 60’s, Mariel in the 80’s and the last one in the mid 90’s, always the Cuban authorities had, in some justified way, allowed it to go on until the US authorities were forced to some kind of agreement. But it was always first provoked by rigid US policies that did not take in consideration the consequences of such policies.

I think that the Cuban Government and Party have the means and political tools to avoid such a situation today, but it is obviously a possibility.

Saturday night I sat in RFK Stadium and watched the U.S.-Cuba soccer game. Unlike the tight game in Havana in early September, this one was a runaway with the U.S. team scoring six goals to Cuba's one. But as Clint Dempsey, the only scorer in the Havana game said of that game, it was "a hard-fought, good game."

More than 20,000 fans watched, with a sprinkling of Cuban flags demonstrating there were a few Cuban fans in attendance—one group so high up in the "nose-bleed" section that only the constant beat of their drum could be heard. Chants of "USA, USA", however, drowned out what small contributions the Cuban fans were able to make, though they labored on valiantly. The group of about eight directly in front of my wife and me could not even seem to get the Cuban team members on the field to acknowledge that they were holding a Cuban flag overhead, waving it wildly to attract their attention. And by the fourth U.S. goal, it was clear the Cuban team was demoralized, perhaps having started that let-down process when two of their players apparently defected before the game even got underway.

Sen. John McCain with Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Roberto Martin Perez

It's a bit of political Karma, really. Wednesday night in the last of the 2008 presidential debates, Senator John McCain spent an awful lot of time attacking Senator Barack Obama for his ties to Bill Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground Organization, a radical group that split off from Students for a Democratic Society in the late 1960s and early 1970s executed a riot and bombing campaign across the country. Obama served on a bi-partisan school reform board with Ayers ten years ago. Here's the exchange.

Now, in the heat of the final days of the election, it seems that the media are giving Senator McCain's own connections to convicted domestic terrorists, in this case Cuban-American terrorists, some equal time.

Yesterday, writing in Slate, Anne Louise Bardach, wrote this piece: "The GOP's Bill Ayers? The McCain campaign has its own questionable connections to bombers and assassins."

I'm proud to say that the Havana Note and our friends at the Cuban Triangle, were on this story when it broke out of Miami.

Not the first reason given, but worth noting from a paper that is extremely sensitive to Cuban American opinion:

"Closer to home, Sen. McCain strongly supports Bush administration policies on Cuba. Sen. Obama also supports the embargo, but would be more likely to dissolve recently imposed restraints on travel and remittances to Cuba."

Full text here

However, the Herald backed hard line anti-travel Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart. His Democratic challenger, Joe Garcia also favors travel for Cuban-Americans. The Herald did endorse Raul Martinez over Lincoln Diaz-Balard*, noting only that both advocated a "free Cuba", although Raul supports family travel while Lincoln does not. Like Obama, both Garcia and Martinez are so far silent about the human right of the rest of us to freedom of travel.

Related question: Senator Bob Menendez and Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz made a quick pivot after the primaries to support and speak for Obama. Are they also embracing his commitment to unrestricted Cuban American travel and remittances, and unconditional negotiations with Cuba's leaders?

I noticed an intriguing quote in a Herald article by Beth Reinhard

''This was one of the best receptions I got,'' Menendez said in a telephone interview from Washington. ``The economic message that Obama is delivering is falling on receptive ears among those who in the past were driven more by ideological issues, like Cuba.''

Does characterizing Cuba as an "ideological issue" suggest that Menendez is moving away from his past hard line position?

--John McAuliff

* A previous version of this post mistakenly said that the Herald had endorsed Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

For those of us arguing for a change in U.S. policy towards Cuba based on a realist calculation of American interests, Cuba's announcement that the geology in their territorial waters could contain up to 20 billion barrels of crude oil certainly tips the scales. Whether the estimate is accurate or not, the sooner we change course, the better.

Consider the situation. Last month, Cuba was devastated by three hurricanes that ripped up the island's housing, infrastructure, and destroyed one-third of its crops. It was the worst hurricane season in memory, with more than a quarter of the population displaced at one point. Based on an internal food security assessment that I recently completed, the Cuban people are now surviving on Government rations which may run out in December, well before Cuban agriculture bounces back by February or March. While some ministers of the Cuban government have denied the possibility of a mass famine, others have been steadily preparing for the worst. While I now discount the possibility for an October surprise, it is still more than possible that on January 20, 2009 televisions in Miami will have a split screen: one watching the new U.S. president sworn in while the other chronicles severe hunger in or even mass migration from Cuba.

I believe that the threat of widespread famine is actually driving the release of these geological assessments at this time. Whether true or not, Cuba's only way to avoid a famine event is to increase imports of food, for which Cuba desperately needs foreign credit. The prospects of future oil revenues, I hazard, are being put up as collateral for a country whose other export industries: tobacco, sugar cane (and the rum it produces), citrus, and even nickel have been hard-hit by the storms.

Given the almost limitless demand in the global market for oil and the long time horizons on which oil investment is made, I have little doubt that major consuming countries like China and India would hesitate long to begin negotiations with a quick package of sovereign credit to ensure their nation's ability to access those oil reserves once they are more conclusively "proven."

My colleague Dr. Michael Clegg, who is foreign secretary of the National Academy of Sciences, co-authored a great op-ed in the most recent edition of the journal Science. Here's a link to the free summary.

Clegg notes that this year marks the 150th anniversary of the two oldest scientific associations in the Western Hemisphere, the National Academy in the U.S. and the one in Cuba. Clegg traveled to Cuba in September, just before the hurricanes.

Clegg's co-author is his Cuban counterpart, Dr. Sergio Jorge Pastrana, the foreign secretary of the Academia de Ciencias in Cuba. Together, they talk about the many areas where Cuban and American Scientists would benefit from a relaxation in the restrictions on scientific exchange.

Restrictions on U.S.-Cuba scientific cooperation deprive both research communities of opportunities that could benefit our societies, as well as others in the hemisphere, particularly in the Caribbean. Cuba is scientifically proficient in disaster management and mitigation, vaccine production, and epidemiology. Cuban scientists could benefit from access to research facilities that are beyond the capabilities of any developing country, and the U.S. scientific community could benefit from high-quality science being done in Cuba. For example, Cuba typically sits in the path of hurricanes bound for the U.S. mainland that create great destruction, as was the case with Hurricane Katrina and again last month with Hurricane Ike. Cuban scientists and engineers have learned how to protect threatened populations and minimize damage. Despite the category 3 rating of Hurricane Ike when it struck Cuba, there was less loss of life after a 3-day pounding than that which occurred when it later struck Texas as a category 2 hurricane. Sharing knowledge in this area would benefit everybody.

Change is coming to the U.S.-Cuban relationship. The question is only in the pacing of that change. Either way, scientific exchange and the unofficial diplomacy that comes from it will be a critical piece of the infrastructure of success. The National Academy linkages that Dr. Clegg is part of is a good preliminary move, and follows in the spirit of U.S. scientific exchanges with the Soviet Union, China, Iran, Syria, and North Korea. The reason these contacts are especially important is that scientists, with their preference for evidence and reason over ideology and rhetoric, can build the kind of relationships that official diplomacy needs to be successful over the long term.

Now is the time to increase those exchanges and make the institutional linkages durable.

Putting an end to five years of strained relations, Cuba and the European Union signed a cooperation agreement today in Havana, AFP reports.

The development is yet another foil to the failed U.S. policy of isolation and regime change. The EU, with higher and more consistent human rights standards than the U.S., has recognized that the best course for influencing this island nation of 11 million 90 miles off Key West, is one of engagement.

The announcement also came with a considerable sweetener to this nation devastated by the 2008 hurricane season: 2 million euros in immediate assistance and promises of at least 25 million euros more in 2009.

This will make next week's vote at the U.N. General Assembly, condemning the U.S. policy of embargo and the extraterritorial sanctions embodied in the Helms-Burton Act, even more lonely for the United States. It is quite a prominent dismissal of American interests, something the Europeans do only with considerable deliberation and cause.

It seems to me it is a good time to apply General Colin Powell's eponymous doctrine to U.S.-Cuba policy. Here is one version of that doctrine, designed to help the nation's leaders determine whether the United States should go to war. Full-scale economic embargo is generally seen as the last step the United States takes before war, and as far as I understand, we do not currently have and have never undertaken any other peacetime embargo of this scope. Even Iran, which many believe today posts one of the greatest threats to American interests, does not suffer the extent of sanctions that Cuba does.

But I digress. Here is the Powell Doctrine:

1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
2. Do we have a clear attainable objective?
3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
7. Is the action supported by the American people?
8. Do we have genuine broad international support?

Recognizing that numbers four and five do not apply to an economic embargo, it seems to me that for all these questions, the answer is a resounding no. There is no vital national security interest threatened, we do not have an attainable objective (though regime change certainly is clear), the costs have not been analyzed and therefore the consequences are harming U.S. interests in the Hemisphere and around the world, the policy is supported only by a minority of voters in Florida and New Jersey, and finally, no one, save for Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands, supports us.

It's time for common sense to once again rule on Cuba policy. The EU's message could not be clearer.

Between principle and practice, the Democratic Party approach to Cuba needs some clarification.

It's platform plank on Cuba begins:

We must turn the page on the arrogance in Washington

yet concludes

presenting the Cuban regime with a clear choice: if it takes significant steps toward democracy, beginning with the unconditional release of all political prisoners, we will be prepared to take steps to begin normalizing relations.

Contrast that with the BBC's report of the basis for EU-Cuba normalization

A joint declaration, signed by Cuba's foreign minister and the European commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, calls for respect for Cuba's political independence and non-intervention in its internal affairs.

When the UN votes on the unilateral US embargo of Cuba next week for the seventeenth time, it is likely to replicate last year's near unanimity, a number which has grown steadily. Ironically citizens of our only significant supporter, Israel, are big investors in Cuban property development and manage the country's largest citrus plantation.

The larger significance of the vote for our international standing was reflected in the inaugural address of the President of the General Assembly, Rev. Miguel D’Escoto, on September 16, 2008:

At the United Nations, the word “democracy” is becoming increasingly empty, with no real meaning or substance. Take for instance, the 45-year-old United States embargo against Cuba. Even with a majority as overwhelming as 184 votes to 4, this patently unjust and universally repudiated embargo remains firmly in place. If the opinion of more than 95 per cent of the membership of the United Nations can be so casually ignored, of what use is this General Assembly? This is a question that deserves some thought. How can we be content to say that we have democracy simply because we have the “one nation, one vote” rule? What good are votes if they can be ignored or have no real consequence?

***************

Update:the on-line letter urging a suspension of restrictions on travel, remittances and aid by all Americans in order to provide hurricane assistance to Cuba has topped 1000 signatures. You can add your name and view the eloquent comments from very diverse sources here.

Whether its declaring Cuba a state sponsor of terror, disenfranchising thousands of voters, or consorting with federally-convicted terrorists, politics in South Florida are full of sharp elbows and illicit activity. So it is little surprise to see this report come out of Hialeah, Florida, home of a large Cuban American population: the dirty tricks brigade are starting up operations in South Florida. From the Miami Herald via Politico.com:

"Three Hialeah voters say they had an unusual visitor at their homes last week: a man who called himself Juan, offering to help them fill out their absentee ballots and deliver them to the elections office. p> "The voters, all supporters of Democratic congressional candidate Raul Martinez, said they gave their ballots to the man after he told them he worked for Martinez. But the Martinez campaign said he doesn't work for them.

"Juan ''told me not to worry, that they normally collected all the ballots and waited until they had a stack big enough to hand-deliver to the elections department,'' said voter Jesus Hernandez, 73. 'He said, `Don't worry. This is not going to pass through the mail to get lost.' ''

"Hernandez said he worries his ballot was stolen or destroyed. He and two other voters told The Miami Herald that the man was dispatched by a woman caller who also said she worked for Martinez. But the phone number cited by the voters traces back to a consultant working for Martinez's rival, Republican congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart." Read the rest here.

Of course, this tale is but a symptom of a problem that affects our foreign policy more broadly. As former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski writes in his book, Second Chance,

Increased congressional dependence on costly and almost permanent campaigning is the root cause of this trend. The high expense of TV campaigns has turned targeted funding support (or opposition) into a crucial instrument for gaining influence. This explains the growing role of Israeli-American, Cuban-American, Armenian-American lobbies and others, all highly effective in mobilizing financial support for their political causes.

The Constitution grants Congress the authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations. This is not at issue, and is, on the whole, a wise distribution of authority. What is at issue, however, is the extent to which modern Congressional campaigning has become dependent upon contributions from individuals and PACs, distorting elections themselves and subsequently the legislation passed by Congress.

When I find myself nodding in agreement with about 75% of what Jorge Mas Santos, the Chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation, is saying in a critique of George W. Bush's wrong-headed US-Cuba policy, I know the world is changing and sense that South Florida politics may be undergoing a sea change.

I don't agree with Mas' views on regime change in Cuba, but this essay blasts John McCain for status quo-ism and embraces Obama's "flexibility" in thinking through how to turn away from failed policies.

And Sarah Stephens, Director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, has an outstanding piece out today on the human costs of the anachronistic, failed, but painful embargo which most of the world strongly criticizes.

Here is a piece of her Huffington Post essay:

UN Members are now digesting a report compiled by the Secretary-General that measures the impact of our sanctions in chilling detail.

The embargo hurts Cuba's health care system. Last year, it forced Cuban children with heart conditions to wait for needed operations because a US-based firm, Boston Scientific, has refused - as it must, under U.S. law - to sell needed devices to Cuba's William Soler Pediatric Hospital. It prevented the purchase of spare parts for diagnostic equipment used in cancer detection, and delayed the delivery of 3 million syringes for vaccinations against communicable diseases. It forced Cuban medical authorities to buy antiretroviral drugs from secondary suppliers in grey markets, at significantly higher prices - straining an already thin public health budget.

The embargo also takes food off the table in Cuban homes, by blocking the government's access to imported seeds, fertilizers, and spare parts for farm machinery, and by imposing exotic payment rules that add tens of millions of dollars to its bill for importing food from overseas.

In other words, the sanctions we aim at Cuba's government actually hit and hurt the health and diet of the Cuban people instead.

But the embargo is more than a bilateral matter between Cuba's government and ours. US law reaches companies and countries across the globe in an effort to bend their policy to our will, rallying the rest of the world to Cuba's side

Brazil calls our policy a violation of international law. Mexico condemns the embargo as an abandonment of diplomacy. Colombia, our closest ally in the region, says of the US embargo "this kind of action should stop." The European Union, now negotiating directly with Cuba on human rights, objects to the extra-territorial reach of our sanctions. China calls on us to negotiate our differences directly with Cuba. Russia - without a trace of irony - refers to the embargo as "a remnant of the cold war."

It is no wonder that last year's sanctions vote went against America 184-4. Only Israel, Palau, and the Marshall Islands stood with us. Every one of our European allies, Canada, Japan and Australia, and nearly all of Latin America (save El Salvador, which was absent) deserted us. It will happen again this year. Already, close to one-hundred fifty countries filed statements with the Secretary General for this year's debate that bear witness to our isolation.

The funny thing about Israel voting with us on the embargo is that Israeli interests are managing citrus groves in Cuba.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Richard Walden and I go back a long way. We worked together to send the first air shipment of private US aid to Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge were routed by the Vietnamese--Thanksgiving 1979.

He had recently founded a rambunctious humanitarian medical aid group called Operation California, and I was director of the Indochina Peace Education Program at the Quaker led American Friends Service Committee.

Fast forward thirty years, and we are both still at it, but now for Cuba, Richard with his renamed Operation USA, and me with the Fund for Reconciliation and Development.

A common thread over three decades is the obscurantism of the Federal bureaucracy, and in particular the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Treasury Department, and its counterpart in the Commerce Department, which use every trick in their book to do the bidding of their political masters. (Richard notes that the key people in the State Department who initially blocked his licensing for Vietnam and Cambodia were Dick Holbrooke and John Negroponte, at the time Assistant and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Asia.)

In his speech at the General Assembly on Wednesday, the US representative made a big deal of our willingness to help Cuba recover from hurricane damage during his fruitless effort to avoid another humiliating defeat. The reality is more accurately reflected in the account from Richard that follows.

His story drives home the point that if an Obama Administration wants to open a new more rational relationship with Cuba, an essential bureaucratic task is to reform OFAC. A simple first step is to direct it and the Commerce Department to immediately issue a general license for hurricane related help through personal contributions by any American to Cuban family members and friends and for assistance from any recognized US non-governmental organization.

At the end Richard refers to an upcoming fund raiser for hurricane relief featuring Jackson Browne in Santa Monica on November 29th

Jackson’s latest album includes the theme song for the Cuba travel movement, as performed for Colbert Nation:

--John McAuliff