Cuba is a dictatorship.

Fidel Castro is a self appointed dictator and an egomaniac. This has nothing to do with communism.

"Bush replaced booze with Jesus."

Castro was a dictator. When he took power from the American puppet Batista, he came to America first and was rejected. Then the American government did everything in it's power to topple the new government.

What do you expect but paranoia, power consolidation, and flirting with American enemies?

This is hardly news. Fidel stepped down in the summer of 2006.

Nothing matches the hypocrisy of US foreign policy as the attitude towards Cuba.

Take a country with an unelected leader where power is passed on to a relative, where their are no elections, where civil rights are severly restricted, where freedon of religion is non existent, and you have ......Saudi Arabia. That great friend of the US run by someone who is a personal friend of Bush!

War Room's last posting was on Friday the 15th, and, now, to break a more than 72-hour silence we get a re-wording of an AP item?

What, no analysis? no insight? no opinion on this item's possible meaning or significance?

This is salon's War Room, right? Or did I wander into the wrong place?

I only heard a snippet of it, and only once so far, but Dubya said something like: Democracy in Cuba had been subverted by "the Castro brothers".

As a Floridian and former subject of His Royal Jeb!ness, I found that quite amusing.

Since the United Fruit Company no longer exists, I assume George II will make every effort to subordinate the natives to its successor, Chiquita Brands International. He's already blathering about "Democracy", which is Bush code for replacing the poverty of Castro with the poverty of globalization.

...I was also wondering what the heck happened to War Room since last Friday. Kept "refreshing" my browser to see if anything new showed up, and looked in vain for any comment anywhere on Salon to explain War Room's absence.

What's the deal? Inquiring minds want to know!

I'm waiting for an item to be posted about Clinton's campaign charging Obama with plagiarism.

Since Tim's laving the format of the postings have been thin and unreliable. Is everyone on vacation?

Better than any of the presidents who opposed him and he remains unassassinated.

If Cuba was really that bad, we would have shipped all of our manufacturing jobs their instead of China.

There is probably no part of U.S. foreign policy that's more distorted and inexplicable than our policy toward Cuba. Cuba is so small and so insignificant in REAL terms that our treatment of the entire country as the worst pariah on earth makes no sense.

This is no defense of Castro, his actions or statements (then or now), but FAR worse dictators and countries around the world were never treated in a similar fashion. It's only in light of the voting power of the Cuban community in Florida that it's possible to understand anything about our long-standing anti-Castro, anti-Cuba policies.

I hope to live long enough to see a glimmer of rationality return to our Cuba policy, with or without a Castro in power down there.

The decline of the War Room bugs me, too--especially over the past few months. At the current slow rate of comments/updates I'm not sure my attention span is gonna last past November.

Over the weekend I looked for some analysis or comment on the Pakistan election--no joy. Lucky enough to catch some BBC as I headed off to bed. Which will survive longer: War Room or the Clinton Campaign??

For the sake of the Cuban people, I hope the coming transition is smooth. But since they were resilient enough to survive the early 90's I imagine they will handle any change easily.

For the sake of US domestic politics, I hope this announcement reduces the traction of the old Cuban right in Florida and increases the influence of the second/third generation Cuban-Americans.

Don't you regulars know by now that Salon takes all the federal holidays. Yesterday was President's Day, thus nothing new on Salon. And before that was the weekend. It's the sad truth.

Cousin Charlie from Canada has been in Cuba several times and says its nothing like the police state portrayed here in the U.S. He cycled around the island several times and was free to go wherever and talk to whomever. He said the people seemed contented and happy if relatively poor. Isn't it ironic that we accuse Cuba of human rights violations when some of the worst human rights violations in the world occur on the part of Cuba we control - Gitmo.

You know, without the Castro brothers, I'm not entirely sure that the US gov't would have a Cuba policy. As long as I can remember (I have vague memories of the Pay of Pigs invasion happening when I was a little kid), our Cuba policy, regardless of party in charge, has been based on pleasing a few thousand old exiles in Miami.

That should, of course be "Bay of Pigs". See what happens when you rely on a spell-checker?

"Cuba is so small and so insignificant in REAL terms that our treatment of the entire country as the worst pariah on earth makes no sense."

And, I think the size of Cuba, and it's obvious lack of exploitable resources (oil), combined with militantly vocal, and overly represented, ex-pat population here, have made Cuba a perfect target for foreign policy reactionaries. If China can receive MFN status, while Cuba is embargoed, what does that really say about our foreign policy?

We all know that sanctions won't be lifted until American companies can move in and strong arm the government of Cuba to give in to their demands. Castro ends his reign by exporting doctors to third world countries and with a population better educated than our own children in places like Mississippi and Louisiana. He is even a vocal critic of America's racist ways.

Not bad for a guy who over threw a corrupt dictator, defied the American government and dealt with various embargos over his 50 year rule.

The Whore in the White House read The Little Goat while our country was under attack and then set about getting us into an immoral and illegal war, helped his rich friends get richer and set about dismantling our rights. And he's supposed to be the 'good guy' who would set Cuba 'right'.....

Jeezuz no wonder this country is falling apart.