Obama's embrace of dictators

Linda Chavez:
This week, the president announced he is giving Cuban President Raul Castro pretty much everything the dictator wants in return for the release of an imprisoned American, whose captivity was proof of the tyrannical regime’s human-rights violations.

On the same day, Sony announced it is canceling the release of a comedy about North Korean President Kim Jong Un in response to threats against theaters scheduled to show the film on Christmas Day. It would be funny if the stakes weren’t so deadly serious.

What the president has done with respect to Cuba is very much in keeping with his appease-dictators policies, in hopes of burnishing his legacy as a peacemaker. Good luck with that.

So far, the president has written fawning notes to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Kha­menei, as well sending Secretary of State John Kerry to negotiate a nuclear deal with the Iranians, which is allowing the mullahs to stall for time while they seek to build a bomb.

And, of course, Obama’s been slow to help pro-democracy activists in many other countries, most tragically in Syria, which has perversely strengthened both the Assad regime and the Islamic State terrorists who now dominate the opposition.

As a result, half the population of Syria has been forced to flee their homes, with some 3 million refugees now living outside of Syria, and 200,000 or more have died in the fighting.

It’s wonderful that the American hostage Alan Gross is home.

He lingered for five long years in a Cuban jail for the crime of trying to help Cuba’s small Jewish population get access to the Internet.

During his imprisonment, Gross missed his mother’s funeral and his daughter’s wedding and suffered severe health damage, reportedly losing 100 pounds and most of his teeth.

But Gross’ release should in no way be tied to formal recognition of Cuba. If the president wants to make the case that the United States should normalize relations with Cuba, let him make it to the American people and Congress, not concede it in a secret deal.

Even the exchange of prisoners negotiated to secure Gross’ release, as well as that of a Cuban US intelligence asset imprisoned for two decades, favored Cuba, not the United States.

In return for one US spy and one humanitarian, Washington released five convicted Cuban agents, two of whom were found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder in the death of four Cuban-Americans.

Another woman freed worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency for 17 years and is widely considered one of the most damaging spies in modern history.

Despite the imbalance of this deal, the Obama administration is touting it as a huge coup.
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Obama seems to get along better with despots than with our friends.   At the same time he was bragging about his deal with Cuba he was denigrating Canada and the Keystone XL pipeline.  What has he got against Canada?  Is he still angry about the war of 1812.  Probably not, I don't think the guy knows much about history.  If he did he would not be embracing the Castro brothers.

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