What would you do with $89 billion?

$89 Billion, that's what Felipe Perez Roque, the castro regime's macrocephalic "foreign minister" claims the "bloqueo" (Spanish word for blockade, which is an intentional mischaracterization of the embargo) has cost Cuba. $89 billion. Assuming the figure is correct (something we can't do because, as I just demonstrated, the castro regime is prone lying), the question is what would Cuba have done with the $89 billion?

Since the best indicator of future performance is past performance, I think it's safe to say that the money would have gone toward funding the regime's repressive machinery, toward buying weapons, toward destabilizing other countries politically and militarily and generally being even more of a pain the US's collective ass.

Alternately it would be spent on mini-cows, super-cows, air conditioning for cows, or in comic attempts to grow coffee in urban areas with unsuitable climates. It might have gone into Cuba's centrally planned economy. That's an economy that's planned to keep the people from enjoying the fruits of their labor. And more than likely a fair share of the money would have ended up in the coffers of a handful of top leaders including the maximum leader and his diminutive half-brother, Raul (nobody believes that Angel castro was Raul's father, not even Raul himself).

How can I be so sure that the money would have been misspent? Well, because, as I mentioned, these are the things that Cuba has deemed as its highest priorities in the past. Whether it was billions of dollars in Soviet Subsidies or the untold billions it receives in cash and oil from Venezuela today.

I can assure you that the money would NOT be spent on housing or transportation or trying to help create a private sector economy to foster financial independence among the Cuban people. You know, things that Cuba desperately needs.

The regime will be lobbying to have UN condemn the embargo for like the 1 millionth year in a row. But the interesting thing to note here is that removal of the embargo is completely up to Roque's bosses. Just give Cubans the same rights that any free people enjoys and voila, the embargo magically disappears. Let's not kid ourselves, Roque and his masters know this is a futile exercise. That it's all theater to make the US look bad. Some say we should remove the embargo simply to end the charade. But who out there thinks that such an action would change the mind of the leader of a single country on the issue of Cuba and the U.S.? Who thinks Cuba would suddenly ratchet down the level of its anti-American rhetoric? Hell, Cuba denounces its friends and enemies alike. Last year they condemned Canada, one of Cuba's most important trading partners, for "human rights abuses."

So we'll watch the regime mount its annual dog and pony show and nothing will change. Because the only change required is a change within Cuba. And until somebody who is willing to usher in those changes takes the reigns in Cuba, we're going to continue to be spectators in this theater of the absurd.

Posted by Henry Louis Gomez at September 19, 2007 05:57 PM

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Posted by: Val Prieto at September 19, 2007 06:49 PM

Posted by: jose dominguez at September 20, 2007 02:17 AM

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