Julia Dreams of a Post-Castro Dictatorship

at 3:06 PM Friday, April 15, 2011

BY: THE HILL

We're rarely surprised by the ideological tantrums of the Council on Foreign Relations' (CFR) Julia Sweig.

Her apologies, defense and justifications of the Castro regime go back many years.

However, you'd think that at some point the CFR, which is a serious organization, would stop lending its name to her absurdities.

Today, in a CFR-produced interview with Sweig, she blurts out two more gems:

"So in the two years since he took office, [Raul's] pushed for economic reforms that in their sum total equal pretty significant political reform. But they're not political reforms strictly speaking."

In her ideological zeal, she's pathetically trying to insinuate that Raul has undertaken some political reforms, which doesn't pass any laugh-test.

However, she fails miserably, for her statement is misguided and contradictory any which way you read it.

So she decides to stop beating around the bush and plainly states her hopes and aspirations for a future Cuba:

"It seems like the United States is still not willing to recognize that he is dead-set on transforming Cuba so that when he and his brother leave the stage, there will be some legacy of a functioning, self-respecting society capable of an independent foreign policy and an identity independent from the United States."

First of all, a totalitarian dictatorship is hardly a functioning and self-respecting society. It's an aberration of the free will of the Cuban people, which has been suppressed through force and violence for five decades.

Furthermore, 34 out of 35 countries in this Western Hemisphere have independent identities and foreign policies -- and they do so while respecting the fundamental right of their people to freely choose their leaders in a representative democracy.

So to advocate for the U.S. to accept and embrace a dictatorship 90-miles away (with or without the Castros) is (at best) insulting and (at worst) malicious.