Lula salutes Obama, asks him to lift Cuba embargo

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Lula salutes Obama, asks him to lift Cuba embargo
Posted : Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:54:32 GMT
Author : DPA

Brasilia - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday described Democratic candidate Barack Obama's victory as an "extraordinary event" and asked the US president-elect to lift the decades-old embargo on communist Cuba. Lula said Obama's historic rise underlined the democratic aspects of US society. "It could only happen in a democratic regime in which society expresses itself."

The Brazilian president also expressed a desire for the next US president to end the US-imposed embargo on Cuba. "We await the end of the blockade on Cuba, because there is no explanation for that blockade."

Lula, however, also cautioned that there is "a very big difference between winning an election and governing a country like the United States ... Let us wait until he is inaugurated to see what happens."

He urged Obama to have "a stronger and bolder relationship with Latin America and Africa," and said that Obama could seal "a peace agreement with the Middle East, where a deal has been sought for decades and decades and has not been achieved."





Read more: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/240283,lula-sal...

[leftofcool]

1. Of course he does....send cigars now!

[Judi Lynn]

2. Brazil's Lula: Obama Victory A Demonstration Of Democracy

Brazil's Lula: Obama Victory A Demonstration Of Democracy

BRASILIA -(Dow Jones)- The election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the U.S. Tuesday represented a healthy demonstration of democracy in action, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday.

Commenting to reporters on the results of U.S. polling, Lula called the victory an "extraordinary feat."
"It represents above all, a recognition of democracy," he said. "Those who doubted that a black man could be elected president of the U.S. now know that it's possible."

Lula said he hoped that an Obama administration would help strengthen U.S. relations with Latin America, South America, Brazil and Africa. Further, Lula said he hoped an Obama government would make headway in advancing peace talks in the Middle East."Decades of effort have passed there without success," he noted.

Lula said he believed that Brazil and the U.S. would continue to strengthen ties during the new administration and welcomed increased U.S. investment locally.

The Brazilian president also expressed a desire that the U.S. consider dropping a decades-long trade embargo against Cuba. "During the 1960s and 1970s you had the cold war and the U.S. had a position against guerrilla activities in Latin America," he explained. "Now democracy has become consolidated in Latin America and I hope the blockade against Cuba can be lifted because there's no explanation for its continuation."

~~~~ link ~~~~

[happydreams]

16. It would also be cool to see Obama shitcan the idiotic proposal to

restart the 4th Fleet. Gunboat diplomacy is a little out of fashion these days, not to mention extremely expensive.


Navy Reestablishes U.S. 4th FleetApr 24, 2008 ... Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Gary Roughead announced today the reestablishment of US 4th Fleet and assigned Re.
www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=36606 -


PS. I'm a Navy Veteran, and if Palin can claim she has foreign policy experience because Alaska is surrounded by foreign countries, then I can claim the same in regards to US Defense policy.

[Judi Lynn]

17. You've got a point there, happydreams. It stands to reason you should also be the Vice President.

The 4th Fleet brought back to life? Unforgiveable, under these circumstances.

This idle brat in the stolen White House simply has far more time on his hands than should be allowed. He has delegated so much of his job to others he has fallen back on playing stupid, childish games, and calling it our foreign policy.

Dangerous, stupid, and completely inappropriate.

He's probably anxious to make something happen before leaving, since it has been the Republican Way to spill LOTS of Latin American blood by Republican Presidents, starting with Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Guatemala in 1954, going forward. Eisenhower was also the one who had the Bay of Pigs invasion already in the works when John F. Kennedy took over, the Cubans and others grouping and conducting exercises, drilling in Guatemala before Kennedy was inaguarated.

Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Bush #41, all reveled in indigenous Latin American blood. Apparently _#43 feels his right-wing, racist ruler manhood has been challenged if he doesn't get some public Latin American kills in before leaving.

[happydreams]

18. Some man of wit recently said that he was qualified to be an astronaut.....

because he could see the Moon from his back porch.

It really is a damn shame how dysfunctional our society is. People like Palin are, along with Bush, at the very bottom intellectually and morally and yet they rise to the top.

I've studied these subjects intensively. I quit graduate school, though I had ~3.5 average, out of disgust for all the politics. It was during the height of the Reagan era when it seemed that the Universities were going to be privatized. There were amazingly incompetent corporadoes teaching there and they quite frankly hated me for thinking and asking questions. They were a bunch of real baboons, many students and teachers, who just didn't want their wonderful little neo-con ideology tampered with. Tired of it all I quit and decided to research stuff on my own while working odd jobs. Eventually I realized that doing research independent of the trappings of the "Paper Chase" was far superior in finding out the truth. I could take the time to digest what I found and then dig deeper at my own pace; a pace that increased over the years until it became an obsession. I've always enjoyed solving mysteries.

Watching the Reagan Era collapse was to damn long in coming, way to long. If Obama carries on in the Neo-liberal tradition then not much good will have come of it IMO.

A book about what I've found over the years researching is near completion but it appears I will have a helluva time getting it published due to its "sensitive" content. Plus it is no joke about the dangers to those who know to much.

Thanks for the kudos Judi.

[John Q. Citizen]

3. I hope all of Latin Amer. and the Caribean ask Obama to lift the embargo. It's stupid.

[scratchy]

4. Come on that embargo is ridiculous

[maxsolomon]

5. I believe he will

but not right away. we've got to do a little dance first, have cuba promise this, we promise that...

[Eryemil]

6. Please do it. My people have suffered enough.

[happydreams]

10. Are you from Cuba?

[mamameow]

7. misunderstood

the whole castro situation is misunderstood. our dictator, cuban leader batista, was murderous bastard. many died and we supported him. castro tried to liberate cubans from the u.s. dictator, batista. he "pissed" on our dear leaders and the gov did not like it. castro turned to the soviet union. thus we had the bay of pigs. but who was at fault? he u.s. with our selection and support of another latin dictator. we have punished the cubans for own revenge, so big of us!!!!! i cannot wait for the embargo to be lifted and i can take a vacation to cuba. we have punished this tiny island enough for our "thin skinned" politicians.

[happydreams]

11. There is a fascinating account in Al McCoy's book "The Politics of Heroin"

where he shows that Fidel earned the enmity of the Mafia and the CIA when he booted the drug dealers, gambling casinos and prostitution rings out of Cuba. IMO that is a main underlying reason for the hostility.

McCoy makes the case that after Fidel Castro took over the international drug cartels/CIA/Mafia network had to re-route alot of traffic through Asia particularly Vietnam. Cuba under Batista and earlier dictators was the ideal transshipment point being so close to Florida where the warm water, marshes and riverine waterways provided an ideal place to offload the goods.

[ACTION BASTARD]

8. We do plenty of business with other communists. What's so special about Cuba

that can't do biz with them? Excuse my ignorance on this since this Bay of Pigs/Missile Crisis was before my time. It smells like Cuba is getting special vindictive punishment.

[Sophree]

13. And Miami-Florida Cuban politics

Fiercely anti-Castro Miami Cubans are essential to Repubs. Although 3rd generation Cuban-Americans voted for Obama.

Younger Cubans here are wearing white bracelets in solidarity with young Cubans that say, appropriately "Cambiar" or, in English, "Change."

The embargo must end and I'd love to travel to Cuba, as would many others, including Cuban-Americans who have family in Cuba!

This is something I believe the House should take up.

[Billy Burnett]

14. "Cambiar" (change) to US run trickle down economics is what that campaign means.

The white bracelet campaign is nothing more than a US gov sponsored propaganda campaign started by the US Cuba Transition Project and dispensed by the US interests section in Havana. The bracelets are distributed to the US paid mercenary "opposition" stark minority.

The change that this campaign embraces is the "democratic" change the US government has planned, called the 'Cuba Transition Plan", which calls for the Cuba transition to consist of the complete privatization of all of Cuba's social infrastructure, like their universal health care and education systems (which, BTW, are recognized over the planet as world class social institutions).

Support for the "Change" campaign is equal to the support for US engineered disaster capitalism for Cuba, and Cubans are WELL VERSED in their US and corporate-run history. That is why they rejected it in 1959, and they've done better since.

I have many friends in Cuba and I have extensive experience in Cuba. Believe me, Cubans in Cuba SERIOUSLY don't want US engineered change. They are fully capable of doing so themselves - and they are - their way.


Cheers.

[Sophree]

19. My encounter with it was with students

I believe you about the campaign being a US sponsored program- and agree with you about Cubans being perfectly capable of running things the way they want.

My encounter with it was with Cuban-American students working on a project for a travel guide to Cuba and my job requires impartiality. I have no idea what their views are, my only comment was that I hope that Americans would be able to travel to Cuba some day- and they agreed wholeheartedly.

Cheers, right back at ya.

[Billy Burnett]

20. A travel guide? For whom? A guide to claim properties abandoned by their parents and g-parents?

This is interesting. Seeing as how Americans are travel banned from Cuba by the US gov, just what demographic might this Cuban-American travel guide of Cuba be aiming for?


Thanks.

[happydreams]

9. Things are starting to get interesting. Just think of how cool it would

be if the US opened up a dialogue in the spirit of cooperation with Latin America. This is what JFK wanted to do.

What's so worthy to note is the cooperation agreements taking place in the last few years between these countries where age old disputes are evaporating.

[ozone_man]

12. The world wants it.

Tthere is no good reason to continue the embargo. There never was to begin with.

I think in his platform he was for continuing the embargo, but that may not have been his heart felt position. I hope.

[curse of greyface]

15. The embargo should end now. NT