Opinion Leaders Hold Forth While Dodd Visits Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

Opinion Leaders Hold Forth While Dodd Visits Cuba

The Havana Note
October 04, 2010
John McAuliff

Breaking news: Senator Christopher Dodd is in Cuba. Is this a pre-retirement last hurrah as chair of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? Might he be laying the groundwork for a valedictory lame-duck initiative to end travel restrictions?
Radio Marti speculated his visit was connected to resolving the Alan Gross problem. That's nice to imagine, but seems unlikely unless the US somehow acknowledges that Gross violated Cuban law on three counts (a democracy project funded by USAID, inappropriate use of a tourist visa, providing illegal satellite transmission equipment).

Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations has an excellent op ed published in the International Herald Tribune and on the New York Times web page contrasting change in Cuba with inertia in Washington. Here is part of it:

In one example, senior political advisers in the White House recently shut down the revival of a Clinton administration "people-to-people" program ­ one approved over the summer by President Obama, his secretary of state and sub-cabinet deputies from throughout the executive branch ­ to allow Americans tied to educational, cultural, religious and other nongovernmental organizations to travel to Cuba. Senate and House Democrats from Florida and New Jersey persuaded President Obama's political hands to stop the modest opening lest they inflame Cuban-American voters and jeopardize campaign contributions.

Such legislators also fear that by allowing some Americans to travel to Cuba, the White House could strengthen supporters of legislation to lift the entire travel ban, scheduled for a politically decisive vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee during the lame duck session of Congress. As with the White House, these legislators have lobbied their colleagues in the Congress that such a move will backfire against Democrats in 2010 and 2012 elections.

More:
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/cuba/7134.html

Editorials:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x563656