After 50 years, Cuba trade ban has failed to topple Castros
When it started, American teenagers were doing “The Twist. ” The United States had yet to put a man into orbit around the Earth. And a first-class U…

By PETER ORSI
The Associated Press

HAVANA — When it started, American teenagers were doing “The Twist.” The United States had yet to put a man into orbit around the Earth. And a first-class U.S. postage stamp cost 4 cents.

The world is much changed since the early days of 1962, but one thing has remained constant: The U.S. economic embargo on communist-run Cuba, a near-total trade ban that turned 50 on Tuesday.

Supporters say it is a justified measure against a repressive government that has never stopped being a thorn in Washington, D.C.’s side. Critics call it a failed policy that has hurt ordinary Cubans instead of the government.

All acknowledge that it has not accomplished its core mission of toppling Fidel and Raul Castro.

“All this time has gone by, and yet we keep it in place,” said Wayne Smith, who was a young U.S. diplomat in Havana in 1961 when relations were severed and who returned as the chief American diplomat after they were partially re-established under President Jimmy Carter.

“We talk to the Russians, we talk to the Chinese, we have normal relations even with Vietnam. We trade with all of them,” Smith said. “So why not with Cuba?”

In the White House, the first sign of the looming embargo came when President John F. Kennedy told his press secretary to go buy him as many H. Upmann Cuban cigars as he could find. The aide came back with 1,200 stogies.

Kennedy announced the embargo on Feb. 3, 1962, citing “the subversive offensive of Sino-Soviet communism with which the government of Cuba is publicly aligned.”

It went into effect four days later at the height of the Cold War, a year removed from the failed CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion meant to oust communism from Cuba and eight months before Soviet attempts to put nuclear missiles on the island brought the two superpowers to the brink of war.

Limited sanctions were already in place, but Kennedy’s decision was the beginning of a comprehensive ban on U.S. trade with the island that has remained more or less intact ever since.

Little was planned to mark Tuesday’s anniversary, but Cuban-American members of Congress issued a joint statement vowing to keep the heat on Cuba.

Strategic concerns

Supporters of the policy acknowledge that many U.S. strategic concerns from the 1960s have been consigned to the dustbin of history, such as halting the spread of Soviet influence and keeping Fidel Castro from exporting revolution throughout Latin America. But they say other justifications remain, such as the confiscation of U.S. property in Cuba and the need to press for greater political and personal freedoms on the island.

“We have a hemispheric commitment to freedom and democracy and respect for human rights,” said Jose Cardenas, a former National Security Council staffer on Cuba under President George W. Bush. “I still think that those are worthy aspirations.”

With just 90 miles of sea between Florida and Cuba, the U.S. would be a natural No. 1 trade partner and source of tourism. But the embargo chokes off most commerce, and the threat of stiff fines keeps most Americans from sunbathing in balmy resorts like Cayo Coco.

Other nations

Cuba is free to trade with other nations, but the U.S. threatens sanctions against foreign companies that don’t abide by its restrictions. A stark example arrived off the coast of Havana last month: A massive oil-exploration rig built with less than 10 percent U.S. parts to qualify under the embargo was brought all the way from Singapore at great expense, while comparable platforms sat idle in U.S. waters just across the Gulf of Mexico.

The embargo is a constant talking point for island authorities, who blame it for shortages of everything from medical equipment to the concrete needed to complete an eight-lane highway spanning the length of the island. Cuba frequently fulminates against the “blockade” at the United Nations and demands the U.S. end its “genocidal” policy.

“There’s no doubt that the embargo is detrimental to the Cuban economy. It complicates international financial transactions, but more importantly, it limits Cuban families’ access to medicine,” said Geoff Thale, a Cuba analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, which supports ending the policy. “At the same time, Cuba’s economic problems go beyond the embargo.”

While 50 years of socialism have brought advancements in areas such as education and health care, even island authorities acknowledge their perennially struggling economic system must change. President Raul Castro is in the process of allowing more private-sector activity, decentralizing state-run businesses, implementing agricultural reform and slimming government payrolls.

The U.S. actually does have significant trade with Cuba under a clause allowing the sale of food products and some pharmaceuticals.

According to the most recent information available from Cuba’s National Statistics Office, the U.S. was the island’s seventh-largest trading partner in 2010, selling $410 million in mostly food products. However, that was down from nearly $1 billion in 2008, as the island increasingly turned to other countries that don’t force it to pay cash up front.

Many U.S. businesses would love to be allowed into the Cuban market, but an end to the embargo seems a long way off.

The issue is seen as a political nonstarter in the U.S., where every four years, presidential candidates take turns courting the Cuban-American vote in Florida, a key swing state.

Backers of the sanctions say it’s as important as ever to maintain what they call the moral high ground, saying islanders will be grateful whenever change does come.

Critics cite the annual U.N. votes to argue that the embargo is a Cold War relic that ought to be thrown onto the scrap heap.

“It’s no longer a matter of the United States leading a movement to isolate Cuba in the hemisphere,” said former diplomat Smith, a staunch opponent of the embargo. “Quite the contrary: If anyone’s isolated, on this issue anyway, it’s us.”

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Usually, God does not cause your broken spirit-heart. Many things in life can and does produce it; The loss of a loved one, the breakup of a relationship, the set back or collapse of business or personal financial structures are just some of the things in life that can produce it.

The following Psalm contrast your feelings when you have a broken spirit-heart and when you do not. (Here we view a broken spirit and a broken, contrite heart as very closely related. In some instances, they should be considered as one and the same thing.)

Prov 17:22
22 A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones. (KJV)

In other words, when we are in a state of brokenness, we feel like our very bones are drying out within us. We have all felt this tell-tale feeling.

Contrast our feelings when we are not in a state of brokenness. We have a merry heart which is like a medicine for everything.

What Sorrow of the Heart Can do to you

In the following Proverb, we can readily see what sorrow of the heart can do to us. Sorrow of the heart can break our spirit.

Prov 15:13
13 A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken. (KJV)

Now here is how we handle this devastating brokenness. This is the only way that works for sure. We take it to God.

But first, we need a promise from Him that we can stand on.

The Psalm below is the basis of our faith for God to heal our broken heart. This is our promise from God that he will heal our broken, contrite spirit-heart and bind the wounds caused by it.

Ps 147:3
3 He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. (KJV)

This promise applies to our brokenness regardless of what caused it.

But now, I want to deal with that brokenness caused by the breakup of friendships and/or the breakup of relationships.

Brokenness caused by the lies of those you love

You see, these breakups usually result in others saying things about you that are untrue. And these untruths leave us devastated even more. The Psalmist said it so very, very well.

Ps 69:16-20
16 Hear me, O LORD; for thy lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.
17 And hide not thy face from thy servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily.
18 Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies.
19 Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour: mine adversaries are all before thee.
20 Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. (KJV)

Study closely the above Psalm. You can feel the depth of his feelings. You can feel his hopelessness extending to the very depths of his soul. You can feel his absolute loneliness. You can feel the embarrassment brought on him by others.

The end of our self is our beginning place in God

He is at his wits end. The untrue things said about him, his reproach, had broken his heart. He was full of heaviness. Full means there was no more capacity for any more heaviness.

Study closely the above Psalm again.

How then do we deal with our own brokenness when it is caused by others saying things about us that are not true? We bring it to God in the same manner, way and attitude the Psalmist did above.

When we do it this way, our brokenness becomes a sacrifice to God. When we make this sacrifice, the next Psalm tells us that God will not despise our broken, contrite spirit-heart, but that he will accept it as a sacrifice to himself.

Ps 51:17
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. (KJV)

Like the Psalmist in Psalms 69 above, when we have come to the end of ourselves, we have come to the beginning place with God.

Now, see our God-given, built-in Strength Mechanism

Prov 18:14
14 The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear? (KJV)

The Psalm above states it well. Our spirit-heart is our God given strength mechanism to bear up under any infirmity the devil may cause. But when we have a wounded spirit-heart, who can bear up under infirmity since the thing God placed within us to bear it has been wounded? Or even worse, when it has been broken? Not one of us.

When it is wounded or broken, take it to God like the Psalmist in chapter 69 above.

Now, here’s some more Scriptures for you when you need to meet God in his Secret Place:

http://jaysnell.org/Articles/secretplace.htm

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Popular talk show host Wilmot ‘Motty’ Perkins is dead.

He was 80 years old.

Mr Perkins died this morning at 1 o’clock at his home in St Andrew after a brief period of illness.

Wilmot Perkins started his career in radio in 1960.

He has been the host of the programme Perkins on Line on Power 106FM since April 2002.

Perkins is survived by his wife of 56 years, Elaine, and grandsons Jamie and Eden.

More details to follow.