5 (US) interagency groups hard at work preparing for Cuba after Castro

[Mika]

5 interagency groups hard at work preparing for Cuba after Castro
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/15502757.htm

WASHINGTON - Convinced that Cuban leader Fidel Castro will never regain the power he once wielded, the Bush administration has created five interagency working groups to monitor Cuba and carry out U.S. policy.

The groups, some of which operate in war-room-like settings, were quietly set up after the July 31 announcement that the ailing Castro, 80, had ceded power temporarily to a collective leadership headed by his brother, Raul, U.S. officials say.

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U.S. officials say three of the newly created groups are headed by the State Department: diplomatic actions, strategic communications and democratic promotion. A group that coordinates humanitarian aid to Cuba is run by the Commerce Department, and a fifth, on migration issues, is run by the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security.

Many of the groups' members work out of the same State Department office in what one person familiar with the operation described as a "control room."

The State Department is reluctant to give details on the new interagency groups, saying the focus should be on the democratic transition they're trying to achieve in Cuba rather than on the U.S. government process.

Officials portrayed the working groups as logical outcomes of the Commission on Assistance to a Free Cuba, an interagency Cabinet-level effort that has been convened twice to draft policy recommendations. A second commission, co-chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, issued a report in July

The Commission on Assistance to a Free Cuba is a plan to turn over all of Cuba's infrastructure (ministry of health care, education, tourism, etc) to corporations, much like their plan for Iraq.

Can't imagine that Cubans wouldn't want that. :eyes:

[Fridays Child]

1. Sort of makes me wonder if they're planning to treat Castro to a...

...Pat Robertson Special.

[Kutjara]

2. If America follows through on these plans, the rest of the world...

...should declare us a rogue state and impose comprehensive sanctions on us. This is nothing short of bare-faced imperialism and no sane human being should tolerate it.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. Hey! Shrub! Hands OFF!

It's NOT your f*cking country and you have NO business messing with them!



somehow, I don't think the moron is going to listen to me. :(

[movonne]

4. This makes me sick....are we trying to spread democracy..

[Mind_your_head]

5. Now that Cubans have truly endured the "worst of it"

I hope they will adopt (and live by) New Hampshire's motto: "Live free or Die".

New Hampshire-ites (sp????).....please remember your roots. Real people DIED ... and they died YOUNG .... for the pleasures that you enjoy today. Don't give your rights away.

Fight the good fight.

[PSPS]

6. This is what created Castro.

Batista was widely reviled in Cuba, but a darling of the underworld and corporations in the US. Castro would never have led the revolution if "General" Batista hadn't turned Cuba into a plutocrat's paradise.

"Little Havana" is comprised mostly of these Batista-followers (and their offspring) who fled Cuba in 1959. They're just smacking their chops to go back and do it all over again.

[Gloria]

7. Guess there won't be any free eye care to other countries in need after

Castro's gone. Or that incredible self-sufficient, organic farming, either.

[Robbien]

8. Of all the countries on the planet, Cuba has the best environmental

protections. Of course Cuba has the least US corporate control.

Here's hope that Cuba is ready to fend off the American "Democracy" steamroller.

[eccles12]

9. We can't afford to squander our treasure like this. Just end the embargo

and get on with life.

[bemildred]

10. Easy work, pays well.

No doubt they have plenty of employees to choose from.