Burnt Orange Report

Slightly less crazy than the crazies

By Jim Dallas

Brad DeLong links to Tyler Cowen's ripping of the Bush administration's god-awful Cuba policy. The White House is focusing on tightening the embargo and travel restrictions on Cuba, which will have the primary effect of eliminating American competition to European investment in Cuba, and just generally pissing people off. This is neither a hawkish position, nor a dovish position, nor a realistic position. It just basically defies explanation. And unfortunately, it's probably going to be the consensus opinion in Washington. Here's DeLong:

I should, however, point out that there is fine print: this kind of absurd, punitive, counterproductive, and stupid policy toward Cuba is not the exclusive province of this particular administration or this particular congress, but is the reflection of the structural strength of the anti-Castro lobby. Don't hope for things to become less stupid for a while, no matter who wins elections.

Exactly.

As I mentioned earlier, this is not a truly hawkish position. A hawkish position on Cuba would involve invading Cuba and carpet-bombing the Revolution.

Consider:

• Cuba's Castro has historically been hostile to the United States.

• The Dictator oppresses his own people!

• Cuba is developing chemical and biological weapons -- according to exiles, anyway. There will be leftists and clear-eyed realists who will dispute this fact, but they hate America anyway, so we can discount their analysis.

• Cuba is "with the terrorists," and while they weren't the masterminds behind 9/11, they certainly have been impeding our investigation.

It seems to me the argument for invading Cuba was always about as strong as the case for invading Iraq; indeed it ought to be stronger for the following reasons:

• We need to finish what Eisenhower started before we finish what Old Man Bush started. Priorities!
• Cuba is 90 miles away, not 9000 miles away. Basically, the state of Florida is a 500-mile long, aircraft carrier parked off-shore.
• It's a lot easier to find 100,000 Spanish-speaking MPs than 100,000 Arabic-speaking MPs.
• Because Cuba already has spiffy schools and hospitals, we won't have to worry about building brand new ones (of course, this might make it hard for us to use the "look at the beautiful new schools" line as proof of progress on the ground).
• Oh yeah, they're Communists. And we don't want to be perceived as soft on communism, since our struggle against the communists is a struggle for national survival, and ultimately, Civilization Itself!

Not that I would advocate this course of action, but 50 years of Cuba strategery reminds me of the scene in Austin Powers where Dr. Evil lectures on the proper use of force:

SCOTT EVIL But what if he escapes? Why don't you just shoot him? What are you waiting for?

DR. EVIL
I have a better idea. I'm going to
put him in an easily-escapable
situation involving an overly-
elaborate and exotic death.

SCOTT EVIL
Why don't you just shoot him now?
Here, I'll get a gun. We'll just
shoot him. Bang! Dead. Done.

DR. EVIL
One more peep out of you and you're
grounded. Let's begin.

The more I think about it, the more I can empathize with Curtis LeMay.

Yes, invading Cuba on the flimsiest of pretenses is an absolutely crazy plan, but it would be a slightly less crazy foreign policy than, you know, the foreign policy we're actually adhering to at the moment.

What we need, of course, is a non-crazy Cuba plan (that might involve finally normalizing relations), but it isn't in the interests of the politicians in Washington to get with the program.