Tag: Barack Obama

If we can do it for Argentina, why not for JFK?

I can announce that the U.S. Government will declassify even more documents from that period including, for the first time, military and intelligence records, because I believe we have a responsibility to confront the past with honesty and transparency.”

So said President Obama last March. Today, the White House announced the U.S. government will release five hundred more US government documents from 14 U.S. agencies related to the American support for Argentina’s bloody military dictatorship between 1975 and 1984.

Let’s do the same for JFK. Two dozen JFK authors and investigators have asked Obama to endorse the same principle when it comes to the U.S. government documents–which including military and intelligence records–related to the assassination of President Kennedy. …

Play ball: Obama and Castro at the ballpark


The somewhat extraordinary final day of President Obama’s historic visit to Cuba was eclipsed by news of the attacks in Brussels, First there was the  joint Obama-Castro news conference in which the Cuban leader actually had the novel experience of having to answer freely asked questions. Then there was the overlooked story that those notorious communist sympathizers at Google have agreed to provide the country with cheap and fast Internet, confirming fatuous Newt Gingrich’s point that President Obama is a suspected traitor, or something like that. Finally, there was a feel-good photo op: a baseball game between the Cuban national team and the Tampa Bay Rays, which Obama described accurately as, well, “somewhat extraordinary.”

Obama prepares for the future as critics dwell on the past

Fidel Castro will be 90 in August; Raúl is just five years younger. At some point in the not-too-distant future, we will see whether Castroism can survive without a living Castro. Anyone who wants U.S. policymakers to have influence when that question arises should applaud Obama’s initiatives.

Source: Obama’s visit will hasten freedom in Cuba – The Washington Post

Obama meets Raul Castro as U.S.-Cuba Cold War nears its conclusion

The meeting of the two presidents–and the dissolution of the six-decades long Cold War between the two governments–was accompanied by the announcement that the Starwood Hotels and AirBnB are competing in Havana.

You could say the evolution of Cuban socialism has taken a new turn. You could say that the wall of economic embargo and diplomatic hostility that Washington built between the American people and the Cuban people is coming down. Either way, President Obama is making good on a signature promise of his 2008 campaign: to sit down and talk to America’s enemies in an effort to find a more productive relationship.  …

Obama to jettison the goal of ‘regime change’ in Cuba

While Obama will not shy away from discussing human rights, “the difference here is that in the past, because of certain U.S. policies, the message that was delivered in that regard either overtly or implicitly suggested that the United States was seeking to pursue regime change . . . or the United States thought we could dictate the direction of Cuba,” Rhodes said.

Source: Obama’s goal for Cuba trip: Become a source of support – The Washington Post

From Cuba to Iran: Obama claims JFK’s legacy

Obama at AU
President Obama speaks at American University, August 5, 2015

In a “blunt” speech at American University, President Obama “aggressively” defended the international agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program by invoking the daring diplomacy of President John F. Kennedy.

The polemical fire in Obama’s address targeted the many critics of the deal who supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003. The setting invoked JFK’s “strategy of peace” speech, delivered on the same campus in June 1963. The analogy of Obama’s Iran nuclear deal to JFK’s Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty took up much of the speech.

But the historical strength of Obama’s argument came from another source: …

Obama completes the journey that JFK began

Presidents Castro and Obama. (Photo: MWC News)

This was the moment President John F. Kennedy was angling for 52 years ago: reconciliation between the United States and Cuba.

President Obama met yesterday with Cuban president Raul Castro, the first face to face meeting of the country’s leaders since the mid-20th century. Obama said “Cuba is not a threat to the United States.” His appearance was condemned by Obama’s Republican critics just as JFK’s Cuba policy was condemned by his opponents.

Ideological polemics notwithstanding, Kennedy was no hawk on Cuba.  …

US-Cuba detente can clarify the JFK assassination story

At the heart of the tortured relationship between the United States and Cuba over the past half century is–or was–the assassination of President Kennedy.  Now that the two countries have agreed to a more normal relationship, symbolized by President Obama’s upcoming visit, maybe, just maybe, a more detached, realistic and informed view of November 22, 1963 is possible.

U.S. and Cuba to normalize relations frozen since JFK was president

President Obama reaches out to Cuba

“Todos somos Americanos.” We are all Americans.

With those words, President Obama made an epic and overdue announcement today: the United States and Cuba will normalize relations that were broken off in January 1961 as President John F. Kennedy took office. “These 50 years have showed that isolation has not worked,” the president said.

Not only will the United States open an embassy in Havana, it will release three Cubans imprisoned for decades on trumped-up spying charges. The Cubans will release U.S. government contractor Alan Gross, held for five years on trumped-up charges, and a previously unknown U.S. intelligence agent imprisoned for many years in Cuba.

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