Cuba and 50 years of other foreign policy failures, brought to you by a willfully ignorant media

[babylonsister]

http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1352939

Cuba and 50 years of other foreign policy failures, brought to you by a willfully ignorant media
Dec 21, 2014 1:30pm PST by Egberto Willies


While watching The Rundown with José Díaz-Balart recently, it became obvious to me why bad American foreign policy can continue without much public objection. What many Americans fail to see is how it hurts the country’s credibility. Many times what Americans perceive as hate, indifference, disrespect, lack of appreciation, or downright hostility is simply blowback from policies foreign to the average American citizens. Why are these policies foreign to the average American citizens? They are foreign because of bad, biased, or coerced reporting.

The media went into hyperventilating mode after President Obama announced the path to normalization of diplomatic relations with Cuba last week. The reality is that while this is a big step, it was not a necessarily courageous step—Americans, including Cuban Americans, have long supported more positive relations with Cuba. Many in the older exile Cuban community have long had much too much sway over American foreign policy towards Cuba.

Chuck Todd was interviewed by José Díaz-Balart about the president’s change in Cuban policy. Instead of laying out the facts about why this change is overdue after a 50-plus year failed policy, Todd decided to discuss platitudes. He had dinner with friends while in Florida. Chuck Todd said that while these friends understood the intellectual argument for relations based on America's relations with China and Vietnam, the tone of the president’s presentation of the new policy was not sufficiently deferential to the exile community in Florida.

Are you kidding? How deferential was President Nixon to Chinese expats? Or any president for that matter to Vietnamese refugees?

snip//

One hopes that President Obama will use his last two years to right many of the wrongs in American foreign policy. Since the last election, he seems to be unshackled from the status quo sans the omnibus bill. One hopes he will use his new freedom to become the U.S. president the rest of the world needs. In the process, let's hope he is prepared to school the media and not leave it up to their willful ignorance.

[Wellstone ruled]

1. You just can't cure STUPID!!

Chuckie must have gotten his Bush Xmas check in the mail.

[malaise]

2. You know US policy against Cuba is way more than bad foreign policy

It is nasty, vindictive evil and illegal.