doesn't grow good as you. will because. it's a parcel of p.r. here in moscow right now this is the artsy news channel our top stories tonight the decision by nato allies to send a military team provides the rebels in libya has been harshly criticized the local government says the actions of britain france and italy will to long fighting and destroy any chance of a peace deal. with the world bank all of a new crisis finance experts say it's time for america to step back from its dominant role in the global economy and concentrate instead on reducing its own colossal day the u.s. is a past fourteen trillion dollars and

a borrowing spree that shows no signs of slowing down. but with more than half the population living below the poverty line many georgians are funny and hard to put food on the table right they claim that despite the growing social welfare system very few are actually receiving government money. givers planning some revolutionary konami changes but the real change that year ends for is the end of a crippling fifty year economic embargo put in place by the u.s. it's all up for discussion next with people of well crosstalk. if. you think you are. alone in the welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle fifty years after the cia back bay of pigs operation the castro dynasty still dominates abana but has the u.s. hardline stance on cuba had unintended consequences for the revolution is it time

finally getting the embargo that is never achieved its original aims. to. discuss u.s. cuban relations or lack of them i'm joined by ray waltzer in washington he's a senior policy analyst at the heritage foundation in berkeley we cross the salt landau he is a senior fellow at and vice chair of the institute for policy studies he's also a filmmaker and his new film is the real terrorist please stand up and in san francisco we have gloria she's a cordon eater of the national committee can free the cuban five all right this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want but first let's have a short ok a short report on recent relations between washington and about. fifty years following the failure of the us back bay of pigs out peroration to alice for the government and the two nations remain at loggerheads decades of washington impose

the largo have kept the debate raging staunch supporters of the sanctions in congress say easing them only the communist regime but others see the embargo as elevated and counterproductive to u.s. interests and to the welfare of the cuban people it has long been agreed that doing business with cuba could rake in large profits for america's business especially the tourism and agricultural sectors according to cuba foundation every year the embargo cost the u.s. economy three point six billion dollars in lost agricultural exports to. i mean you could it is believed the worst effect has been on the cubans themselves most of whom earn an average twenty dollars a month and struggle for basic necessities such as food clean water and medicine any injustice any crime in what ever time has no excuse to go on the cruel blockade against the cuban people costs lives cost suffering at the same time there are those who say isolating cuba may very well be helping to demonize washington and

justify the very regime the embargo seems to erode a two thousand and nine public opinion poll revealed that sixty seven percent of americans favored ending the embargo and recently the us administration appeared to be slowly steering toward a policy of ships when president barack obama relaxed travel restrictions and remittances to cuba but still as obama makes the gradual overtures to ease tension it remains unclear whether it will be another decade before the status quo changes my chair and i for cross talk our team. ok ray if i can go to you first in washington after five decades more than five decades why don't we just change the policy towards cuba because the original aims of the embargo have just utterly failed there's been no progress whatsoever that castro family is still there what because your family's going through a living american presidents if i count right i mean isn't it when you admit finally a change is necessary go ahead. well first of all there is not

a fall in bargo we trade in agricultural commodities wheat some medical sales are made there there is clearly a steady flow of remittances from cuban americans to cuba there's a fairly active track of visitation go down every tourist can visit cuba but there's a certain a life lee exchange so what we have is a partial embargo that is still there because of the relation of political relationship between the two countries cuba remains a totalitarian communist state there are some in your audience who may have memories of what it was like to live under a totalitarian regime and that basically is the is the roadblock it's not. the american people's dislike of cuba but it is the existence of a communist party or a tarion regime which creates the the sort of the the gap the one that you talked about which is existed for something like eleven presidencies ok it's interesting

when you go to stalin mean if the united states and the soviet union had diplomatic relations and they weren't the best of friends during the cold war i'll repeat my question to beginning of the program it's a failure does hold policy has been a failure and it's a lot of people put it on the shoulders of the of the administrations of level administrations in washington go ahead sir. well i don't think it's been a total failure i think that the embargo has had a good deal of success in the sense that it's really cut off lots of possibilities that cuba would have had if the embargo hadn't been in place the embargo has exceeded ceded very very well causing suffering in cuba i think mr waltzer is wrong in the sense that he talks about trade there's no trade there is one way sales the united states sells food and certain medicine to cuba c o d cuba has no credits and cuba has no ability to sell anything to the united states other than at all

companies that do business with cuba banking for example get punished if they have banks in the united states so the embargo is still on and it doesn't make any sense if you want to bring down the government but it does make a lot of sense if you want to demoralize the population and that's what the embargo is done and right now cuba's economy is in terrible shape it's in a dysfunctional state in fact if you want to change cuba in other words if you wanted to see overnight a drastic shift in cuba you would lift the embargo and it would change in a week but look here's a question to ask i think what cuba do to us again i mean china is a single party communist government whose human rights record is arguably far worse than cuba's viet-nam as a single party communist government which has us as its largest trading partner and trade goes both ways and it also has no perfect human rights record so what that

cuba do to us to deserve fifty plus years of punishment i think the main reason for the maintenance of the embargo is that it serves political ends in florida and certain people are making money off of it i can't see any other logical reason for it other than session perhaps you could argue obsession but is that if you have no logical. there is another factor or breaking point we're looking at the same. but go ahead go ahead this is crossfire jumping right now i was a saying no logical fact other than the fact that we have the same ruling dictatorship that has been there for fifty two plus years nowadays we have been told it well may be allowed to have a ten year additional term so i mean there's no there's no political dynamic that's a lot of north korea are there is no statement going to settle in a democratic western hemisphere ok i'm going to go to gloria i mean the royal family of saudi arabia has been there for a long time to you and no one calls out an open society call you go ahead. yes

first of all i would actually call it more of a blockade because the u.s. policy goes beyond just banning trade between two countries the united states think sions corporations around the world as sell land our said punishes banks that except cuban money and from the very first day of the blockade and before the stated intention was to make the cuban people suffer and try to force them to overthrow their government and i think it's time for the american people to realize that we have an obligation to demand that our government stop dictating to other countries speaking of dictatorship there's now a third war going on against libya and i don't think the people of this country voted for that but i've been to cuba many times and seen the suffering that has taken place because of denial of medicine by the united states and you know i've seen medical cards and machinery that has been paralyzed because the u.s.

prevents european countries from selling those parts to cuba the block which requires a machinery of terror. lori girl i'll tell you one there was a pete there is a pediatric heart hospital in havana which could not use a blood gas analyzer because a part that he launched the machine became ish company that was bought up by a us corporation could no longer sell the park so actually my organization collected the money and bought a car from denmark and sent it through to cuba but a country can't operate that way and eleven million cuban people have a right to determine and they have determined what kind of society that they will have it's time for the us to stop this criminal blockade ok ray you want to jump in there i mean a lot of people would think go ahead ray go ahead well first of first of all ok first of all most of the medical i mean i'm not totally comfortable with the

medical issues is very it's a very tense one but the my understanding is that there's some pretty advanced medical supply houses in europe and in latin america that if they had the foreign exchange if they had a functioning economy they could purchase what they needed on the open market. that's an interesting very technical point about that certain items may be blocked but again this is a country that has relations with the rest of the world its biggest problems are the fact that its economic model simply it's a rusty old engine that won't drive forward and keeps eleven million people basically imprisoned on an island ok if i'm going to go back to i will tell people where you know i was going to go to sol and say i mean if how if the bar kate is. if it's maintained and how how can people have a normal economy if it's suffering blockade i don't understand that. well it's like

trying to breathe with a heavy boot on your throat i mean that's essentially was what the embargo a blockade if the united states has its boot heel right on cuba's economic fro and that really makes life very difficult for a nation of eleven million people without a basically strategic economy and it won't have a strategic economy unless it locks out and discovers that the oil offshore actually will start flowing but look there's a real point here. what is and i repeat this what has cuba done to the united states other than be disobedient i mean i think you could put fidel castro in the guinness book of records for disobedience that's been his great sin otherwise the united states you know say all cuba has political prisoners in fact the united states has more political prisoners in cuba then cuba has in guantanamo which by the way the united states has that base there is over one hundred years if you can say get out the united states say states says to cuba go to hell the united states

is place the embargo on cuba i mean what could cuba do to the united states other than surrender in other words that's i think what the u.s. government is demanding well if you will this i'm going to go on the united states process of democratization could recognize that the opposition on that island is not mercenaries in the pay of the united states it can begin to open up and excuse me i think of truth on that island again i have to jump in here we have to go to a break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on cuban state with r.t. . we

have seen the damage it has done to our environment mark let me close with the four props we do not want any more new g.m. molds. our core system is just so that was a dismal experience and i'm just i'm just appalled that that's allowed to go on in america. eating this unfortunately because we don't know what's in it there's no labeling there for the music like the boards we experiment use this is getting. old now we have more questions and we have matters. like. most of the. remainder of the latest in science technology from around russia.

we've got the future covered. and the k.k.k. . story. welcome back to cross talk i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're talking about cuba and the united states. can say. ok gloria just before i went to break things were getting heated up and i noticed you wanted to jump in so i'm going to give you that chance now but i want i want to re-install to resolve the issues they started in the first part of the program go ahead gloria. yes well the last united nations general assembly vote was overwhelming and it keeps growing and growing with only three countries voting in favor of the u.s.

blockade and over one hundred eighty three voting against it but the u.s. has far more power because of the security council and the pressure that applies to other countries the it's ironic that the blockade is tightening ever more including under the obama administration at a time when cuba is exporting joggers helping with hundreds of doctors providing medical care for free in haiti in venice well and many other countries and i think that what the u.s. fears most of all is the example that cuba provides the. here's what i learned that ray excuse me let me finish let me let me finish it aboard the people of israel against the regime for over here and doctors. and we got more or less human than peers who treat. you have to let me finish here being very rude i was in new orleans right after katrina several days when cuba had one thousand one hundred doctors prepared to fly into houston drive to new orleans and provide free health

care for the people and we are the ones actually in the united states who are being deprived by this relationship with the us imposing and so uber that we would find out cuba is developing many medicines like a lung cancer vaccine and other health that we could also benefit from from having normalized relations you know if i go to you instead if i get if i go to you ray i mean you know the cold war is over ok now i think in a certain context you could understand it ok cuba is a. proxy for the soviet union ok and we went to the cuban missile crisis and all of that ok so it was a cold war prism i can i can understand where you're coming from but now i mean what risk what is threat does kill isn't going to win the cold war is over and. what how they kicked off their congress where they were the great to recognize for the defeat of the the imperialist if you go to yahoo sanchez's blog they march down

the streets and say we are the we are the men who wear the pants and the imperialist wear the skirts and you know there is you know so let's saying you saying here we go ahead go ahead and i ask you which i ask you all if it is a totalitarian state yes it is totalitarian state how come they let you know and he's anxious to her blog how come they let all these bloggers who their blood sort of iowa matter what he told how unfair the racial yeah. yeah well that they were they are often times so you know every time you know at some reputed day they're in and out in their tolerance they have release political prisoners it's a it's a different regime it's not as stalin esque it's a bit more manly as it does but it's a totalitarian it's a tell your literary regime in principle because you have to control the total power in the state no that's a word to say aloud all power to cheap words you know half to them and half the demonstrations in the united states end up with the rest as well if you don't have

a primate you can't have a demonstration in the united states and even sometimes with a permit and we've seen so many times when the cops beat the hell out of the students so let's forget this crap i mean really the castro had one brilliant idea i would only let me tell a little of that was it escalating out of the let me let me just late ok all of the steps that are coming out of the clearing out democracy what are we what are we learning about the mechanism let me let me in the future leadership change you'll use all saw go ahead saul go ahead you want to hear i talk about let's talk about i'll go ahead you have to follow the smallest lowering their solo half the floor go ahead saul i'll tell you first of all if the united states hadn't been so stupid as to import fidel's opponents they're all in south florida or a they're not on the island he's exported a million people or more who had they stayed on the island would have made everything he tried to do did we experience i mean he's already if you know you

haven't. excuse me they experience isn't what miller place to go to of the united states that would have been let me just finish because if you look at what's going on now you have the most frank admission but made by roll castro if you read his speech it's very clear that their model has had serious deficiencies and if you look at the influence that's been made into that model you'll see a different kind of democracy maybe not the kind we have here where once every four years the citizens get to vote for one of two candidates which they had no role in choosing i mean please let's stop this devaluing the system of checks and balances or we need a glorious you know usually very patient gentleman gloria please. i'd like to know what is democratic about a billionaire like donald trump running for president and have people having this imposed upon them but regardless of who ever we vote for we have no way of their

being accountable for the wars that they create and the fact that we're paying more and more taxes like we did last night we don't have elections every two years we. now know it's released and seen at least forty one party you know they're in iran and iran i ran for president last in two thousand and eight and we were not able to access ballot access for the people to vote for us because it's a locked up game between the democrats republicans and millionaires and billionaires now that's not democracy but i want to get back to one point and that is what you should get out here are the let's all get out there a little see just well i guess i was he united to say you haven't taken on iran is that security related or he was gay and the western hemisphere ok i'd like to i'd like to ok gloria you probably go ahead gloria keep going but i want to talk about yes the impact of this of how cuban policy he's made in the united states among the cuban communities the program and take us through forces because that is very

important in the united states but go ahead first gloria. well because the cuban people have excess exercise their self-determination the united states has resorted not only to blockade but to us terrorism and over thirty four hundred cubans have been murdered by u.s. sabotage and bombings we've seen the most notorious terrorist luis posada a coterie less getting off free now he lives in miami even though he's killed seventy three people on a cuban airliner for hiring mercenaries to plant bombs planting bombs in cuban hotels in one thousand nine hundred seven he now walks the streets free of miami helio decisions or some of these as it is for well lucia look i know. you know you guys are really here let me call to clean the war in ethiopia is mean they let me sleep in it shoot them in age five to zero been anti imperialist wars. all right gloria go ahead finish your point i'm going to go. yes go ahead finish

your thought or even turn off a day well since mike al and five cuban men are in u.s. prison they're called the cuban five they can be found the website they were peacefully trying to stop it terrorism and the u.s. is completely hypocritical and this is a rival for the reindeer when there were terrorist organization when the big shop airplane aircraft lazy i mean they're going to baby invading cuban airspace i mean the car is from cuba sold out of the toy and the release is your feeling like civilian aircraft it has no weapons upon it and you clearly knew what it was excuse me you that's. right already we're going to go to so now we're going to salt go ahead saul go ahead. ray if a cuban plane flew over washington how long do you think it would last i don't think it would last thirty seconds ok period no no country in the world allows on

a licensed aircraft that is aircraft that's not permitted to fly over it's capital it's period that's it well they were they were up to her as it were for almost all of their pet of it and they were still about seven or eight miles out to sea is a writer and you know say going to jump in here ashore watching this jewel box please i'm going to jump in here is very messy today ok i like to talk but i'd like to talk about states get up so i would like to talk i would like to talk about the impact of the cuban community the divided community community in the united i'd like to go to you re here how much it is that in the in the halls of power in the state department where you have you have to be seen as hard on castro tough on castro and he keeping that in mind said we've had for decades and hasn't gone anywhere. well i would first of all of the advantage ministration is gone forward to engage in everything from. freedom of travel for cubans for increased remittances for the good for opening up at least exchange processes the five

hundred dollars per quarter remittances to any sort of cuban i mean it is solved senator kerry has put a hold on democracy promotion there is an attempt on the administration and the liberal support but yet in congress i can't see that it's all just three congressman from southern or one. one senator from new jersey and three congresspeople from south florida that are blocking these beneficial acts of legislation i mean it is a complex game and it all totally is decided in the congress not by the executives nor by talking heads like ourselves it is and clearly sol and gloria represent one line of opinion i tried to express those who are kind of really a little skeptical about ties with cuba even in this day of a changing regime and i think i agree with sol that the regime is changing because it simply has run out of gas its leaders are ancient its ideas are antiquated as carlos martin you once said you know communism is something to experience between

you know the end of capitalism and the restarting of calculus and i sort of see we're headed back in that direction ok gloria i can see you want to say something we got one minute and i'm going to give you the last word go ahead yeah well if the american people had the legal right to freely travel to cuba i think they would find a completely different image and reality that we're not allowed to see and then words and claims by people like me walter could go on and challenge i would like to also finish without interruption if you go to cuba you will find a society that's remarkably free of the kind of violence that we see in the streets here in in the united states you see a country where people don't have to worry that their kids can go to college because from day one when they're born college and. university is free and that health care is free there are difficulties and problems but they are working to resolve them and i would say that what the most important thing is that we have to

understand american people to not support policies of punishing others and we need to be able to travel to cuba we need to have normalized relations between the two countries but we do support our ideas and i want to do the job in this arena where race theory may be so said you very much many thanks my guest today in washington berkeley and in san francisco and thanks to our viewers for watching us here our feet see you next time remember crossed off. to keep the system. going. to be soon much brighter if you need some from plans to issue its.

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