Our Man in Havana

Just as the winds of freedom were blowing all over the planet and as the world's oldest dictatorship needed to find a way to divert those winds, Jimmy Carter went to Cuba — ready to build political shelter for the Castro brothers.

To have a former U.S. president speaking against U.S. policy while visiting Havana was exactly the kind of diversion Fidel and Raul Castro needed to keep the Cuban people thinking that the winds from North Africa could not reach the Caribbean.

Carter was used to show the Cuban people that their 52-year-old so-called "revolution" is still relevant and that their totalitarian government is somehow legitimate. The Castro brothers always have blamed all their failures on the U.S. economic embargo against the communist island. For them, having a former U.S. president condemn the embargo while visiting Cuba is tantamount to vindication — priceless!

But it's not surprising. When the communist Cuban dictators need a useful fool, they know they can always count on the one U.S. president who has been there for them, the one who claims to stand for universal human rights and then wears horse blinders when they are violated in Cuba, the one who allowed the Cuban dictators to push him around, even when he was in the White House.

Unfortunately, based on his naive leftist bias, Carter always has sanctioned right-wing dictators and embraced leftist despots. And when it comes to Cuba, Carter has a history of being a complete wimp.

During Carter's 1977-81 presidency, while Cuba was exporting violence and revolution to Central America and Africa, he naively kept inviting the Castro brothers to kiss and make up. He agreed to open a "U.S. Interests Section" and allowed the Cubans to open similar offices in Washington. Without getting concession from the Cuban government, Carter lifted so many sanctions that he nearly dismantled the embargo.

Some of those sanctions — on tourist travel and money transfers — have since been restored, but some are being dismantled by President Barack Obama, again without significant concessions from the Cuban government. But if it were up to Carter, the Obama administration would be making unilateral concessions to the Castro regime. Carter makes Obama look like a hawk!

But there are lessons the Obama administration should learn from Carter's mistakes.

How did the Cuban government respond to Carter's overtures when he lived in the White House?

Remember the 1980 Mariel boatlift, when the Castro brothers lifted the Iron Curtain and thousands of Cubans fled on boats to Florida? Remember how the Castro regime — facing dire economic straits and domestic unrest — needed to release some steam and Carter gave them an escape valve, allowing 125,000 Cuban dissidents to come to the United States within a few weeks? Remember that the Castro regime also sent us Cuba's worst criminals — straight out of prison — and shoved them down President Carter's throat?

"During his presidency, the Castros were able to play Carter like a fiddle," observed the blog "Capitol Hill Cubans" last week.

"And after his presidency, it has been more of the same."

In Havana last week, Carter almost sounded like a Castro spokesman delivering all of the regime's talking points. He came out against the embargo, as he has in the past, but then he also called on Washington to remove Cuba from the list of countries that, according to the U.S. government, support terrorism. And he demonstrated little respect for the U.S. justice system when he argued for the release of five Cuban "Wasp Network" spies currently serving time in U.S. prisons.

When the 86-year-old former U.S. president met with the 84-year-old Cuban dictator last week, Carter said he and Fidel "welcomed each other as old friends."

It was disgraceful and repulsive.

Originally, there was widespread speculation that Carter was going to Cuba to seek the release of Alan Gross, 61, an American jailed in Cuba for more than a year and recently sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment for handing out computers and communications equipment so that news-censored Cubans could have access to the Internet. But now that Carter has met with Gross and come home empty-handed, there is widespread speculation that he will stoop even lower and begin to lobby in Washington for a spy exchange between the two countries. Our man in Havana apparently wants to give up the five Cuban spies in exchange for Gross.

Nevertheless, some spinsters are trying to sell Carter's trip to Cuba as a great achievement, only because, after three days of meetings with human rights violators, he finally found time to meet with some of their victims.

In meetings with some of Cuba's most prominent dissidents, including blogger Yoani Sanchez and recently released political prisoner Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, Carter allegedly expressed hope that the Cuban government will learn to be less repressive.

Nevertheless, when he spoke to the Cuban people on radio and television last week, Carter wasted a precious opportunity to tell the Cuban people that the time has come for them to demand freedom and send the Castro brothers packing.

Imagine how much more effective Carter's trip to Cuba might have been if he had challenged the Castro brothers with the courage displayed by Ronald Reagan when he went to Berlin in 1987 and called on Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!"

If Carter had said, "Mr. Castro, it's time for you to go," many of us would have found long-lost respect for our former president.

But how often does it happen that a former American president visits a hostile country, denies that country's involvement with terrorism, attacks U.S. foreign policy, questions our judicial system, and calls for the release of imprisoned spies? How many Americans appreciate such betrayal from a former president?

On different occasions, both Fidel and Raul have said that of all 11 American presidents who have been in office since they took control of the Cuban government in 1959, Carter is "the best U.S. president."

Need I say more? In my book, that makes him the worst!

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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