To be honest I am confused and I need your thoughts.

Thank You.

Our problems have more to do with transportation, flooding and distribution of supplies. Foreign aid in the form of dollars don't really help us right now.

Now if he wants to give to the Red Cross or kick in for the rebuilding........

It's a PR move, but then again so is flying Air Force one over the damaged areas. Better his money be put towards humanitarian uses than suppressing his own people.

I'll go with Lionel on this one as its the only reasonable explanation, PR, although cannot say that matters much, he is still a commie dictator in the eyes of the world.

I believe that the way to destroy a dictator's hold on people is to expose them to something better to the point that they begin to desire change.
Having said this, as a background, I believe we should open trade and business relations with Cuba.

Let him send the 1000 doctors here to assist. Many may decide to stay. At the very least, they will return home with opinions of what they have seen and experienced here.

To isolate the Cuban people, in the name of punishing their leader, has not worked in all these years-to unseat him.

I believe it is time for a new direction of dealings with Cuba, one that shows fore-thought and interest in the welfare of the citizens of our close neighbor.

I dont think that it has ever happened before. Whether good or bad, I dont know yet. I think it would be an unpresidented PR move. Then again he could be able to put that money into more democratic reforms and programs for the people.

:banana:Having been in his position, he is a record holder for being a dictator for so long.:banana:

:banana: He has those cuban stoagies rolled fresh every morning. :banana:

:banana:that leads me to believe, he'll die any day now, the commie government there will fall, and the people will be able to grow:banana:

Of course this is good What the hell are you asshats talking about. The US needs all the help it can get right now. And if you're saying it doesn't then why haven't you strated chastizing those responsible for the beyond piss poor response. Jesus how brainwashed can you people be...

Maybe they should have asked him for help before the hurricane hit...
+++++++++++++++++++

The Two Americas

Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died.

What is Cuban President Fidel Castro's secret? According to Dr. Nelson Valdes, a sociology professor at the University of New Mexico, and specialist in Latin America, "the whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin with. People know ahead of time where they are to go."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090305Y.shtml

Evak, Castro's son is next in line to rule. He already has the power structure.

Whoa, he has a son, that changes everything...

Although there may be a revolt when he passes and the son will fall. Its happened many times before (seen Qin Dynasty of China)

Viva Le Revolucion! http://iag-clan.de/images/smilies/uglyhammer.gif

Originally posted by 500lbguerilla
Of course this is good What the hell are you asshats talking about. The US needs all the help it can get right now. And if you're saying it doesn't then why haven't you strated chastizing those responsible for the beyond piss poor response. Jesus how brainwashed can you people be...

Maybe they should have asked him for help before the hurricane hit...
+++++++++++++++++++

The Two Americas

Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died.

What is Cuban President Fidel Castro's secret? According to Dr. Nelson Valdes, a sociology professor at the University of New Mexico, and specialist in Latin America, "the whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin with. People know ahead of time where they are to go."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090305Y.shtml damn good post.

Yay for Fidel.

Yes a good civil defense plan would have been nice in New Orleans. That's why they have a Mayor and local government.

How many cities are there in America? Fifty thousand? Should the feds come up with all their emergency plans? Geez.

Originally posted by Turtle Moon
To be honest I am confused and I need your thoughts.

Thank You.

To think that aid offered could possibly be bad is beyond me. If you are dangling on the edge of a cliff and Castro offers you his hand are you going to contemplate whether or not to take it. Of course not that would be ridiculous in the extreme...

Of course we are not dying of thirst, starvation, plagued by mosquitoes, alligators, and surrounded by rotting corpses. So hmmmm to accept help or not to accept help....gee such a dilemma!

We really do not need aid, we happen to be quite able to provide funds for ourselves.

Of course we are not dying of thirst, starvation, plagued by mosquitoes, alligators, and surrounded by rotting corpses. So hmmmm to accept help or not to accept help....gee such a dilemma!

First i question the use of the term 'we' coming from a canadian and then we are always plagued by mosquitoes ;), alligators aren't too much of a problem and the death toll isn't so catastrophic that we have to roll around carts screaming 'Bring Out Yer Dead!'

Fidel should spend that money on his people's needs.

Originally posted by Evakian
We really do not need aid, we happen to be quite able to provide funds for ourselves.

Of course we are not dying of thirst, starvation, plagued by mosquitoes, alligators, and surrounded by rotting corpses. So hmmmm to accept help or not to accept help....gee such a dilemma!

First i question the use of the term 'we' coming from a canadian and then we are always plagued by mosquitoes ;), alligators aren't too much of a problem and the death toll isn't so catastrophic that we have to roll around carts screaming 'Bring Out Yer Dead!'

Fidel should spend that money on his people's needs.

First of all the use of the word we is a collective referral to us arm chair philosophers who are not experiencing the life or death turmoil. The dangers they have been referring to if you have been following this closely are real. That old couple rescued from the car were surrounded by alligators.

As for "your" death toll since you want a separation here (since I am Canadian) :) may not seem much to "you" but when you have been sitting besides dead bodies for a few days it might seem a lot to you "then". As a reporter said at one point the rats were beginning to eat the bodies in the streets.

This clean up will take months if not years. See your kind of attitude is why people say... yeah, let them handle their own crap... and then others like Prae are whining that the world has not extended a hand when that is patently not true.

So once again your minimization of "their" situation only proves my point further.

We can't accept aid! I mean, what will we say next time we send aid to another country? We wouldn't be able to scoff in their faces and get pissed off about sending them aid yet we never get anything when we're in need. We don't need anybody else's help, Evak is right, we can do this on our own. I mean, with help people would live and get their homes back. If we did this ourselves then we would have less of those lazy vicious poor people in this country.

Yes a good civil defense plan would have been nice in New Orleans. That's why they have a Mayor and local government.
I don't think he mentioned anything about the Federal government.

we can do this on our own.

Heck, we should turn away all aid in a polite manner. Its like a starving child giving his only cookie to his fat neighbor who has a plate of them.

Heck, we should turn away all aid in a polite manner. Its like a starving child giving his only cookie to his fat neighbor who has a plate of them.
That's an absolutely moronic analogy. The United States may be fat(in the stomach and head), however currently we're in a crisis. I don't think you understand the magnitude of this situation, the largest port in the Gulf of Mexico just went down and wont be operational for quite some time. Not only that, but oil rigs in the Gulf sustained damage and a bunch of our oil refineries cannot be used currently. Not just that, but we are stretching ourselves even thinner by having to take troops from Iraq to help out in New Orleans and we are currently in one of the largest debts this country has seen. Our economy will probably take serious hits from this catastrophe that 9/11 could never have thought possible. We lost an entire city. That's bad in any sense. Morale is down and cynism is running higher than ever.

That's an absolutely moronic analogy

Yes because the most affluent nation on earth needs that cookie from poorer nations.:rolleyes:
In time we will be able to fix this, but it will be a rocky road for awhile.

Thank you all for your thoughts.

As I thought about it more I think accepting aid from Castro would be bad. I think what Castro is doing is to embarrass Bush by telling him what a lousy job he is doing. I agree with the poster who said that Castro should take of the need of his people first.