Wes Vernon. Friday, July 27, 2001 .
NewsMax.com
WASHINGTON - The House could not have picked a worse time to ask the Senate
to go along with lifting the ban on travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens. Two major
issues make it less likely - though not impossible - that the senators will
approve it.
The first is Vieques. Some Armed Services Committee members are furious at
the very thought of doing anything for dictator Fidel Castro.
They note that Castro recently addressed a rally in Vieques, a Puerto Rican
island, trying to whip up sentiment for forcing the U.S. Navy out of the
training ground there. National security specialists have said that Vieques,
with its unique characteristics, is the only place of its kind suitable for
required complete training. Any move to get the Navy out of there, they warn,
could endanger the lives of inadequately trained troops.
In fact, knowledgeable security specialists were mortified when President
Bush recently announced he was scheduling a move out of Vieques in 2003.
This came after pressure from politicians such as Sen. Hillary Clinton,
D-N.Y., the former first lady whose concept of the military’s role may have
been reflected by the use of uniformed personnel to act as servers at White
House functions.
To come to the Senate and expect ready acceptance of anything that gives
Castro a break while this communist dictator is fanning the flames of
anti-Americanism in an area that is none of his business is "off the
charts," in the opinion of one Senate staffer.
A spokesman for Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a key Armed Services member,
told NewsMax.com that the House-passed measure would have a hard time in the
Senate. "We’ll fight it," he said.
Secondly, there is a complicating factor in the Senate that does not apply
in the House.
That is the coming mean-spirited Democrat crusade against confirming Otto
Reich as Bush’s Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric
Affairs. That battle is being led by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., in large
part because of Reich’s anti-communist/Castro record. Sources tell
NewsMax.com that Reich's prospects are "a coin toss."
Those who remember the late Sen. Thomas Dodd’s hearings exposing Castro’s
machinations in this hemisphere and his willing sycophants in the United States
must have a feeling the father of the current Sen. Dodd is turning over in his
grave.
The debate over Reich serves to remind senators why Castro remains a threat,
and that he remains true to the global communist threat against U.S. security
throughout the Cold War. Communism remains a danger today through the Red
regimes that remain, not the least of all Cuba, which is on America's doorstep
and once housed Soviet missiles pointed at the United States.
All these animosities are revived by the drive against Reich. Castro himself
has spoken out against the nomination again, butting into a matter that is a
U.S. prerogative. Senators considering lifting a travel ban are bound to ask
themselves to what extent they should allow a communist dictator to call the
shots on U.S. policy.
A Senate aide noted the travel measure was attached to a spending bill and
that this tactic had been tried before in the Senate, only to be struck down in
the end. A similar measure died last year.
"There will be sustained and determined opposition," said a
spokesman for Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., ranking Republican and former chairman
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Helms, you may remember, co-sponsored
the Helms-Burton amendment to discourage foreign investment in Castro’s
Cuba.
Bush Opposes Weakening Sanctions
Bush has continued former President Bill Clinton's suspension of the
Helms-Burton law, but the White House issued a statement Thursday saying the
president "strongly opposes any amendment that weakens sanctions against
the Castro regime."
The big question mark is whether the Senate’s new Democrat plurality
has changed the outlook. But it should be remembered that unlike the House, the
Senate has rules that make it extremely difficult to pass anything with less
than 60 percent of the vote if the opposition is unappeasable. Helms is not an
appeaser on communism.
For the House to send the Senate the measure now is not exactly striking
while the iron is hot. In the unlikely event the Senate sides with the House, it
is even more doubtful a Bush veto could be overridden.
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