Category: National

It was about as ironic as a geo-political week can get.

For the 16th straight year, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of urging the U.S. to lift its four-decade-old embargo against Cuba. Once again the vote was one-sided: 184-4-1. Once again, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands voted with the U.S. Once again, Micronesia abstained.

Once again the U.S. was made to look petty, inhumane, arrogant – and counter-productively stupid in front of the rest of the world.

A few days later, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez led a trade mission to – Vietnam. He met with Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and President Nguyen Minh Triet. He was accompanied by representatives of 23 U.S. companies, including, Ford, Dow Chemical, Northwest Airlines, Marriott and Alcoa.

Recall that the U.S. used to have a trade embargo against Vietnam. That ended in 1994. Recall that the following year diplomatic relations were normalized. And recall that both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have visited Vietnam.

And recall that the U.S. lost more than 58,000 troops in the Vietnam War.

But that was then — a tragic, misguided venture borne of Cold War delusions.

But Cuba is different. Cuba is close, and the enmity is personal. This Cold War relic remains the third rail of politics to too many feckless and intimidated American politicians and administrations who self-servingly hide behind the selective use of democratic mandates and criteria. Vietnam, si; China, si; Egypt, si; Saudi Arabia, si; Pakistan, si; Uzbekistan, si; Kazakhstan, si; Cuba, no.

And if blatant hypocrisy and cruel travel and remittance policies aren’t enough, there’s always this. At last count, the Cuban embargo was costing the U.S. an estimated $3 billion-$4 billion in lost exports per year, a huge chunk of it at Florida’s expense.

And at last count, no politician in Florida – from a populist governor to this state’s congressional delegation — has shown real moral courage or geo-political guts on Cuba.

It’s beyond deplorable. It’s bad for America at the worst possible time.

The year was 1986. Crack cocaine was a scary, mushrooming epidemic. Inner cities were being ravaged. Some of its overdose victims, such as Boston Celtics’ number one draft choice Len Bias, were high-profile. Authorities were implored to do something.

And Congress did. The result: sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine that were off the charts. To wit: trafficking in 5 grams of crack would mean a mandatory sentence of five years, but it would take 500 grams of powder to warrant an identical five-year term.

The 100-to-1 disparity, which has major racial implications, will now be pondered by the Supreme Court.

“When I first saw what Congress did, I thought it was a misprint,” recalls David Krahl, a criminology professor at the University of Tampa. “I thought it was 10-to-1. Trying to do something about the problem, Congress overreacted. It was almost legislative overreaching. And in the process, lower-level offenders and people of color were swept up. The law of unintended consequences.

“The assumption was that crack was inherently worse,” says Krahl. “Powder had a kind of glamour – that of a party drug. But the bio-chemical structures are identical. The physiological effects are the same. The difference is the route of administration. Crack is smoked; powder is snorted.”

But Krahl is confident that the days of the 100-to-1 disparity are numbered. Earlier this year the U.S. Sentencing Commission recommended lowering the federal minimum sentence for crack. Moreover, there are five Congressional bills filed on the crack-powder disparity. Three would reduce the disparity to 20-to-1; two would even it a 1-to-1.

“There’s a lot of broad-based, bipartisan support for this kind of legislation,” adds Krahl. “I think what the Court will do is wait until one becomes law.”

Hustings helper: There’s political pandering – and then there’s presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. During a recent forum hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus, Sen. Clinton suggested that every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 “baby bond” from the government to help out with college or house-buying.

The economic implications, of course, are staggering given that 4 million babies are born each year in the U.S. That’s $20 billion right there.

The sociological implications underscore an entitlement culture.

And the political implications include waving another red flag for illegal immigrants heading north. (Non-Cuban) Hispanic voters are the Democratic Party’s fastest-growing constituency.

By any account, the Democrats have a leg up on next year’s presidential election. And by any recall, they are quite capable, if past is truly prologue, of screwing it up royally.

The country, to be sure, is largely disillusioned and fed up with the war in Iraq, but demands protection in a world too filled with jihadi Muslim crazies.

A politically pragmatic suggestion to Dems: Whoever your presidential nominee is, match her up with Wesley Clark to fill out the ticket. Yes, he didn’t distinguish himself as a campaigner last time, but that’s because he wasn’t a seasoned politician, which is not all bad.

More to the point, Clark is (literally) Rhodes Scholar smart, a former NATO commander and as good looking as Mitt Romney — which might give Bill something to ponder.

It wouldn’t be surprising if those groups that lean heavily on hostage-taking to advance their cause are still celebrating the upshot of the Taliban’s kidnapping of those South Koreans in Afghanistan. The six-week ordeal yielded an ironically disastrous outcome.

Imagine, the Taliban takes 21 Christian church workers hostage, kills two of them, gets concessions to release the remaining 19 and then gets less blame than the South Korean hostages themselves. Who does their PR?

South Korean public anger against the hostages has been pointed, palpable – and understandable. The hostages – and the church that sent them – had ignored repeated warnings from the South Korean government not to go.

But they went; they were taken hostage; and their government came under heavy, worldwide pressure to do whatever it took to secure their release. It was an untenable position for a government that knew such scenarios awaited, an act of arrogance by those who ignored common-sense warnings and a strategic victory for the pragmatically barbarous Taliban.

Wedge-politics guru Karl Rove is officially no longer in the House. Some perspective:

*The Prince of All Things Partisan never should have been allowed around policy. The country is worse off for it.

*The presidential Svengali was really, really good at one thing: Getting George W. Bush elected multiple times. He did whatever it took – from polarization to pander fests to dirty tricks. Donald Sagretti on steroids.

*Lee Atwater never looked so ethical.

*Somehow, some way, Rove’s got to be behind this state’s (Republican-controlled) Legislature’s double-dare-you push to move the presidential primary to Jan. 29. As a result, the Democratic National Committee’s hand was forced, and the DNC ordered Dems in America’s mega-battleground state to neuter its primary.

*The presidential albatross has finally flown, but Rove didn’t take one for the team. Can you say book deal and GOP lecture circuit?

*Please, don’t anyone present him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Even if it’s the one that George Tenet might yet feel compelled to give back.

Re: The impending resignation of Karl Rove, presidential Svengali and wedge-politics guru.

A few points:

*Rove, Prince of Partisan Politics, never should never have been allowed around policy. The country is worse off for it.

*He was really, really good at one thing: Getting George W. Bush elected multiple times. He did whatever it took – from polarization to pander fests to dirty tricks. Donald Sagretti on steroids.

*Lee Atwater never looked so ethical.

*Enough damage for now. Time to cash in. Can you say book deal and GOP lecture circuit?

*Please, don’t anyone present him the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the way out. Even if it’s the one that George Tenet felt compelled to give back.

The June issue of Vanity Fair magazine includes a piece by British writer Christopher Hitchens about his home town entitled “ Londonistan Calling.” It references this colorful comment by Steven Simon, a former White House counterterrorism official, who described today’s Muslim-impacting London as reminiscent of “the Star Wars bar scene.”

Like a lot of folks, I’m, well, intrigued by the presidential candidacy of Illinois Senator Barack Obama. I know, I know. He’s not experienced enough or specific enough. And for some, he’s not angry enough or even black enough – and probably never will be.

Enough on that for now. Neither the current president nor his predecessor could claim prior experience as a justification for holding such high office. Specifics typically aren’t necessary until primary season. The Iowa caucus is Jan. 14, 2008. The Florida primary – with or without the parceling of delegates – is Jan. 29, 2008.

Here’s what seems overridingly relevant right now about the next presidential election. Unless we figure out the role of the United States on this planet, everything else – from universal health care to capital gains tax rates – could be moot. That’s because America’s international role – and its perception by the rest of the world – directly affects our national security and our involvement in the global economy. Like never before.

Of course, the United Nations is feckless on a good day and a major chunk of Europe is, indeed, “Olde,” and too many countries give autocracy a bad name. But this is the world we’re saddled with, not the one we would dearly love to have, to paraphrase Don Rumsfeld.

But aside from Israel, Palau and Tony Blair, that world is increasingly looking askance at the U.S. as something other than a force for good and a paragon of liberty. And the Jihadi prism of fanaticism, of course, is even more distorted.

Which brings us back to Obama. It certainly helps that he’s quick-study bright and articulate, which at one time seemed prerequisites for the presidency. Think Bill Clinton without the, uh, baggage.

But he also has the most international upside — at a time when it’s never mattered more.

With his Kansas-Kenya lineage, he even looks like much of the rest of the world.

And in the midst of a civilizational war, where putative friends qualify as allies, Obama certainly has at least the potential to fix the fractured relationship between the U.S. and the rest of the world.

According to newly released CIA documents, Santo Trafficante of Tampa, along with some other Mob bosses, conspired with the U.S. government to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1960. Food poisoning was to be the means.

To anyone who’s been around awhile, this was hardly news. Trafficante, who died in 1987, testified to the failed plot when called before the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978.

Moreover, he even put a patriotic spin on the CIA-recruited assignment. “Being that the government of the United States wanted it done,” Trafficante told the Committee, “I go along with it, the same thing as a war.”

But according to Trafficante’s late lawyer, Frank Ragano, there was more than underworld patriotism involved. And Trafficante was more than skeptical about trying to slip someone into Castro’s inner circle.

In his 1994 book, “Mob Lawyer,” Tampa native Ragano quotes Trafficante: “Sam (Giancana, the Mafia boss of Chicago) told me to play along to help Johnny (Roselli, a Las Vegas underworld figure with deportation issues), and I introduced the CIA guys to some of my Cuban friends and Raul Gonzalez (a Cuban-exile acquaintance from Havana). The CIA had all this foolish talk about poisoning Castro. Those crazy people. They gave me some pills to kill Castro. I just flushed them down the toilet.

“Nothing ever came of it. We didn’t expect to make any money, but we had a windfall. They paid us a lot of money and nobody intended to do a damn thing. It was a real killing.”