Imagine if a U.S. hotel owned by citizens of another country kicked a group of guests out because of pressure from their government.

http://feeds.mexicocitynews.net/?rid=c03ef52b06eb8c50&cat=968d25eaf1a5e264&f=1

Some excerpts:

Mexico's government is looking into imposing sanctions against a U.S.-owned hotel if officials conclude it expelled Cuban guests because of their nationality or because of pressure from the U.S. government, Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said Monday.

A meeting between Cuban officials and U.S. energy executives was moved to another hotel Saturday after the Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton asked the Cubans to leave.

Kirby Jones, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association, said the U.S. government pressured the hotel's owner, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. (HOT), arguing that the U.S. company was violating a law that strengthened U.S. trade sanctions first imposed against Cuba in 1961.

The 1996 Helms-Burton law "does not exist, and should not be applied, in our nation," Derbez told a Mexico City radio station in an interview, the transcript of which was distributed to the news media. Derbez spoke from a state visit to the Netherlands.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/06/AR2006020602089.html

One bit:

Cuba criticized the expulsion, with the Communist Party daily Granma saying in an editorial that "the tentacles of the blockade and the U.S. government's criminal economic war against Cuba are willing to reach beyond any boundary on the planet, even to the detriment of the laws of other nations."

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Somehow, somewhere, I suspect perhaps at least in the landscaping, there's a Bush involved.

B

Why you gotta blame everything on W?

Our Cuba policy is such a failure, and been so counterproductive for so long, it is incredible.

What government agency is charged with tracking the movements of Cubans in and out of U.S.-owned businesses around the world? I wonder if Cuban tourists to the caymans are permitted to rent jet skis? I bet they'd be allowed to pay for a U.S. Govt. run anti-Castro paramilitary camp somewhere in, oh, say, Mexico.... ooops, been there- done that.

Too bad we can't have line-item tax veto.

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So lemme see...

You're raising a phantom "it's all Bush's fault" charge because you're unwilling to recognize the heavy-handed hypocrisy of this? You have perfectly framed the absurdity of that knee jerk response that pro-Bushies never seem to tire of.

I repeat, what would be our response did nationals of another nation do this at a hotel in the U.S?

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

The article said the Cuban businessmen were meeting with a group of American energy execs. I guess that's what brought it to official attention, but still, you have a point: what kind of resources are required to make sure that we behave like asses around the world where ever Cubans are involved?

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1984 300D, 138K

Amen. The Cuba embargo is a sick-a$$ joke that should've died decades ago.

I'd love a line-item VETO in the president's hands. Any president. Even Jimmy. At least it would force Congress to over-ride rather than just carte blanche passage of pork.

People are still paying attention to he Helms Burton Act? When that got passed it ticked off some Canadians, because part of the bill expanded the embargo to not doing businesses with any business that does business with Cuba. Then things got strange.

Because another part of the bill was a provision that said that any owner of property who had his property taken by force or without due process could reclaim the property. Well it so happens that there are a couple guys in Canada's Parliament that are descendants of US Tories that were driven out of the states for being Tories. Their property was seized.

So these two guys, in that good natured Canadian way, start doing public appearances and say something like "Well I guess you can embargo Canadian business under this bill. But by the same token, we want our forefathers land back" and they had all the documentation, land grants from the king and such. Their property consisted of a few hundred acres in what is now Philadelphia and one of the burroughs of NY. We're talking billions of dollars of real estate.

Never heard too much of the Helms Burton after that.

Good story. I can hear it now... "well, ah, you see, that was written for Cuban Americans who want to reclaim land that was seized from them in Cuba by COMM--OO--NISTS, that is, ahh... you must understand, in the continental United States, ahem, the ahh... the priorities that animate our values..." and so on ad naseum.

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Sorry if I was heavy handed earlier. You do use the "so it's all Bush's fault" now and then. This BS goes well beyond any of W's influence, though I'm sure he's on board with the policy.

I've heard European diplomats say that when they meet with reps of other countries, there's two types of discussions: when the Americans are there and when they're not. They say that when our guys are there, they pretty much announce how things are going to be. No discussion that amounts to anything. Apparently they come across as a bit clueless much of the time, perhaps because they're driven by some idealogical agenda that is only thinly related to facts on the ground.

This Mexico/Cuba embarrassment reminds me of that: "We're the boss -- our word goes."

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I'm going to start a new thread on cuba policy.

And another on line-item veto. My suggestion above was only a humorous one, imagining a system by which we were each issued an unabridged volume of appropriations from which to pick and choose those that ought to receive our tax dollars. Methinks this would be a bad situation for all involved...


This administration has been digging up several older policies and interpreting them in new ways in the past couple of years. There was another example, which I'm blanking on, that involved a statute from the 1800s- obviously rarely inforced- that was used in a prosecution. Any bells?

In any case, it's a pretty smart way to operate. Decide what it is that you want to be able to do, then find an existing law that provides some sort of cover for it. I'm sure it's a time-tested method of presidential maneuvering, but W seems to have a knack for bringing these things to the spotlight. Doubtless the founders would have had little problem with spying on Brit sympathizers after the nation was in order. I'm sure they intercepted letters/ interrogated/ held without charges/ etc all the time.

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