U.S. & Cuba, Pals Again, Lovers, Friends, Holding Hands, Singing Songs of Peace Love & We are the World

And to think, just 50 years ago we were ready to trade missles instead! See what an administration of Hope and Change can do for ya!

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At MSNBC, those creeps who think this is all such a wonderful moment of Kumbayainess

U.S., Cuba trade warm words
Organization of American States to vote on readmitting communist nation
The Associated Press
updated 4:02 p.m. ET, Fri., April 17, 2009

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad - The head of the Organization of American States said Friday that he will ask its members to readmit Cuba 47 years after they ousted the communist nation. And in another step toward improving relations, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Cuban
President Raul Castro's latest comments a "very welcome gesture."

After a series of overtures by President Barack Obama, Castro said Thursday that he is ready to talk with the U.S. and put "everything" on the table, even questions of human rights and political prisoners.

That prompted a warm response from Clinton: "We welcome his comments, the overture they represent, and we are taking a very serious look at how we intend to respond."

As leaders of 34 nations converged on Trinidad for the Summit of the Americas — an OAS-sponsored gathering that includes every nation in the region but communist Cuba — expectations were soaring for a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations that have been largely frozen since the Cold War.

Things seemed to be moving quickly. Obama and Clinton had earlier said that Havana needs to reciprocate after Obama's "good faith" gesture on Tuesday of removing restrictions on some American money and travel to Cuba. But Raul Castro's conciliatory response seemed to be enough to move things forward even without a more concrete move on U.S. sticking points.

Aboard Air Force One en route to Trinidad, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Cuban leaders should release political prisoners and stop "skimming money" off cash remittances sent to the island by Cuban Americans if it is serious about working with the U.S. . .

OAS chief seeks to reinstate Cuba

OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said he will ask the group's general assembly in May to annul the 1962 resolution that suspended Cuba. "We're going step by step," he said of his move to vote on inviting Cuba back in. . .

'A serpent will be born'

Raul Castro spoke Thursday at a meeting of leftist leaders in Venezuela who vowed to represent Cuba's interests in Trinidad. Vehemently defending his government's resistance to the U.S., he said "the OAS should disappear" and that Cuba would never want to join the organization he called a tool of the U.S.

"The North Sea will unite with the South Seas, a serpent will be born from an eagle's egg before Cuba joins the OAS," Castro said.

Insulza said Castro's feelings are only natural: "If my country were suspended from an organization for nearly 50 years I'd be very upset."

Castro's other comments about negotiating with the U.S. represented the most conciliatory language that either Castro brother used with any U.S. administration since that of Dwight D. Eisenhower in early 1961, when the nations broke off relations.

Raul Castro has previously said he would be willing to discuss all issues with Obama. But Cuban officials have historically bristled at including human rights or political prisoners in the talks, saying such matters are none of the Yankees' business.

'Right to self-determination'

Castro said his only conditions for talks now are that Washington treat them as a conversation between equals and respect "the Cuban people's right to self-determination."

Most Cubans, however, likely heard little about these overtures, unless they watched TV using illegal satellite hookups. . .

Clinton: Earlier policy 'failed'

Obama said he acted in good faith to lift restrictions on visits and money sent by Americans with families on the island — steps he called "extraordinarily significant" for the families. But he ruled out a unilateral end to the embargo, even as Clinton said Friday that "we view the present policy as having failed."

No one should expect a sudden, major breakthrough in U.S.-Cuba relations, but these latest developments should not be lightly dismissed, said Peter DeShazo, a Latin America expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former U.S. diplomat.

"These are very preliminary steps," he said in a telephone interview in Washington. "But they are significant" not only as symbolic gestures of good will but also as building blocks of a
foundation for a new relationship.

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