McCain: Obama's approach to Castro is "dangerously naive"

John McCain is taking a swipe at Barack Obama's foreign relations credentials, calling Obama's suggestion at a Democratic debate last night that he'd meet with Raul Castro "dangerously naive" - and perhaps more suited to a state Legislature (Obama was a state senator in Illinois before his 2004 election to the US Senate.)

"Not so long ago, Sen. Obama favored complete normalization of relations with Fidel Castro's Cuba," McCain said in a press release. "Last night, he said that as president he'd meet with the imprisoned island's new leader 'without preconditions.' So Raul Castro gets an audience with an American president, and all the prestige such a meeting confers, without having to release political prisoners, allow free media, political parties, and labor unions, or schedule internationally monitored free elections.

"Instead, Senator Obama says he would meet Cuba's dictator without any such steps in the hope that talk will make things better for Cuba's oppressed people," McCain said. "Meet, talk, and hope may be a sound approach in a state legislature, but it is dangerously naive in international diplomacy where the oppressed look to America for hope and adversaries wish us ill."

Comments

[lisa t]

So Castro, if Obama is elected, gets the "prestige" of a meeting with an "American" president?

First, Any president in North or South America is an "American" president. Castro is an "American" dictator -- McCain means "U.S. President," right?

Cuba -- and all of the other American countries, North and South, deserve respect. Agree or disagree with their policies, and whether or not they're democratic, they are our neighbors whose welfare affects our own. Why should they respect the U.S., our leaders, and our way of life, if we don't give them the human honor of conversation? What is good about democracy when opposition voices aren't heard? If the U.S. continues to ignore (when we're not frolicking on their sunny shores) most of the people in our own hemisphere, how can we expect the rest of the world to respect us?

A conversation between our leader and Castro does not mean that the U.S. is bowing to a dictator. It means that someone finally had the courage to approach a civil resolution.

[Manny]

McCain had no problem supporting normalizing relations with Vietnam, even though he was tortured while he was a POW. Last time I checked, Vietnam was still a communist dictatorship with political prisoners, one political party, no free media, no independent labor unions, and no free elections.

Will someone please explain the difference between the current Vietnamese and Cuban governments and why the US has diplomatic relations with one but not the other?