Let me ask you all a question: Did Barack Obama's "grand opening" to Castroite Cuba seem to come as much out of left field to you as it did me? I mean, yeah, his party got waxed in the '14 midterms, he had (and has) nothing left to lose, he'll never face another election, he was (and is) free to be "the president he always wanted to be. But while selling out to the Castro brothers is something we always took for granted that he wanted to do, it's not like there was any build-up to it, like there was his amnesty decree. There wasn't much in the way of a campaign for it, or string of speeches in which he called for it. He just strode out like a colossus (in his own mind, he goes to the bathroom that way) to wherever it was he announced it and just...well, announced it. Dropped it like the Baby Ruth in the Bushwood club swimming pool in Caddyshack. Plop. And there it was.
But what was the context? Why now? Besides the same reason that a lion licks his privates (because he can).
And then it came - or, rather, came back - to me.
In the words of Roger Rabbit, "Ready when you are, Raul":
Cuban President Raul Castro demanded on Wednesday that the United States return the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, lift the half-century trade embargo on Cuba and compensate his country for damages before the two nations re-establish normal relations.
Castro told a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States that Cuba and the U.S. are working toward full diplomatic relations but 'if these problems aren't resolved, this diplomatic rapprochement wouldn't make any sense.'
Call it another "See, I told you so" for my overflowing trophy case - kind of like (hopefully) the one at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center a few days from now. And suddenly, the frantic efforts to empty out Gitmo of jihadists makes sense.
Not that O hasn't always wanted to close Camp X-Ray. It was a 2008 campaign promise that he wasn't able to keep by the end of 2009 - ditto importing all the captured jihadists into our civilian criminal justice system - neither of which flew even with an overpowering Democrat Congress. After that it faded beyond even that back burner, although it obviously was still something he wanted to do. He released jihadists here and there, both from Gitmo and elsewhere - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from Iraq was a notorious example - over the years, but it wasn't until last year that he really started the jailbreak in earnest, with the Bowe Berghdahl-Taliban Five "swap" last May, and the emptying has accelerated ever since then. By now, 90+% of the original "detainee" population is back in the jihad.
But was this just the treason equivalent of blue balls or was his imperial majesty in a hurry to realize an Ameriphobic two-fer for the ages: set free all his jihadist allies in order to giftwrap the entire Guantanamo Bay naval base to the Castros in order to get that Chamberlainian Air Force One-debarking paper-waving "It's peace in our time" photo op for the history books he's going to write after which he lusts so passionately?
Yes, that is another rhetorical question, no matter how unconvincingly whichever adolescent White House spokeskid protests to the contrary. Handing back Gitmo was always going to be part of this deal. Raul is, ironically, quite candid when he says that not doing so "doesn't make any sense" - for him and for The One. Indeed, given how Havana keeps moving the goal posts on its constant ante-ratcheting, and how slaveringly, transparently eager this White House is to do anything, make any concession, to get that "historic" photo-op, I think Raul decided to have a little fun with Barry by spilling the return-Gitmo stipulation ahead of the agree-upon timetable. One, it embarrasses the White House, at least temporarily, and two, it speeds up their capitulation to Castro's demand, since they were almost certainly always going to do so anyway. And three, Raul knows that O, like a good orthodox communist, will never submit any treaty to a GOP Senate for ratification, but will just hand Gitmo over to him, no questions asked.
As for Obama, this outcome - emptying Gitmo AND returning it to the Castros - is way better than just closing Camp X-Ray by the end of his first year in power. His hardcore lunatic base will be overjoyed. And the fact that the rest of the country will range from bewildered to splutteringly enraged will be the cherry atop the proverbial sundae.
And as an epilogue, now you know another reason why Chuck Hagel was so abruptly shown the door last fall.
My God, what a sucker.
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