Editorial roundup

Nov. 27 The Miami Herald

Cuba after Castro

Donald Trump got it right upon Fidel Castro’s death on Friday, even if the president-elect was simply stating the obvious: “The world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades,” Mr. Trump said in a statement hours after Castro’s death was announced.

“Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.”

Since then, Mr. Trump has reiterated his harsh and hard line vowing to rescind President Obama’s normalization of relations with the still-oppressed island nation.

But the Editorial Board thinks that Miami U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo got it “righter” when he said at a weekend press conference: “Only the Cuban people can free Cuba.”

After more than 50 years, the United States’ hardline policies did little to effect change in Cuba under Fidel Castro. Human rights remained an unrealized dream for Cubans. And, unfortunately, after almost two years of this country’s normalized relations with Cuba, they still are elusive.

Again, Mr. Trump is right to criticize the lack of concessions made by the Cuban regime since Mr. Obama announced the stunning diplomatic thaw in December 2014. The Board, too, has repeatedly stated its disappointment.

However, for the United States, the overarching realization should remain this: Change is coming in Cuba. It is inevitable.

Raul Castro has said publicly that he will step down in 2018. And though the U.S. embargo should remain in place until there is movement toward freedoms, isolation — a pragmatic policy, perhaps, for the mid20th century — is not the smart path for the 21st.

Our advice as the new administration takes over: Let the Cubans do it. A new generation that has seen their parents, and their grandparents, survive the oppressive regime damaged, but with dignity, will not be denied control of their lives. Not in the time of Yoani Sánchez. Not while the Ladies in White march unbowed and unafraid. Not with the internet and cell phones.

These are not a helpless people, and U.S. policy should not treat them as if they are.

Cuba is better off without Fidel Castro. His death is a blow to the old guard, which considered him indestructible. The repressive machinery is still in place, but if the history of the region — and around the world — is any signpost, the Cuban system cannot defy indefinitely the rules of political gravity any more than Castro could defy mortality. The pull has been toward democracy in the hemisphere. Papa Doc, Trujillo and their ilk have come and gone.

In Venezuela, the president insists on keeping Fidel Castro’s twisted dream alive, despite the human toll. His buffoonery is proof that it’s a failed vision.

Last year, Freedom House reported that, “After years of civil war, the region experienced a remarkable change of course, in large measure due to patient American diplomacy. Death squads were suppressed, the left abandoned violent insurrection, and elections brought to power parties of the center-right and center-left.

“Between 1980 and 2014, nearly every Central American country experienced significant gains in (democratic freedoms.) Only Honduras lost ground, and Costa Rica maintained its already strong performance. The biggest improvements took place in El Salvador and Guatemala, which had been notorious for the brutality of their regimes.”

History’s arc has bent toward freedom. The Cuban people should take the lead, with U.S. encouragement, rather than a heavy hand. Nov. 30 The Orange County Register

More aggressive policy

And then there was one — one unreconstructed communist regime in the world.

It’s hard to picture a more fitting symbol of capitalism’s triumph over communism than the death of Fidel Castro on Black Friday. Though Cuba remains a dictatorship, its attachment to its revolutionary ideology seems very likely to steadily weaken. That leaves just a single nation devoted to the cause. Unfortunately for the world, it’s North Korea.

Now more than ever, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (as it styles itself) is a sobering and grave reminder of how brutal communism has always been — and how dangerous it remains today

and tomorrow.

Part of the danger North Korea poses, of course, is due to its isolation. But its complicity in international crime and nuclear proliferation has shown the North to enjoy all the international companionship it needs to be a powerful force for global evil and harm.

It’s also true that the severity of this threat is partly the consequence of the Obama administration’s wait-and-see policy of “strategic patience,” where Washington refused to negotiate in an effort to get Pyongyang’s rulers to abandon their nuclear program.

Now, on its way out the door, the White House has belatedly recognized that the North has no intention of denuclearizing — in fact, just the opposite. Officials have warned Donald Trump’s transition team that North Korea’s all-out ballistic missile program is so advanced that it should be treated as the new administration’s No. 1 national security priority.

Trump’s team has received a similar message loud and clear from the head of the last Republican administration. In recent public remarks, George W. Bush warned that a far more aggressive policy than “strategic patience” had to be adopted at once. “North Korea represents a grave security threat,” he counseled. “It shows how the proliferation of a deadly technology can allow small leaders, failed, cruel and criminal leaders, to threaten and disrupt the world on a grand scale.”

Naturally, Pyongyang has also taken an interest in President-elect Trump’s policy preferences. In a recent memorandum, the regime leveled the predictable criticism against the U.S. and the sitting president’s adversarial efforts, closing with the usual affirmation that nothing will stop the nuclear program because its tests are not the true source of trouble in the region. Boilerplate this may be, but for North Korea watchers, a new and deeper meaning was on clear display. Very unusually, the memorandum was disseminated in English — an evident attempt to telegraph its openness to direct negotiations to the incoming Trump administration.

Trump’s own recent words have given the North reason to believe such a message might not be rejected out of hand. Trump has suggested previously, for instance, that he might consider communicating personally with Kim Jong Un.

To mark Fidel Castro’s death, Pyongyang imposed three days of mourning on its beleaguered people, adding insult to decade upon decade of injury. Although neither carrots nor sticks may work as well on North Korea as on Cuba, America’s new administration will face an undeniable opportunity to help ensure that the number of communist regimes blighting the Earth’s surface finally drops to zero. Nov. 27 The Augusta Chronicle, Georgia

Trump’s Twitter account

From the daily news reports, you get the impression the Trump administration is already collapsing on itself.

Since the election, the nation’s news syndicates have produced an unending string of nearly apocalyptic Tales of Dread. The transition is too slow! His chief counselor is a “conservative provocateur” and “controversial conservative firebrand” who may be anti-Semitic! Trump’s children may be helping pick the Cabinet! Foreign policy may change! His appointments are scary — and maybe even “anti-Islamist”!

He may be planning “extreme vetting” of immigrants and refugees! It’s been two weeks since the election, and Trump still hasn’t cut his lifelong business ties! Good grief. Give the man a chance. He’s forming a new administration from scratch — and as a political newcomer, it really is from scratch. But as a savvy businessman, he’s doing a thorough job of screening candidates.

Moreover, his meeting with Mitt Romney — who bitterly opposed Trump during the campaign — is a tremendous gesture of the kind of good will presidents should engender.

Having said that, we would caution the president-elect: Get rid of your Twitter account and grow some extra layers of skin.

Mr. Trump has become legendary for knee-jerk reactions to his critics, often in “tweets” that come at all hours of the day and night.

And when he hosted several dozen top news reporters, anchors and executives for an off-the-record summit recently, he was reportedly so critical of them that one source described it as “a (bleeping) firing squad.”

As evidenced by the above, and by the horrid, biased reporting during the general election campaign, the news folks deserve a good talking-to. But you have to wonder if that was the most advantageous, or presidential, thing Mr. Trump could’ve done.

He has a history of trying to ban news agencies and reporters he feels have done him wrong. As president, that simply won’t be acceptable, and it won’t work.

Indeed, President Obama tried to ban Fox News, but thankfully their rivals at other news agencies wouldn’t stand for it.

As names of his possible presidential press secretary began surfacing recently, it got us to thinking: Were it us being considered for the job, we would accept it only on the condition that the administration never attempt to marginalize or ostracize the press corps.

We realize that as a CEO and celebrity, Mr. Trump may be accustomed to favoring certain media people and outlets over others. That was his prerogative as a private citizen.

As president, he will have joined a long-running Kabuki dance between the White House and press corps. They report, sometimes distort, watching like an eagle for one misstep on the part of the executive. He, in turn, smiles and tangos on.

A free people simply won’t have it any other way. There are already signs that Mr. Trump is growing into the role of president — including his meeting with Romney. But again, the role involves a skin as tough as old shoe leather.