These topics have nothing in common except that each of them is in the news, and each brings up an irritating false assumption that should be corrected. I might write a book (or at least a chapter) on each of them, but today I will be brief.
Cuba: There's a new impetus to ease restrictions on travel; some oppose this but it seems to me relations should be normalized completely. Our attempts to isolate bad guys have seldom worked; what have we got out of 50 years of isolating Cuba, besides the Bay of Pigs? A major mistake we make in foreign relations is basing policy on the undying bitterness of emigres who bring with them to this country their old-country biases.
Iraq: The Sunni "Awakening," a military/political group which has cooperated with U.S. forces, resents being reined in from attacks on the Shiite dominated government forces. This demonstrates the degree to which they (and the Shi'as also, probably) fail to grasp the essential elements of democracy. This is why we need to be cautious in declaring the surge a success; absent any previously existing democratic institutions or tradition in Iraq, success will be dependent on the presence of U.S. forces to "correct" such overreaching. Will Iraqi democracy survive our departure?
General Motors: Lamenting the forced resignation of GM's CEO, some claim that GM is being penalized for "just building the cars Americans wanted." I'm getting tired of hearing that line; GM and the other companies conceived and built the SUV, then went to great lengths to create a desire, and a market, for it. Some Americans may indeed have wanted such a vehicle at the time, but I'd guess 80% of the market was created by the vehicle makers, or maybe be the outlandish tax breaks that people got for buying these "trucks."
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