<<He [Castro]also oddly conceded what the effect of his praise would be: "Were I to defend
him [Obama] I would do his adversaries an enormous favor.">>
Well, of course, that's the key to the whole thing right there. Castro doesn't really give a shit who wins this election. There's absolutely nothing "odd" about Castro simultaneously praising Obama and realizing that his praise is helping McCain a lot more than Obama.
Obama might be more likely to lift the embargo than McCain, but the embargo isn't exactly a negative as far as Cuba's concerned. It helps clarify who the real enemy is, and it helps unify and solidify support for the regime. In a way, the embargo "keeps 'em honest." They can't sell out the Revolution for trade incentives when there's no trade going on.
In Osama's case, everything that he says has to be read through the lens of reverse psychology. No way could he have believed that his endorsement would actually boost any American. In fact, I think most people understand now that Bush has been far and away the best President that OBL could ever have hoped for. The real repercussions of Bush's stupid adventurism have yet to be felt and already he's brought the nation to the edge of ruin. And the beauty of it is, it can only get worse under McCain and Obama will never get the mandate to turn it all around. He's already back-tracking and he's not even President yet.
I also couldn't resist some comments on the so-called "appeasement" issue. "Appeasement," like war, is just a tactic, a way to approach a perceived problem. It's as foolish to say that "appeasement never works" as it would be to say that "an uppercut never works." All tactics will fail in some circumstances - - appeasement didn't work out too well for Chamberlain, but then going to war didn't work out so well for Hitler.
I think, if one is going to hold up Neville Chamberlain as the supreme example of the folly of appeasement, it would be smart to know a little more about the facts of the case than the cartoonish oversimplifications that Americans, through their dumbed-down educational systems and corrupted MSM, believe to be "the truth."
Appeasement of Hitler by Great Britain and France took place against a background of intensive German rearmament and a belated but on-going attempt by Britain and France to catch up to, and overtake, Germany, particularly in air-power. Basically, appeasement bought time for the Allies - - time to rearm, to catch up. It helps in understanding the situation to remember that, unlike Germany, Britain primarily (and to a lesser extent, France) had to prepare for the defence of a world Empire against Japan, Italy and the U.S.S.R. and only secondarily for a war in Europe. So the options to appeasement of Germany were rather limited. It's problematic at best to claim that appeasement was a total failure.
Of course when one compares the relative strengths of the U.S. and its adversaries today (Iran, Cuba, etc.) it is just ludicrous to equate dialogue with "appeasement." Even if one accepts the most simplistic definition of Munich-era appeasement ("They gave away the store and got nothing in return.") there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to expect any such result from any dialogue that Obama proposes. It's just ludicrous to compare the position of the U.S. vis-a-vis its current "enemies" with the position of Britain and France in the 1930s vis-a-vis Nazi Germany.
What's the real reason why the Right is scared shitless of any kind of dialogue with "rogue states" or "the Axis of Evil?" IMHO, it's to give them complete control of the narrative so that they and their MSM accomplices can continue to hoodwink the people with the same kind of bullshit they've been able to get away with for years ("They hate us for our freedoms." "They want a New Caliphate." etc.)
When you're talking to somebody, you at least have to hear what they say. When you're not talking to them, and they're not talking to you, you get to write all their lines by selectively cherry-picking whatever any one of them (no matter how batshit crazy he may be) has ever said anywhere or any time. But of course, talking over one's differences is vastly superior to war as a first resort - - as Winston Churchill once said, "Jaw-jaw is better than war, war."