Just Foreign Policy News
July 8, 2010
Tom Hayden: Oliver Stone’s Latin America
Did Obama promise Chavez that the U.S. would not try to destabilize Venezuela?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/oliver-stones-latin-ameri_b_635848.html
South of the Border, scheduled screenings:
Oliver Stone’s documentary shows you the South America the New York Times doesn’t want you to see.
http://southoftheborderdoc.com/in-theatres/
Hamas Lawmaker: Gaza Flotilla Did More Than 10,000 Rockets
Who now doubts that strategic nonviolent action can transform the politics of the Israel/Palestine conflict? Not Hamas parliamentarian Aziz Dweik, the Wall Street Journal reports: "When we use violence, we help Israel win international support," said Aziz Dweik, a leading Hamas lawmaker in the West Bank. "The Gaza flotilla has done more for Gaza than 10,000 rockets." What might happen if Muslim-majority nations demanded that the US stop subsidizing Israeli settlements in the West Bank that even the Israeli government says are illegal? What might happen if they backed the boycott of corporations explicitly linked to the Israeli occupation?
http://www.truth-out.org/hamas-lawmaker-gaza-flotilla-did-more-than-10000-rockets61136
Beverly Bell: "A Second Slave Rebellion in Haiti"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-bell/a-second-slave-rebellion_b_639363.html
Support the Work of Just Foreign Policy
Your financial support allows us to educate Americans about U.S. foreign policy and to create opportunities for Americans to advocate for U.S. policies that are more just.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate.html
Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Writing in the Washington Post, Dana Milbank says the White House should have flown the white flag of surrender when President Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Liberal activists protested what many of them see as a betrayal. "We want to appeal to Obama to stand up for once, to get a little vertebrate in his invertebrate back and speak to Netanyahu in no uncertain terms," one said. A Pew Research Center poll last month found that the percentage of Muslims expressing confidence in Obama fell from 41 percent to 31 percent in Egypt and from 33 percent to 23 percent in Turkey, Milbank notes.
2) Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu set up another illegal Jewish settlement, this time on the White House lawn, writes Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation. So complete was Obama’s identification with Israel that he actually referred to Israel as "us" before correcting himself.
3) A former president of the International Criminal Court will head the committee investigating the deaths of nine Turkish citizens aboard the Gaza flotilla on behalf of the UN Human Rights Council, Haaretz reports. Canadian Philippe Kirsch well known in the community of international law, has been involved in international investigations of war crimes and maritime terrorism in the past. The U.S. is opposed to an international probe into the events.
4) An Indian policeman beat a Los Angeles Times reporter in Kashmir after he showed his press credentials, the reporter, Mark Magnier, notes in a report for the LAT. ‘Now you see what Kashmiris suffer all the time,’ a bystander said.
5) CNN fired senior Middle East editor Octavia Nasr after she wrote on Twitter that she "respected" a late Lebanese Shia Muslim leader with links to Hezbollah, Al Jazeera reports. Nasr had apologized for the remark, describing it as a "error of judgment" to praise Ayatollah Fadlallah without any context, although she said she had been referring to his "pioneering" stance on women’s rights. Fadlallah had issued religious edicts banning "honor killings" and enshrining the right of women to defend themselves from domestic abuse.
6) The government is preparing to issue new rules that will make it substantially easier for veterans who have been found to have post-traumatic stress disorder to receive disability benefits, a change that could affect hundreds of thousands of veterans, the New York Times reports. More than two million service members have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001, and by some estimates 20 percent or more of them will develop P.T.S.D. More than 150,000 cases of P.T.S.D. have been diagnosed by the veterans health system among veterans of the two wars, said Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense. But Sullivan said records showed that the veterans department had approved P.T.S.D. disability claims for only 78,000 veterans. That suggests, he said, that many veterans with the disorder are having their compensation claims rejected by claims processors.
Afghanistan
7) A number of Afghan construction companies working on contracts for US and NATO military bases in Afghanistan have accused US middlemen of reneging on payments for supplies and services, Carlotta Gall reports in the New York Times. The failure of US companies to pay for contracted work has left hundreds of Afghan workers unpaid in southern Afghanistan, "American contractors are contributing to fueling the insurgency," said a NATO official. "The subcontractors out here are very unlikely to be able to hire an attorney in the U.S., and thus the chances of seeing any payment is really zero," the official said.
Israel/Iran
8) Israel’s Army Radio reported that the US has sent Israel a secret document committing to nuclear cooperation between the two countries, writes Barak Ravid in Haaretz. According to the report, the U.S. has pledged to sell Israel nuclear technology, despite the fact that Israel is not a signatory of the NPT. Other countries have refused to cooperate with Israel on nuclear matters because it has not signed the NPT.
9) Catherine Ashton, the EU’s high representative for foreign policy, said negotiation was the only possible solution to the problem of Iran’s nuclear program, and expressed confidence new talks with Iran could begin in the fall, the New York Times reports.
10) Iran and the UAE are embroiled in a furious row after the UAE ambassador to Washington publicly expressed support for a US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, the Guardian reports. Iran hit back with a warning from a leading MP of a "teeth-breaking" response to these "harsh and crude" remarks and a possible ban on Iranian travel to the Gulf state, which does billions of dollars of trade annually with Iran. The UAE foreign ministry called the reported comments "inaccurate," but they were recorded by the Atlantic Magazine. The ministry insisted the UAE wanted a peaceful solution to the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program. One analyst said the UAE needed to sound hawkish because it is open to accusations of sanctions-busting as Dubai, the closest to Iran of the UAE’s seven emirates, is a key trans-shipment point for the Iranian nuclear program.
Cuba
11) The Cuban government agreed to release 52 political prisoners, the New York Times reports. Some analysts said the release might help improve relations between Cuba and the US. A former US diplomat in Havana who favors an end to the US embargo said the prisoner release should prompt the Obama administration to "do something to encourage the trend."
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Netanyahu hears no discouraging words from Obama
Dana Milbank, Washington Post, Wednesday, July 7, 2010; A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/06/AR2010070604005.html
A blue-and-white Israeli flag hung from Blair House. Across Pennsylvania Avenue, the Stars and Stripes was in its usual place atop the White House. But to capture the real significance of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit with President Obama, White House officials might have instead flown the white flag of surrender.
Four months ago, the Obama administration made a politically perilous decision to condemn Israel over a controversial new settlement. The Israel lobby reared up, Netanyahu denounced the administration’s actions, Republican leaders sided with Netanyahu, and Democrats ran for cover.
So on Tuesday, Obama, routed and humiliated by his Israeli counterpart, invited Netanyahu back to the White House for what might be called the Oil of Olay Summit: It was all about saving face.
The president, beaming in the Oval Office with a dour Netanyahu at his side, gushed about the "extraordinary friendship between our two countries." He performed the Full Monty of pro-Israel pandering: "The bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable" . . . "I commended Prime Minister Netanyahu" . . . "Our two countries are working cooperatively" . . . "unwavering in our commitment" . . . "our relationship has broadened" . . . "continuing to improve" . . . "We are committed to that special bond, and we are going to do what’s required to back that up."
An Israeli reporter attempted to summon the effusive American back to reality: "Mr. President, in the past year, you distanced yourself from Israel and gave a cold shoulder to the prime minister. Do you think this policy was a mistake? . . . Do you trust Prime Minister Netanyahu?"
Obama assumed an amused grin. "Well, let me first of all say that the premise of your question was wrong, and I entirely disagree with it," he said. He said he had always engaged in "a constant reaffirmation of the special relationship" with Israel, and "I’ve trusted Prime Minister Netanyahu since I met him before I was elected president."
So that business about Hillary Clinton calling Israel’s settlement action "insulting" and the State Department accusing Israel of a "deeply negative signal" that "undermined trust and confidence in the peace process and in America’s interests"? You must have imagined it.
Obama came to office with an admirable hope of reviving Middle East peace efforts by appealing to the Arab world and positioning himself as more of an honest broker. But he has now learned the painful lesson that domestic politics won’t allow such a stand.
On Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House on Tuesday, liberal activists protested what many of them see as a betrayal. "We want to appeal to Obama to stand up for once, to get a little vertebrate in his invertebrate back and speak to Netanyahu in no uncertain terms," protester Ray McGovern shouted into a bullhorn. Obama, he added, is "a president who by all indications is what we call in the Bronx a ‘wuss’: a person who will not stand up for what he knows is right."
Even before Obama’s surrender to Netanyahu, Muslims were losing faith that he would be the transformational figure who spoke to them from Cairo last year. A Pew Research Center poll last month found that the percentage of Muslims expressing confidence in Obama fell from 41 percent to 31 percent in Egypt and from 33 percent to 23 percent in Turkey.
[…]
2) Obama: ‘I Have Met Israel and It Is "Us"’
Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation, July 7, 2010
http://www.thenation.com/blog/37136/obama-i-have-met-israel-and-it-us
Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu set up another illegal Jewish settlement, this time on the White House lawn. And, it appears, President Obama has agreed to serve as its armed guard.
So complete was Obama’s identification with Israel yesterday that he actually referred to Israel as "us" before correcting himself: "We strongly believe that, given its size, its history, the region that it’s in, and the threats that are leveled against us – against it, that Israel has unique security requirements."
By "its size," did Obama mean Israel’s overwhelming military superiority? By "its history," did he mean Israel’s usurpation of Arab lands and forty-three-year-long occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem? By "the region that it’s in," did he mean the Arab and Muslim world, the region with which Obama wants to rebuild US relations? No: Obama was echoing Israeli talking points: that Israel is a tiny, besieged nation that made democracy flourish and the deserts bloom post-Holocaust, surrounded by scimitar-waving crazies.
[…] But really, it was more about saving the fall elections, or at least that’s how it seemed. Not that American Jewish voters are going to flock to the Republicans, since they vote reliably Democratic, and more and more American Jews seem to care less and less about Israel. But, of course, crazed evangelical, right-wing Christian Republicans do care about Israel, if only because they hope it will be destroyed during the battle of Armageddon. And they vote.
As the Times pointed out: "With Democrats facing a tough time in the mid-term elections in November, Mr. Obama has reasons for softening his public stance on Israel. Republican candidates have been courting Jewish voters, who ordinarily back Democrats, by trying to portray the president as anti-Israel."
The Times account doesn’t mention that it’s not Jews but Christians who are being courted by the GOP, as usual.
Meanwhile, Obama has all but abandoned the promising start that he got by naming George Mitchell as Middle East mediator on his first day in office, by salting the White House national security staff with Jewish peaceniks, by naming General Jones as national security adviser and by confronting Israel over its settlements policy. He’s backed all the way down now. It’s not too late to recover, but where is the sign that Obama intends to do anything but facilitate talks between the Netanyahu’s extremist government and the weak Palestinians?
[…]
3) Despite U.S. misgivings, UN Gaza flotilla probe to begin
Former International Criminal Court president Philippe Kirsch to head committee investigating deaths of nine Turkish citizens in clash with Israeli naval commandos.
Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz, 07.07.10
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/despite-u-s-misgivings-un-gaza-flotilla-probe-to-begin-1.300461
New York – A former president of the International Criminal Court, Canadian Philippe Kirsch, will head the committee investigating the deaths of nine Turkish citizens aboard the Gaza-bound flotilla, on behalf of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Kirsch, well known in the community of international law, has been involved in international investigations of war crimes and maritime terrorism in the past.
The committee will begin its work today after the its full membership is announced. The decision to set up the committee was made by the Human Rights Council in a lightning-quick process, 48 hours after news broke that the Israel Navy intercepted the Gaza-bound flotilla and on-board clashes led to the deaths.
[…] The U.S. is opposed to an international probe into the events, and had welcomed the formation of an independent committee of inquiry in Israel under former justice Jacob Turkel. France and Britain share Washington’s view on the issue.
[…]
4) A beating to go with the tea
‘Now you see what Kashmiris suffer all the time,’ a bystander tells a journalist after police break his camera and beat him up as they shut down tea stalls during a curfew.
Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kashmir-tea-20100708,0,4889993.story
Srinagar, India – I was at a tea stall near my hotel here in Srinagar, along a strip of houseboats and slowly decaying hotels known as the Boulevard, when the police patrol pulled up Wednesday morning and ordered the tea-wallahs to close down for curfew.
As the workers scrambled to comply, the lead officer, identified on his lapel as Mussafar Shah, and a subordinate started striking them on their backs and legs with four-foot wooden sticks known as lathis.
I took out my cellphone – in reality, the camera wasn’t switched on, but I hoped its presence would stem the beatings – identified myself as press and showed my Indian media card. The officer grabbed my phone, smashed it on the stone floor and cursed the media. Then he hit me twice with the lathi, threatened to arrest me and grabbed my notebook, which I managed to wrench back.
Later, after a call to a local government office, my backpack was returned by one of Shah’s subordinates – who forced the same vendor to reopen and serve him tea.
Shah was one of their best officers, the policeman said, a "gold medalist." But he was under extreme pressure from his bosses because of the protests that had been racking Srinagar, the capital of India’s Jammu and Kashmir state.
A senior officer later said he would look into providing compensation for the phone. Local reports said a dozen journalists were roughed up by security forces Tuesday.
"Now you see what Kashmiris suffer all the time," said a bystander who had watched the incident.
5) CNN sacking over Fadlallah tweet
Al Jazeera, July 8, 2010
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/07/2010784132514853.html
A senior Middle East editor at the US cable news channel CNN has been fired after she wrote on Twitter that she "respected" a late Lebanese Shia Muslim leader with links to Hezbollah. Octavia Nasr lost her job after the 140-character tweet sparked fierce online debate and the channel’s management decided that her credibility had been compromised.
Nasr posted the tweet as news of the death of Lebanon’s Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah broke over the weekend. She called him "one of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot". Nasr has apologised for the remark, describing it as a "error of judgement" to praise Fadlallah without any context, although she said she had been referring to his "pioneering" stance on women’s rights.
Fadlallah was branded a terrorist by some Western governments, but issued religious edicts banning so-called honour killings of women and enshrining the right of women to defend themselves from domestic abuse. In a blog posting after the incident, Nasr wrote that Fadlallah was "revered across borders yet designated a terrorist. Not the kind of life to be commenting about in a brief tweet. It’s something I deeply regret".
[…] Fadlallah was a divisive figure who was often described as the "spiritual guide" of Hezbollah, the Shia Lebanese political party. However, he never held a role within the organisation. He did support some of its actions, endorsing suicide attacks against Israel and was placed on a terrorist blacklist by the US.
But his stance on women’s rights and criticism of suicide attacks that targeted civilians led to him being condemned by conservative Islamic scholars who did not agree with his more moderate views.
6) V.A. Is Easing Rules to Cover Stress Disorder
James Dao, New York Times, July 7, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/us/08vets.html
The government is preparing to issue new rules that will make it substantially easier for veterans who have been found to have post-traumatic stress disorder to receive disability benefits, a change that could affect hundreds of thousands of veterans from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam.
The regulations from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which will take effect as early as Monday and cost as much as $5 billion over several years according to Congressional analysts, will essentially eliminate a requirement that veterans document specific events like bomb blasts, firefights or mortar attacks that might have caused P.T.S.D., an illness characterized by emotional numbness, irritability and flashbacks.
For decades, veterans have complained that finding such records was extremely time consuming and sometimes impossible. And in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, veterans groups assert that the current rules discriminate against tens of thousands of service members – many of them women – who did not serve in combat roles but nevertheless suffered traumatic experiences.
Under the new rule, which applies to veterans of all wars, the department will grant compensation to those with P.T.S.D. if they can simply show that they served in a war zone and in a job consistent with the events that they say caused their conditions. They would not have to prove, for instance, that they came under fire, served in a front-line unit or saw a friend killed.
The new rule would also allow compensation for service members who had good reason to fear traumatic events, known as stressors, even if they did not actually experience them.
[…] More than two million service members have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001, and by some estimates 20 percent or more of them will develop P.T.S.D.
More than 150,000 cases of P.T.S.D. have been diagnosed by the veterans health system among veterans of the two wars, while thousands more have received diagnoses from private doctors, said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, an advocacy group.
But Mr. Sullivan said records showed that the veterans department had approved P.T.S.D. disability claims for only 78,000 veterans. That suggests, he said, that many veterans with the disorder are having their compensation claims rejected by claims processors. "Those statistics show a very serious problem in how V.A. handles P.T.S.D. claims," Mr. Sullivan said.
[…]
Afghanistan
7) Afghan Companies Say U.S. Did Not Pay Them
Carlotta Gall, New York Times, July 7, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/world/asia/08contract.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – A number of Afghan construction companies working on contracts for American and NATO military bases in Afghanistan have accused American middlemen of reneging on payments for supplies and services, and in one case of leaving the country owing Afghan companies hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars.
The failure of American companies to pay for contracted work has left hundreds of Afghan workers unpaid in southern Afghanistan, and dozens of factories and small businesses so deep in debt that Afghan and foreign officials fear the fallout will undermine the United States-led counterinsurgency effort to win the support of the Afghan people.
While there have been many accusations of corruption on the part of Afghan officials over recent years, there has been less heard about misconduct of the foreign companies working in Afghanistan, not least because Afghans have no organized system of recourse.
Yet the few cases of misconduct by foreign companies that have come to light may be just the "tip of the iceberg," said a military official with the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. It concerns not only American companies, he added.
"Without being too dramatic, American contractors are contributing to fueling the insurgency," said the official, who could speak only on the condition of anonymity in keeping with the policy of his organization.
"Families, relatives, friends, village and tribal elders will all know that ISAF does not pay for the work," the official added. "So one can understand why they may say, ‘We should get these Western soldiers out of here,’ and thus support the insurgency."
In one case the official was familiar with, three Afghan businessmen said they had completed work for an American firm, Bennett-Fouch Associates LLC, of Michigan, but had not been paid. All of them and the official said they knew of other companies in the same position after doing work for the company.
[…] "The subcontractors out here are very unlikely to be able to hire an attorney in the U.S., and thus the chances of seeing any payment is really zero," the ISAF military official said.
[…] United States forces are responsible for only those contracts made directly with the prime contractor and have no means of enforcing the rights of subcontractors, said Colonel Lawhorn, the ISAF spokesman.
[…] The Afghans, who were pro-American and ready to risk threats from the Taliban to do business with American firms, said they were disappointed when the United States Embassy and United States military told them they could not help. "People are thinking the Americans are failing in everything," Mr. Layeq said.
Israel/Iran
8) Report: Secret document affirms U.S.-Israel nuclear partnership
According to Army Radio, the U.S. has reportedly pledged to sell Israel materials used to produce electricity, as well as nuclear technology and other supplies.
Barak Ravid, Haaretz, 07.07.10
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-secret-document-affirms-u-s-israel-nuclear-partnership-1.300554
Israel’s Army Radio reported on Wednesday that the United States has sent Israel a secret document committing to nuclear cooperation between the two countries.
According to Army Radio, the U.S. has reportedly pledged to sell Israel materials used to produce electricity, as well as nuclear technology and other supplies, despite the fact that Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Other countries have refused to cooperate with Israel on nuclear matters because it has not signed the NPT, and there has been increasing international pressure for Israel to be more transparent about its nuclear arsenal.
Army Radio’s diplomatic correspondent said the reported offer could put Israel on a par with India, another NPT holdout which is openly nuclear-armed but in 2008 secured a U.S.-led deal granting it civilian nuclear imports.
[…]
9) E.U. Foreign Chief Hopes for Iran Talks
Steven Erlanger and Stephen Castle, New York Times, July 7, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/world/europe/08ashton.html
Strasbourg, France – After an exchange of letters with Iran, Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s new high representative for foreign policy, said Wednesday that negotiation was the only possible solution to the problem of Iran’s nuclear program, and she expressed confidence that new talks with Iran could begin in the fall.
[…] "I imagine we would be looking to the autumn" for talks, she said. "My ambition is that we try to move to real negotiations on this as soon as we possibly can. Nothing would dissuade me from the fact that talks should happen."
[…] The European Union should agree this month on new sanctions that it will impose on Iran itself to add to the international sanctions approved by the United Nations. But she emphasized the importance of continuing to talk with Iran. "The purpose of all this is to say, ‘We’re serious, we need to talk.’ "
[…]
10) UAE ambassador backs strike on Iran’s nuclear sites
– Tehran warns of ‘teeth-breaking’ response
– Gulf state says comments were taken out of context
Ian Black, Guardian, Wednesday 7 July 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/07/uae-envoy-iran-nuclear-sites
Iran and the United Arab Emirates are embroiled in a furious new row after the latter’s ambassador to Washington publicly expressed support for a US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Yousef al-Otaiba commented bluntly that the benefits would outweigh the short-term costs of military action. "We cannot live with a nuclear Iran," the envoy said at a conference in Aspen, Colorado. "I am willing to absorb what takes place at the expense of the security of the UAE."
Tehran hit back swiftly with a warning from a leading MP of a "teeth-breaking" response to these "harsh and crude" remarks and a possible ban on Iranian travel to the Gulf state, which does billions of dollars of trade annually with Iran.
The UAE foreign ministry called the reported comments "inaccurate and taken out of context", but they were recorded by the Atlantic Magazine, which organised the conference. The ministry insisted that the UAE wanted a peaceful solution to the crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme.
The spat follows Iran’s decision to scale back economic relations with the UAE after Abu Dhabi implemented the latest UN sanctions punishing Tehran for ignoring demands over that programme.
[…] Analysts and diplomats are aware such views are often expressed in private by officials in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. "Otaiba’s remarks may or may not be a gaffe but they certainly reflect official thinking in Abu Dhabi," said Christopher Davidson, a Gulf expert at Durham University. "They want to see more American boots on the ground, and they don’t want to live in the shadow of a nuclear Iran."
Davidson said that the UAE also needed to sound hawkish because it is open to accusations of sanctions-busting as Dubai, the closest to Iran of the UAE’s seven emirates, is a key trans-shipment point for the Iranian nuclear programme.
Iran and the UAE have close economic ties. Thousands of Iranian companies and businessmen operate in the country and bilateral trade is estimated at $10bn (£6.6bn) a year, mostly made up of Iranian imports. Masoud Daneshmand, head of the Iran-UAE Chamber of Commerce, complained on Tuesday that the Emiratis were going beyond what was required by the UN sanctions regime.
[…]
Cuba
11) Cuban Government Vows to Release 52 Prisoners
Marc Lacey, New York Times, July 7, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/world/americas/08cuba.html
Mexico City – The Cuban government on Wednesday agreed to release 52 political prisoners in the coming months, a dramatic move that may ease international criticism as well as save the life of a prominent dissident who has been on a hunger strike for four months to push for the liberation of inmates.
The announcement, which would reduce the number of prisoners of conscience on the island by about a third, came after a meeting that included President Raúl Castro of Cuba; Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the archbishop of Havana; and the Spanish foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos.
The prisoners to be released, five initially, and then, 47 others, were all detained during a major crackdown on dissent in 2003, when the government of President Fidel Castro rounded up 75 activists and journalists who were accused of acting as "mercenaries" on behalf of the United States.
[…] Although the United States did not play a role in the negotiations over the release, some analysts said the accord might help improve relations between Cuba and the United States.
Wayne S. Smith, a former American diplomat in Havana who favors an end to the American embargo of Cuba, said the prisoner release should prompt the Obama administration to "do something to encourage the trend."
[…]
–
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming US foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans.