Giving in to communist tyrants, private sector edition

Of course, by now everybody knows that early last week, North Korea hacked Sony, released a bunch of emails, movies and private information on actors and such, and then threatened worse if Sony released "The Interview," a Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy centered around a plot to kill Nork dictator Kim Jong-un. The Norks threatened to go full 9-11 on theaters showing the movie, set to open Christmas Day:

“The world will be full of fear,” the message reads. “Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time. (If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)”

The threat was enough to make most of the major movie distributors cancel plans to show the movie:

The bulk of the country’s 10 largest theater chains — a group that includes AMC, Regal, Cinemark, Carmike and Southern Theatres — announced they would delay showing the picture or would drop it altogether. In statements, many of the theater chains suggested that Sony’s lack of confidence in the film prompted their decision.
Regal, for instance, said its decision was “due to the wavering support of the film ‘The Interview’ by Sony Pictures, as well as the ambiguous nature of any real or perceived security threats.”

 In response, at least one theater, that Dallas location of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, announced plans to show "Team America: World Police" instead. Paramount pulled the plug on that idea

Forget those plans by Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and other theaters to run Team America: World Police in place of The Interview. The Austin-based chain says that Paramount has now decided not to offer South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s 2004 satire that focuses on Kim Jong-il, the late father of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Sony apparently doesn't know when, if or how it will or won't release "The Interview," thus completing the private-sector surrender to a despotic communist regime. Think of it as a bookend in a week of letting communist tyrants run roughshod over freedom.

 I guess it's heartening to see that national security incompetence is not limited to actual national policy, since Sony and the movie industry don't make policy. But it's not like they were getting instruction on profiles in courage.  Shortly after surrendering to the despotic communist regime in Cuba*, Emperor Barry and his minions offered pretty much nothing as a response to North Korea's hack attack on Sony Entertainment. Far too busy packing his golf clubs for his 2-1/2 week vacation in Hawaii, following Sony's surrender to the Norks, Emperor Barry's primary response seemed to be that the federal government apparently has no real role to play in preventing or responding to such attacks, which obviously raise major national security implications:

"If we set a precedent in which a dictator in another country can disrupt through cyber, a company's distribution chain or its products, and as a consequence we start censoring ourselves, that's a problem," Obama said.
"And it's a problem not just for the entertainment industry, it's a problem for the news industry," he said. "CNN has done critical stories about North Korea. What happens if in fact there is a breach in CNN's cyberspace? Are we going to suddenly say, are we not going to report on North Korea?
"So the key here is not to suggest that Sony was a bad actor. It's making a broader point that all of us have to adapt to the possibility of cyberattacks, we have to do a lot more to guard against them."

The industry press did not take too kindly to Barry's "What, me do something?" approach to throwing Sony under the bus. You might expect a president, faced with a situation where a foreign dictatorship essentially blackmailed a movie studio into pulling the release of film, attacking the studio's First Amendment rights by threatening terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, to take vigorous action to defend that studio's rights. Well, you'd be thinking of a different president, then. Barry ignored the threats of terrorist attacks and blamed Sony for being cowardly. Variety was not amused:

Just when things couldn’t have looked any worse for the studio, President Obama turned sharply critical of Sony in a news conference Friday, second-guessing its decision to withdraw “The Interview” from theaters.
Why he bothered to pass judgment on Sony at all may have come as some surprise at a time when assembled reporters were likely more interested in hearing more about the investigation into North Korea’s involvement, as well as the U.S. response.
Cynics might suggest that targeting Sony gave Obama something to distract from the precious little he offered on what he knew or planned to do next. Blaming the studio also shifts already mounting criticism that the U.S. lacks any coherent cyber-security strategies despite the growing number of attacks pounding not only the government but many other corporations.
In other words, think of the Obama subtext thusly: “Cut me some slack on not defining what exactly the ‘proportionate’ response to North Korea will be because, hey, it’s not my fault (cue finger-point at Sony).”

Rather than take a laissez-faire attitude toward internet attacks on the U.S. -- even if upon a private company -- the administration would have been better served to get really disproportional and just shut down North Korea -- kill the lights, the internet, everything that requires electrons. Most North Koreans wouldn't notice, but the regime sure would. Short of making them suffer -- really suffer -- the U.S. is not going to have any major deterring influence on the Nork hackers. Frankly, I think this -- if this is indeed us at work -- is something the Norks would be willing to endure if that's the price of their continued hack attacks:

North Korea is having major Internet problems, just days after President Barack Obama promised a proportional response to the devastating hacks against Sony.
The country, which the FBI accused last week of the cyberattack, is suffering from periodic Internet outages, and experts at DYN Research found that recent problems were out of the ordinary, according to a report from North Korea Tech.
"I haven't seen such a steady beat of routing instability and outages in KP before," Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, told North Korea Tech. "Usually there are isolated blips, not continuous connectivity problems. I wouldn't be surprised if they are absorbing some sort of attack presently."

Losing access to their porn websites for a while probably isn't going to deter the Norks too much. I guess I could be wrong -- maybe they really value their porn.

* The Obama administration sacrificed its only leverage for political reforms in Cuba in exchange for absolutely nothing of real value to the U.S., but that's kind of what you might expect when you entrust your negotiations to a speechwriter. (Ben Rhodes, the White House aide who was primarily responsible for the negotiations with Cuba, is listed as Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting. Yes, he really is a speechwriter. He has no national security background. But his brother is president of CBS News, so he has that going for him.)

Giving in to communist tyrants, government edition

Remember when we used to face down tyrants and they were the ones who caved? Yeah, good times, good times. Private sector, government, it apparently no longer matters -- America's "new approach" to tyrannical regimes is to knuckle under. While Emperor Barry has been spending a lot of effort the last few years trying to ensure Iran is free to develop a nuclear weapon, he apparently was not too busy to negotiate "normalized" relations with the communist thug regime in Cuba -- without managing to get even a whiff of a promise of democratic reforms:

President Barack Obama declared the end of America's 'outdated approach' to Cuba Wednesday, announcing the re-establishment of diplomatic relations as well as economic and travel ties with the communist island – a historic shift in U.S. policy that aims to bring an end to a half-century of Cold War enmity.
'Isolation has not worked,' Obama said in remarks from the White House. 'It's time for a new approach.'

In addition to promises to resume diplomatic relations with Cuba, open an embassy in Havana, carry out high-level exchanges and visits between the countries, lift the U.S. trade embargo, ease travel bans to Cuba and increase the amount of money Americans can send to Cuban citizens, among other measures, the U.S. got the release of American Alan Gross and the swap of a U.S. spy held in Cuba for three Cubans jailed for spying in Florida. Oh, yeah -- the Cubans also promised to loosen restrictions on the Internet and to release 53 political prisoners. They did not promise they wouldn't arrest them again next week, or mention how much restrictions would be loosened.

And that's it. Cuba gets a bunch, the U.S. gets fuck all. Gross probably feels differently about that, but maybe he shouldn't have gone to Cuba in the first place, given that nation's propensity to arrest Americans and accuse them of spying. It's kind of like going to Iran: you're asking for trouble. Oh, yeah -- and Secretary of State John Kerry will be reviewing Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terror, which means that will be lifted, too.
.
So what did the U.S. not get? We did not get a promise to release all political prisoners, to stop arresting political prisoners, to allow private sector commercial activity, or to institute democratic reforms. Actually, the U.S. didn't get much of anything, really. And no one seems to know whether the deal with Cuba does anything about extraditing back to the U.S. the 80 or so American fugitives, including a pretty good number of murderers, hijackers and cop-killers, currently enjoying asylum in Cuba.

Emperor Barry, at least according to the Constitution, cannot lift the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba by himself: that is a law passed by Congress. On the other hand, not giving work permits to illegal immigrants also is a law passed by Congress, and the emperor already has decided to ignore that one, too, so it wouldn't be a stretch to believe that Emperor Barry will do whatever the fuck he wants, legal or not, and dare Congress to stop him.

As you might expect, U.S. liberals are overjoyed that this longtime leftist talking point goal has become a reality. They don't mind that we got pretty much nothing in return. Most progressives seem to think Cuba is a socialist paradise, apparently not having spoke to a lot of average Cuban citizens about that.

It is somewhat surprising, then that The Washington Post editorial board, not exactly the most conservative group in the country, wrote a scathing editorial in opposition to Barry's Cuba actions. As The Post notes, the emperor's actions will likely provide enough of an economic lift for the Castro regime to stay in power, while doing absolutely nothing to drive reform or even improve the lives of ordinary Cubans:

On Wednesday, the Castros suddenly obtained a comprehensive bailout — from the Obama administration. President Obama granted the regime everything on its wish list that was within his power to grant; a full lifting of the trade embargo requires congressional action. Full diplomatic relations will be established, Cuba’s place on the list of terrorism sponsors reviewed and restrictions lifted on U.S. investment and most travel to Cuba. That liberalization will provide Havana with a fresh source of desperately needed hard currency and eliminate U.S. leverage for political reforms.

The Post was unimpressed with Emperor Barry's rationale for the move, to say the least:

Mr. Obama argued that his sweeping change of policy was overdue because the strategy of isolating the Communist regime “has had little effect.” In fact, Cuba has been marginalized in the Americas for decades, and the regime has been deprived of financial resources it could have used to spread its malignant influence in the region, as Venezuela has done. That the embargo has not succeeded in destroying communism does not explain why all sanctions should be lifted without any meaningful political concessions by Cuba.
. . .
The administration says its move will transform relations with Latin America, but that is naive. Countries that previously demanded an end to U.S. sanctions on Cuba will not now look to Havana for reforms; instead, they will press the Obama administration not to sanction Venezuela. Mr. Obama says normalizing relations will allow the United States to be more effective in promoting political change in Cuba. That is contrary to U.S. experience with Communist regimes such as Vietnam, where normalization has led to no improvements on human rights in two decades. Moreover, nothing in Mr. Obama’s record of lukewarm and inconstant support for democratic change across the globe can give Ms. Sánchez and her fellow freedom fighters confidence in this promise.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. But accurate, which is more than one can say about Emperor Barry's speech announcing the new policy. As is Barry's wont, the speech was littered with false equivalencies, key omissions and flat-out lies. Joel Pollack at Breitbart points out just a few:

3. No mention of Cuba’s role in repressing democracy abroad. “Cuba has sent hundreds of healthcare workers to Africa to fight Ebola.” Yes, and Cuba has also sent experts in repression to Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Cuban agents also allegedly beat and raped Venezuelan protestors earlier this year. For decades, Cuba assisted guerrilla armies abroad, fomenting bloody revolution in some countries and propping up communist regimes elsewhere. It continues to do so.
4. Suggesting that Cuba does not support terrorism. “At a time when we are focused on threats from al Qaeda to ISIL, a nation that meets our conditions and renounces the use of terrorism should not face this sanction.” Yet Cuba was caught, only last year, smuggling “missile equipment” to North Korea, the dictatorship that targeted America with a cyber-terror attack on the day Obama announced the new Cuba policy. Cuba continues to offer other kinds of support to terrorists.

Pollack is not alone in noting the basic dishonesty in the stated rationale for the policy, something The Post also noted. At The Federalist, Mike Gonzalez, whose grandfathers fought in the long war for Cuban independence from Spain at the end of the 19th century, likewise notes the emperor's thematic and factual dishonesty:

Why did President Obama go for broke on Cuba, announcing the United States would normalize relations with that repressive regime? The answer appears in his statement to the nation. There, the president not only made clear that this change has been on his bucket list for some time, but also that his knowledge of Cuba comes straight out of the international Left’s playbook.
“When I came into office, I promised to re-examine our Cuba policy,” Obama said, proving once again that last month’s midterm shellacking seems to have had an odd effect on our president. Rather than make him humble, rejection at the polls has liberated him to do all the things he wants in his “legacy.”
His rationale for acting was instructive, too. In essence, for 15 minutes Obama reeled off a list of talking points one could hear anywhere from the Left Bank of the River Seine to, say, any dusty classroom in Cuba. The only thing missing was the picture of Che so omnipresent in Paris or Havana. The image his platitudes sought to create was the following: the embargo, not Communism’s internal insanity, has left Cuba a pauperized police state; our relations have been frozen by ideology, not principles or national interests; and the United States used to be Cuba’s colonial power.
Now, the one thing all these views have in common is that they are A, untrue, and B, favorite talking points of the international Left.

Gonzalez proceeds to lay out a number of Barry's statements versus actual facts. By all means, go read the whole thing. As Gonzalez shows, often Barry sins by omission -- a favorite tactic of his always has been to ignore inconvenient facts -- while other times he simply lies. As his speech makes clear -- and as so many previous speeches also have shown -- Barry is not a thinker, he is a lockstep ideologue. He tries to sound like he has weighed all sides and come up with the most rational decision which, oddly enough, is always the left-wing choice. This time is no different.

None of this is to say improving relations with Cuba is not a good idea. But doing so while gaining absolutely nothing in return, and in fact propping up a brutal, repressive police-state regime, is insanity. Or liberalism. Same thing.