OBAMA READY TO APPEASE CUBA'S SOCIALIST TYRANNY

VIA DRUDGE:

"There is a strong likelihood that Obama will announce policy changes prior to the summit," said Daniel Erikson, director of Caribbean programmes at the Inter-American Dialogue and author of The Cuba Wars. "Loosening travel restrictions would be the easy thing to do and defuse tensions at the summit."

Latin America, once considered Washington's "backyard", has become newly assertive and ended the Castro government's pariah status. The presidents of Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Guatemala have recently visited Havana to deepen economic and political ties. Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is expected to tell Obama on a White House visit this week that the region views the US embargo as anachronistic and vindictive. Easing it would help mend Washington's strained relations with the "pink tide" of leftist governments.

Obama's proposed Cuba measures would only partly thaw a policy frozen since John F Kennedy tried to isolate the communist state across the Florida Straits. "It would signal new pragmatism, but you would still have the embargo, which is the centrepiece of US policy," said Erikson.

NO SURPRISE HERE:

• OBAMA HAS MORE IN COMMON WITH THE SOCIALISTS OF SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA - AND IN CUBA - THAN HE DOES WITH THE GOP AND CONSERVATIVES.

• OBAMA'S VALUES AND CASTRO'S ARE MORE SIMILAR THAN OBAMA'S AND THE VALUES OF OUR FOUNDING FATHERS.

• HE WILL SCREW ISRAEL AND GENUFLECT BEFORE CUBA.