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The Smartest Woman in the World' Flunks Her Foreign Policy Exam
FILE -This May 6, 2014 file photo shows Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking in National Harbor, Md. Clinton says she knows she has a decision to make about running to be the first female president, and believes "we need to break down that highest, hardest glass ceiling in American politics." But for now, the former first lady tells People Magazine, she wants to enjoy the moment as she considers, "what I think is right for me." The interview comes a few days ahead of the release of Clinton's new book on her days as President Barack Obama's secretary of state. She tells People Magazine that she remains "concerned about what I see happening in the country and the world." (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File) AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File

The Smartest Woman in the World' Flunks Her Foreign Policy Exam

If Castro “secretly favors the embargo,” then why did every one of his secret agents campaign secretly and obsessively against the embargo while working as secret agents?

Worse still, the flunkie in this article's title recently served as secretary of state! Back in the 1990’s when she served as first lady (co-president, some say) Hillary Clinton was widely known as “The Smartest Woman in the World.” Her husband supposedly coined the term, but Rush Limbaugh ran with it, snarking and laughing. Soon it was household.

In her new book, Clinton reveals that she prodded President Barack Obama to “lift or ease” what’s left of the so-called Cuba embargo.

“The embargo is Castro’s best friend,” Clinton explained to a delighted audience at the anti-embargo Council on Foreign Relations last week while promoting her book "Hard Choices."

FILE -This May 6, 2014 file photo shows Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking in National Harbor, Md. Clinton says she knows she has a decision to make about running to be the first female president, and believes "we need to break down that highest, hardest glass ceiling in American politics." But for now, the former first lady tells People Magazine, she wants to enjoy the moment as she considers, "what I think is right for me." The interview comes a few days ahead of the release of Clinton's new book on her days as President Barack Obama's secretary of state. She tells People Magazine that she remains "concerned about what I see happening in the country and the world." (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File) AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File  AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File

But doesn’t "The Smartest Woman in the World” and former secretary of state know that what’s left of the sanctions against Castro’s Stalinist regime are codified into law and can only be lifted by Congress, obviously after a vote? In fact, this codification took place with passage of the Helms-Burton Act in 1996, when she was first lady (co-president).

The current president, having already delighted Castro by loopholing the Cuba sanctions almost to death, can’t go much further. Has Clinton forgotten? Or is this constitutional “expert” advocating even more government by executive fiat?

And what about the $2 billion (worth $7 billion today) stolen at Soviet gunpoint by Castro’s gunmen in 1960 from U.S. businessmen and stockholders, after the torture and murder of a few Americans who resisted? That very Helms-Burton Act also calls for a settling of that account before allowing any more loopholing of the embargo.

Perhaps instead of attending Yale Law School and marrying her way to the top, Clinton should have “stayed home and baked cookies” (to succumb to her own famous insult against America’s stay at home moms) then sold them at a lemonade stand. If so, she’d know a little about business.

To wit: When somebody stiffs you big-time (as Castro did to the U.S. like nobody else in history), before extending them more credit, you demand they settle up the amount in arrears. Comprende, “Smartest Woman in the World?”

Alicia Aleman helps her son Javier Aleman, 21, take his medicine in the recovery room following an operation at the William Soler Children's Hospital in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Oct. 7, 2013. U.S. sanctions in Cuba have caused losses amounting to more than 1.1 trillion dollars in just over five decades said Abelardo Moreno, vice minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, and insisted that the health sector is one of the hardest hit. It is a challenge everyday to cure sick children and adolescents, according to Dr. Eugenio Selman, who said that due to the U.S. embargo, they are unable to purchase quality medicines, instruments and other supplies that are only produced in the U. S. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) Alicia Aleman helps her son Javier Aleman, 21, take his medicine in the recovery room following an operation at the William Soler Children's Hospital in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Oct. 7, 2013. U.S. sanctions in Cuba have caused losses amounting to more than 1.1 trillion dollars in just over five decades said Abelardo Moreno, vice minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, and insisted that the health sector is one of the hardest hit. It is a challenge everyday to cure sick children and adolescents, according to Dr. Eugenio Selman, who said that due to the U.S. embargo, they are unable to purchase quality medicines, instruments and other supplies that are only produced in the U. S. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

More basic still, Webster's Dictionary defines embargo as "a government order imposing a trade barrier." As a verb it's defined as "to prevent commerce."

But according to figures from the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. (thanks to her husband’s loopholes in 1999) has transacted almost $4 billion in trade with Cuba over the past 14 years. Up until five years ago, the U.S. served as Stalinist Cuba’s biggest food supplier and fifth biggest import partner.

For over a decade the so-called U.S. embargo, so disparaged by Clinton, has mostly stipulated that Castro’s Stalinist regime pay cash up-front through a third party bank for all U.S. agricultural products; no Export-Import Bank (U.S. taxpayer) financing of such sales. Enacted by the George W. Bush Administration in 2001, (attempting to patch some of her husband’s loopholes) this cash-up-front policy has been monumentally beneficial to U.S. taxpayers, making them among the few in the world not stiffed by the Castro regime, which qualifies as the world’s biggest dead-beat per capita. Standard & Poors refuses to even rate Cuba.

Again, shouldn’t a former secretary of state and “The Smartest Woman in the World” be familiar with this?

Now back to her parroting of the KGB-mentored meme: “The embargo is Castro’s best friend; it provides Castro with a foil for his failures.”

This meme ranks as the favorite talking point of Castro’s agents, on the payroll and off. Sadly, it’s widely believed by the superficially-informed on Cuban matters.

This still grab from a video taken Jan. 8 shows former Cuban president Fidel Castro attending the inauguration of the nonprofit cultural centre Kcho Romerillo, Laboratory for Art in Havana. (AFP/Getty Images) This still grab from a video taken Jan. 8 shows former Cuban president Fidel Castro attending the inauguration of the nonprofit cultural centre Kcho Romerillo, Laboratory for Art in Havana. (AFP/Getty Images)

First off, if Castro “secretly favors the embargo,” then why did every one of his secret agents campaign covertly and obsessively against the embargo while working as secret agents? Castro managed the deepest and most damaging penetration of the U.S. Department of Defense in recent history. The spy’s name is Ana Montes, known as "Castro’s Queen Jewel" in the intelligence community. In 2002 she was convicted of the same crimes as Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and today she serves a 25-year sentence in Federal prison, only a plea bargain spared her from sizzling in the electric chair like the Rosenbergs.

Prior to her visit from the FBI and handcuffing, Montes worked tirelessly to influence U.S. foreign policy against the embargo. The same holds for more recently arrested, convicted and incarcerated Cuban spies Carlos and Elsa Alvarez and Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers.

It’s one thing for some talking heads with their typically overworked and harried research staff to remain ignorant of these vital matters. But shouldn’t a former secretary of state be familiar with matters so vital to U.S. security?

Also, former Secretary Clinton, if you claim to speak on behalf of the hurt-by-the-embargo Cuban people, why not look at what the Cuban people themselves think of U.S. sanctions against the regime that oppresses them? Or is it better to take them for idiots, as you apparently do the American people?

Cuban president Fidel Castro salutes as he reviews a Cuban honor guard during the welcoming ceremony of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa at the Jose Marti airport on April 2, 1989. The Soviet Leader is in Cuba for an official four- day visit and for the first time in Latin America.Credit: AFP/Getty Images Cuban president Fidel Castro salutes as he reviews a Cuban honor guard during the welcoming ceremony of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa at the Jose Marti airport on April 2, 1989. The Soviet Leader is in Cuba for an official four- day visit and for the first time in Latin America.Credit: AFP/Getty Images

In fact, in a way you have a point. The Cuban people do want a change in U.S. sanctions - the Cuban people want them tightened! The Cuban people are outraged by a steady stream of American money raining down on their oppressors. Cash flow from the U.S. to Cuba today is estimated at $4 billion a year.

Almost half a million people visited Cuba from the U.S. last year. Yet while a proud Soviet province Cuba received $3 to 5 billion annually from the Soviets. Almost every year since Obama took office more cash has been flowing from the U.S. to Cuba than used to flow there from the Soviets at the height of their Cuba-sponsorship. And more people from the U.S. have been visiting Cuba than visited during year featured in "The Godfather II."

The result?

The Cuban people are suffering a 10 year record of repression at the hands of the fat and happy KGB-trained security forces. The current wave of repression slightly tops the 2013 record wave of repression that coincided with the record tourism revenues that year.

In brief: record tourism equals record repression. Every shred of observable evidence proves that travel to Cuba and business with its Stalinist mafia enriches and entrenches these KGB-trained and heavily-armed owners of Cuba’s tourism industry. Thus they remain the most highly motivated guardians of Cuba’s Stalinist and terror-sponsoring status-quo.

U.S. singer Beyonce and her husband, rapper Jay-Z, hold hands as they tour Old Havana, Cuba, Thursday, April 4, 2013. R&B's power couple is in Havana on their fifth wedding anniversary. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) U.S. singer Beyonce and her husband, rapper Jay-Z, hold hands as they tour Old Havana, Cuba, Thursday, April 4, 2013. R&B's power couple is in Havana on their fifth wedding anniversary. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Please note: there is no “doing business with Cuba.” There is only doing business with the KGB-trained Stalinist fat-cats who occupy Cuba. Castro’s Stalinist fiefdom allows no genuine private sector, as exists in China, however despicable that regime. The Cuban “constitution” outlaws all private property.

So kindly stifle the reflexive and asinine: “But we do business with China! Why not Cuba?!” The comparison isn’t even an apples to oranges. It’s grapes to pumpkins.

Furthermore, Castro’s Stalinist regime mandates 15 years in their KGB-designed dungeons for any Cuban saying a nice thing about the U.S. embargo.

“Since it has run out of doors to knock on, [the Castro regime] is now focused on the United States,” writes Cuban dissident and three-time Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience Rene Gomez Manzanoin in a recent samizdat smuggled from his Communist–occupied homeland. “Lifting the embargo would be a mistake without Cuba first respecting its people's fundamental human rights…. If the U.S. allows financing towards Cuba, it will be U.S. taxpayers who would be sustaining the Castro regime.”

So here’s a foreign “Hispanic” who, instead of scheming to avail himself of booty courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, is actually warning the U.S. taxpayer against the predatory machinations against his wallet by his own millionaire politicians, their cronies at the Council on Foreign Relations all in cahoots with their friend in Cuba.

And yet “The Smartest Woman in the World” claims the embargo is “Castro’s best friend!”

Humberto Fontova holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University and is the author of five books including his latest, "The Longest Romance: The Mainstream Media and Fidel Castro".

TheBlaze contributor channel supports an open discourse on a range of views. The opinions expressed in this channel are solely those of each individual author.

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