Political Irony

I believe that we should end the embargo against Cuba, not because I like the Castro brothers and their government, but because the embargo is counter-productive. In fact, the US embargo is ironically the main reason Fidel and Raul have been able to remain in power, long past the expiration date of communism in the rest of the world. They use it like Republicans have used the fear of Muslim terrorism to whip up the peasants.

As the Boston Globe points out, there are no Soviet missiles in Cuba, there are no longer Cuban troops fighting in Angola, and the cold war is now stone cold. America kissed and made up with Viet-nam — our other major communist domino — but we don’t seem to be able to make up with Cuba. Can’t we learn from our mistakes?

I hope the Obama administration goes ahead with easing travel restrictions to Cuba, but even that just takes us back to the way things were before Dubya (the sabre-rattler-in-chief) ramped up the rhetoric against our tiny neighbor. Bush’s added restrictions did absolutely no good, and probably lengthened the life of the Castros’ regime.

If we are really interested in seeing freedom and democracy in Cuba, we should end the embargo as soon as possible.