Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Cuba and the United States
No, the invisible wall is not going to come tumbling down although that is the impression one gets from the scream coming out of anti-Cuba groups after President Obama lifted travel and spending restrictions. It was time.
Politically, expressing support for normal relations with Cuba is still risky. The anti-Cuba forces in Florida no longer have the clout they once enjoyed but they have friends, mostly Republicans, in high places who rant about the "Communist regime" in our backyard. Perhaps they yearn for the good old days of the Dictator Fulgencio Batista! Get over it.
Fidel Castro is still alive but no longer at the helm. His brother, Raul Castro became president of Cuba in 2008. There are many allegations about human rights abuses during Castro's rule. No doubt some of them are true. But the American government has had cozy relationship with dictators who were much worse. The history of our support of juntas in Latin American countries is shameful. And let's not forget that at one time we were in bed with the late Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran when torture and murder of dissidents were routinely carried out in Iraq and Iran.
President Obama did the right thing. Let's hope that the rabble-rousers would accept the fact that their irrational, unjustified campaign against Cuba has no support in the rest of the free world.
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President Obama did the right thing. Let's hope that the rabble-rousers would accept the fact that their irrational, unjustified campaign against Cuba has no support in the rest of the free world.
