An Enduring Madness

More ominous, said Cuba’s Foreign Minister, is the fact over the past year at least 30 countries have been sanctioned by Washington. Among the examples he cited were the freezing of the assets of the Netherlands Caribbean Bank and the barring of US citizens and companies from doing business with the bank because of its Cuban ties and the fining of the British company PSL Energy Services $164,000 for exporting oil industry equipment to the island. He also listed several companies that were barred from exporting products to Cuba after being taken over by US-based multinationals or because the products included as little as 10 percent American components.

Long-shot Democratic Presidential candidate, Rep. Denis Kucinich of Ohio said from the campaign trail late last week, "The United States' Cuba policy is a failure. The unilateral embargo must be lifted. The persistently hostile and aggressive rhetoric must cease. We must lift not only the trade embargo. We must also lift the travel ban. We must cooperate with Cuba on issues of national security."

Part of the Bush policies that Mr. Kucinich was talking about includes the following:

• Strictly enforcing (via the Department of Homeland Security) an existing US law forbidding Americans from traveling to Cuba for pleasure.
• Cracking down on illegal money transfers.
• Imposing controls of shipments to the island.
• Aggressive campaign to inform Cubans of safer routes to reach the United States.
• Increasing the number of Cuban immigrants in the US.
• More US radio, television, satellite and internet broadcasts to break the "information embargo" Mr. Castro had imposed on his people.

While some supporters of the embargo argue that it denies Fidel Castro’s government much-needed foreign currency and that it was necessary in the era of the Cold War, I reject this rigid, reactionary thinking by saying that the Cold War ended in 1991 and even at its height the embargo did not work for a myriad of reasons.

And today any cold-sober analysis of the effects of the embargo would reveal that it has failed abysmally and remains one of the most illogical pieces of American foreign policy ever concieved and enacted and is a hold-over relic of the Cold War past. Indeed, the embargo’s long-term effects has been to punish the people of Cuba, deny Cubans access to American food products and medical supplies, and created incredible hardships for ordinary poor Cubans.

 By prohibiting free trade between American and Cuban businesses successive US Administrations have effectively locked themselves out of a potentially lucrative market right  on its doorstep or backyard. Cuba still remains a poor Third World nation of 11 million struggling people - but a large untapped market for goods and services - that poses no threat to the great, big United States. So why continue this senseless embargo?

Finally, the United States has become the very thing that it despised and hated: by persisting in maintaining this inhumane embargo, restricting Americans’ right to travel and do business with a country that never attacked or harmed it, America now resembles the former Soviet Union that in its heyday was criticized by the United States for doing the very same things that it is doing today.

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