Posted on: Monday, October 27, 2003
EDITORIAL
U.S. Cuba embargo makes ever less sense
The Cold War is over, and so should be the U.S. embargo on travel to Cuba. Congress is certainly leaning in that direction. The U.S. Senate, including Hawai'i Sens. Daniel Akaka and Dan Inouye, just voted 59-36 to end the ban on travel to the island. The House already has approved such a measure.
Nonetheless, President Bush has promised to crack down on illegal travel to Cuba. Other than maintaining the support of Florida's anti-Castro Cubans, we can't see any point to this outmoded stance.
And neither can conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, with whom we rarely, if ever, agree: "The commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcasses of dead policies," says Buchanan, quoting Lord Salisbury.
Buchanan believes the isolation of Cuba was necessary when the island was a "cat's paw of Moscow," hosting Soviet nuclear missiles, submarines and an intelligence base.
Today, Buchanan points out, the Soviet Union is dead, and Cuban's Russian bases have gone. And we agree there's no point in continuing this charade.
If we're keeping up the embargo because we oppose communism, then why do we allow travel to China and provide the country with hundreds of billions of dollars in trade surpluses?
If it's because we oppose Cuba's human rights violations, then why are we doing business with China despite its restrictions on free speech, including religious and political expression, its treatment of Korean refugees and political prisoners, and its labor and weapons proliferation abuses?
As we've said before, the embargo hurts Cuba's poor more than its regime and gives Castro a great excuse to demonize the U.S. government.
If Cubans remain in poverty, then you can bet hundreds of thousands will flock to the United States when Castro dies or steps down. Open the doors to Cuba, and its people will prosper instead of becoming refugees. Plus, they'll see that the United States is not the sole cause of their problems. What on earth do we have to lose?
