Your post revolves around how bad Cuba is under Castro is.
And I am in complete agreement. It is still very bad!
However the subject at hand is trade embargo.
Again, I ask the same question...
Has the 50 year old trade embargo been a success?
Is Cuba behaving better than 50 years ago? Yon answered that in your post. such as Castro’s influence in Venezuela.
Richard Nixon visited communist China and that was the beginning of China re-entering the world trade.
May be we should try something different with Cuba after 50 years. You know what they say about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Insanity!
The Cuban mercenary soldier was an icon of the Communist Revolutionary struggle.
Our sanctions have reduced Cuba to begging for oil from Venezuela to keep the Cuban economy afloat and Castro is now far more concerned with keeping the lights on in Havana that conquering the capitalist world and bringing the Yankee Imperialists to their knees by beating them into submission.
The fact that we have not heard the term Yankee Imperialists being used much in the last 20 years or so should be a clue that the sanctions have worked and that that is a good thing.
Fundamentally, one must understand that the Castro regime exploits and oppresses the Cuban people.
Until the Castro regime is gone and the Cuban people have a chance for true economic freedom any aid to Cuba will simply be stolen by the Castro Regime and used to further it's oppression and exploitation of the Cuban people.
With the drop in oil prices, the Cuban Venezuelan connection cannot prevent the much delayed collapse of the Castro's regime, so now Obama is throwing the Castro's a life line to keep them in power and continue their oppression of the Cuban people.