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We have been very well educated of Castros purges and the rest. The question is how best could we influence the situation. The 41 year policy has not done that, I would suggest that after the fall of the USSR, we had a golden opportunity to change direction.

The rest of your reply is about economics and I posit that the same was true of China when Nixon went there. You have to start somewhere.

Is it your conclusion that trade and open travel with us would not be a foot in the door for capitalims either now or soon after the old man is dead? Or that some cultural or social changes would not result?

Let me explain to you one of the many things the embargo accomplished. In 1987 Castro had 297,000 active members in his armed forces, 70,000 were sent around the world as the Atila hordes bringing destruction and suffering with them. In 1997, Castro was forced to reduce his forces to 55,000; the Soviet Union was not longer providing over 5 billion dollars in subsides every year plus unlimited free war material.

In truth, it is not the embargo the one that failed, but the policy of appeasement by Canada, Mexico, Spain and 150 other countries toward Cuba, which under the pretense that trading with Castro would bring capitalism, freedom and democracy, went to Cuba for the exploitation of cheap slave labor. History repeated itself; you and all those countries are following the same failed policies of Western Europe toward the Soviet Empire, where, as with Cuba, they ended loosing hundreds of billions of dollars. It was not appeasement, but the strong policies of Reagan and Thatcher that brought for freedom to Europe.

Let us put aside the fact that Castro’s Cuba is the longest lasting and most brutal and bloodiest dictatorship in the history of this hemisphere. Lets look at it from the point of view of the U.S.' vital interests. The core of the problem with Cuba is two fold.

First, Fidel Castro is a security menace for the U.S. Cuba is a terrorist regime pledged to destroy us with advance chemical, biological and cyber-warfare capabilities and the will to use them against us. Castro nexus with every kind and shape of international terrorism is well documented, from the Islamic, to the Spanish, ETA, the Colombia FARC, the Peruvian Shining Path, to eh Puerto Rican Macheteros to the most famous of Castro's operatives, Venezuelan Carlos El Chacal.

Castro reaffirmed his alliance with the “axis of evil” in May of 2001 when after visiting the Meca of Islamic terrorism, Iraq, Libya, and Iran, he assured Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameni, that “Iran and Cuba can defeat the U.S. hand in hand….we are today eyewitness to (America) weakness, as their close neighbors.” Later, at the University of Tehran he proclaimed to thunderous applause, “the imperialist king will finally fall ... Iran and Cuba reached the conclusion that together they can tear down the United Sates.” Was this a premonition of the 9/11, or was Castro already informed of the incoming attack.

At the time, Castro counted with two sophisticated spy bases that were an invaluable source of intelligence for the Islamic terrorists, one built by the Russians, the other by the Chinese. These bases are able to intercept every kind of phone and electronic communications of the U.S. and also had the capabilities to interrupt such communications. President Putin visited Cuba a few months before and emphasized the extraordinary importance of the Cuban spy base for the Russian intelligence services.

Isn’t it remarkably, that right after the 9/11 attack, in October 2001, President Putin, without consultation with the Cuban regime, decided all of the sudden to close such an important base, and in spite of the tantrums and opposition of Fidel Castro, after several delays, was dismantled and returned to Russia. According to Castro, what was not returned to Russia was burned in site. President Putin unexpected actions point to the direct relation between Al Qaeda, Castro and the attacks of 9/11; and Putin evidently wanted to leave not doubt that they were not part of Castro/Bin Laden actions.

Although the Russian base was dismantled, Castro still counts with a more up to date Chinese base and is able maintain his cyber-warfare capabilities.

In the realm of the chemical and biological capabilities for the production of weapons of mass destruction, Castro counts with dozens of advance laboratories and about 3,000 of experts trained in the Soviet Unions and East Germany for that purpose. Castro sold to Iran one of his most advanced research centers. Why Iran needed such a laboratory at 90 miles from us? In Afghanistan the Al Qaeda had in a cave a laboratory for the production of anthrax and other biological and chemical weapons. We American should not ignore Castro’s public menaces, he means business and during the Missile Crisis he proved his willingness to use it if it note were that the control was in Soviet hands.

Second point to consider is it a sound business practice to deal with Castro? For 43 years more than 150 countries have been dealing with Castro and in their desperation are now trying to push the American taxpayers in Castro’s economic black hole. Castro has defaulted in all his international debts while encouraging other Third World nations to do likewise.

Cuba is an economic black hole not because the U.S. trade embargo, but thanks to Castro’s adoption of a brutal Stalinist regime that does not allow any kind of freedom, personal or economic, and for 42 years he has maintained “Socialism or Death” without any room for compromises or changes.

In a country investment risk survey made by the magazine “Euromoney”, Cuba was ranked 183rd place among 187 countries, even below Somalia. “The Financial Times” reported on June 30, 1995, “Why then, investors may ask, should they bother with Cuba in a world replete with opportunities and more welcoming governments?” Cuba is a country where there is not the rule of law, where the executive, legislative, judicial and the press, are solely on Castro's hands. Foreign investors are, as every body else in Cuba, at the mercy of the whims of a tyrant whose laws frequently change overnight.

In the liberal mind there is a masochist vein that they need to be nurtured. Castro burned Americans repeatedly and now they are feverishly anxious to be burned again. Remember that when the Europeans were enthusiastically pouring billions of dollars into the Soviet Union oil pipeline, President Reagan opposed any American money going to that project. The Europeans sustained enormous loses in all their dealing with the Soviet, Reagan stand firm by the American interests. Reagan was right and the softhearted American liberals (a.k.a. socialists) who supported the aid to the Soviet Union were wrong.

To assume that the interaction with Americans in Cuba would bring about changes toward more freedom and democracy is the most idiotic assumption that most people commonly incur because they have never lived under a totalitarian Stalinist regime and Castro’s sympathizers controlling the Western media intoxicate them.