Honestly, I agree with you for the most part.
I think that one day soon, the fact that China has been funnelling its huge trade deficit into its military is going to come back to haunt us, and that was all in the name of corporate profits thinly veiled by the policy of engagement.
As for Cuba, my only problem with the embargo is that it hasn't engendered enough political or social pressure to force Castro out of office.
Obviously, there's no easy answer to the situation or it would have been done already (the Bay of Pigs would have fit the bill had it been successful).
I'm all for a free Cuba, or a free China for that matter...we'll see what the future holds.
You're an intelligent individual who is obviously passionate about this issue...I appreciate the chance to have been educated by you. I will often argue a viewpoint that I don't really endorse so that I can learn more about both sides.
VIVA CUBA!!!!
The idea that the embargo has failed because of the fact that Fidel is still in office is inly valid if there had been a time-frame laid out for it to acheive that goal, there wasn't.
I am going to share a letter from an individual whom I am honored to call "friend", published by the Wall Street Journal.
May 17, 2002
The Never-Ending Cuban Embargo
Regarding your editorials "Bush's Cuba Pickle1" (May 9) and "Our Man in Havana2" (May 16): While the U.S. embargo has not forced Fidel Castro's capitulation, with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 it has limited his capacity to subvert his Latin American neighbors, while forcing him to liberalize economic policies in order to remain in power. He has been forced to divert funds from his subversive military machine, limiting his capacity for terrorism and subversion, including his assistance to the Colombian FARC narco-terrorist rebels.
He has also been forced to legalize the dollar, privatize taxicabs, allow the cultivation of small family plots, and permit the opening of small family restaurants. Nevertheless, the embargo is porous and dollar stores (diplotiendas) contain everything a foreign tourist with hard cash may want; and if he gets sick, he can get excellent health care that is not available for ordinary Cuban citizens.
Castro has demonstrated that he would maintain his fiefdom with or without the embargo. But this would not be so for less charismatic and less intelligent leaders, including his brother Raul, Ricardo Alarcon, speaker of the Cuban National Assembly, or Carlos Lage, president of the Council of Ministers. Nevertheless, removing the embargo will only help these hard-line Communist underlings stay in power once Castro is gone.
Castro has defaulted on all foreign loans. He owes European bankers $12 billion; Spain, $9 billion; and more than $10 billion to Argentina, England, Canada, Venezuela, Japan and Russia, etc. Meanwhile, by 1997, according to Forbes magazine, Castro had stashed more than $1.4 billion in offshore accounts.
The embargo needs to stay, until free elections have been held and a constitutional republic re-established in Cuba.
Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Medical Sentinel Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
Macon, Ga.