American policy toward Cuba is `oddly benign'

Posted on Thursday, 02.03.11

American policy toward Cuba is `oddly benign'

As a retired Foreign Service Officer with a special interest in Cuba, I
write to comment on Carlos Saladrigas' Jan. 21 Other Views article Good
for the Cuban people. He says that U.S. sanctions against the Castro
regime ``are more comprehensive than any other U.S. sanctions program in
the world, even against America's most virulent enemies'' and that
``U.S. policy toward Cuba undoubtedly ranks as the most prolonged
foreign-policy failure in this nation's history.''

He is mistaken on both counts. Compare the administration's progressive
softening of the so-called embargo on Cuba (which today imports more
from the United States than any other country except its ally Venezuela)
and its hands-off attitude toward other countries' dealings with the
regime with Washington's efforts to rally the international community to
impose meaningful sanctions on Iran.

As to Cuba's being our ``most prolonged foreign-policy failure,''
Saladrigas needs to visit his public library. The Israel-Palestine
problem, to name just one unresolved issue, antedates the Castros by
more than a decade, and the threat posed by North Korea has been around
even longer. By Saladrigas' formula, everyone who has sought to
influence the Castros to relinquish power has ``failed,'' including the
European Union, whose policy of promoting democracy on the island
through ``engagement'' has gone nowhere.

As long as Cuba harbors criminals such as cop-killers wanted in New
Jersey or those whom it decorated for shooting down civilian aircraft
over international waters with the loss of American lives, or imprisons
and then exiles against their will its citizens whose only ``crime'' was
seeking freedom of the press, or continues to hold without charges an
American visitor (Alan Gross) for giving a laptop and a cellphone to a
Jewish friend, or for other outrages, current American policy toward
Cuba seems oddly benign.

EVERETT ELLIS BRIGGS, former U.S. ambassador to Panama, Honduras and
Portugal, Norfolk, Conn.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/03/2048013/american-policy-toward-cuba-is.html