Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen [R-FL18], a Cuban-born American, is one of the many south Florida Cubans and Cuban-Americans who want to continue the war with the Castro government.
Thankfully it's a mostly a war of inconvenience for both sides.
But I wonder: Is this continuation of a conflict with a neighbor really necessary?
Republican Richard Nixon managed to open diplomatic doors with China.
China remains Communist.
China supports North Korea, like Iran a threat to world safety.
China still is one of the world's greatest human rights violators.
BUT, Americans may travel to China and do business with China (despite many Chinese materials being inferior or unsafe).
Republican Ronald Reagan famously told Mikhail Gorbachev to "Tear down this wall!" when the U.S. president visited Berlin on June 12, 1987.
The Berlin wall came down, Germany reunited, and eventually a pseudo-democracy replaced Communism in the fractured former Soviet Union.
Democracy as known in the U.S. has, at best, a tenuous hold on the land.
Russia is close to Iran, a fanatical regime that wants to destroy Israel and the U.S.
Human rights are questionable in the former USSR states.
BUT, American may travel to the states of the former Soviet Union and do business with them.
The two biggest Communist threats to the U.S. are now the country's economic "friends." Indeed, China in large measure "owns" the U.S.
Cuba, on the other hand, is a small country hardly capable of attacking the U.S. or even the Conch Republic (Key West, 90 miles from Cuba). The Soviets tried to put missiles on the island, but were prevented by the then Democratic president. Basically, Cuba is a non-threat to the U.S. and its territories (in this case, Puerto Rico).
Cuba's biggest threat is exporting its band of Communism, which it has done successfully to Latin America, long dominated by Rome.
However, despite being only a political thorn in the side of the State Department, the Cubans and Cuban-Americans of South Florida demand that the U.S. continue to treat our neighbor as a pariah.
My repeated reference to Cubans and Cuban-Americans is to distinguish between those Cubans who came to the U.S. and who, although taking full advantage of U.S. benefits, can't seem to integrate into American society; who can't adopt the language or even pretend to learn it (doing business in Miami is doing business in Cuban Spanish, English is a "foreign language" in Dade County). These Cubans-in-Florida are "temporary residents" who promise to "go back to Cuba" as soon as the U.S. overthrows the Castro government.
Cuban-Americans on the other hand, are like any other hyphenated Americans; they adopted the country and adapted to its language and ways. I personally know both.
The U.S. has, on several occasions, helped Cubans establish "democracy" on the island.
On each occasion, the Cubans have quickly returned to a dictatorship. U.S.-style democracy does not grow on that island.
So the U.S. government shuns Cuba; it largely pretends it isn't there.
But it IS there.
Not a U.S.-style democracy?
SO WHAT!
Neither is China nor Russia nor Afghanistan. Pakistan, Saudia, Egypt, Morocco, or, for that matter, England, France, and Israel.
Yet the U.S. does business with them all; it gives money to them all in one form or another..
But not Cuba, our neighbor.
In the pre-Castro days Americans used to visit Cuba regularly; Havana was known to be "wide open" to vices prohibited - but desired - in Florida and most other states in the U.S.
Sugar was Cuba's main export; in fact, it was just about it's only export.
Unless the U.S. is afraid - unlike Canada and most other nations of the world - that citizens visiting the island will become firebrands for its version of Communism - as some are dong with the "legal in America" Moslem jihadists - why does the U.S. maintain the water wall with a neighbor?
Why can't Americans freely visit Cuba? Why can't we again import sugar from Cuba. Florida's sugar cane farmers survived nicely when Cuban sugar was part of the U.S. economy; surely they will continue to survive.
Maybe the Cubans-in-America will go back and, if they want democracy so much, agitate for it on the island. If the Women In White can march down Havana's streets to protest, why not Cubans who want political change?
It's time to lift all embargos on the island.
If the U.S. can have diplomatic agreements with states such as China, Albania, Saudia, Vietnam, Russia, Iraq and others where democracy is unknown, then why not Cuba - a small, non-threatening island 90 miles off Florida's coast.
הריני מקבל עלי מצוה עשה של ואהבת לרעך כמוך, והריני אוהב כל אחד מבני ישראל כנפשי ומאודי
