just an “American pretext to get into the Cuba-Spain war.” No matter that’s how Cuba won. On the other hand, the United States has been less than an ideal next-door neighbor. “Just at the moment I’m so angry with that infernal little Cuban Republic that I would like to wipe its people off the face of the earth,” said Teddy Roosevelt in 1906. American armed forces occupied Cuba from 1899 to 1902, and from 1906 to 1909. There was further military intervention in 1912 and threats of plenty more, plus an invasion by proxy at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. And a U.S. trade embargo, in force since that year, certainly looks to the Cubans like a “wipe its people off the face of the earth” gesture. The Cubans estimated that as of 1996, this embargo had cost them between $38 billion and $40 billion. That happens to be much less than they’d received from the Soviets for doing the things that got them embargoed. But no quibbles. We’re talking politics here, not sense. Then in 1996 came the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, or Helms-Burton Act, as it’s called, after its respective sponsors in the U.S. Senate and House. This passed by whopping majorities because Cuba had just shot down two private planes carrying anti- Castro exiles who had a habit of dropping leaflets on Havana. Probably the leaflets contained dangerous information about the price of mattresses in Miami. Helms-Burton tightened the embargo by imposing sanctions not only on those who trade with Cuba but on those who trade with those who trade with Cuba and those who date them and their friends and pets. Or something like that. It’s harsh. And the Cubans were steamed. All over Havana, walls had been painted with six-foot cartoons depicting Senator Jesse Helms as Hitler and Uncle Sam as Hitler, and Jesse Helms as Hitler again. The Cubans didn’t seem to know what Rep. Dan Burton looked like. Come to think of it, I don’t, either. Of course the embargo is stupid. It gives Castro an excuse for everything that’s wrong with his rat-bag society. And free enterprise is supposed to be the antidote for socialism. We shouldn’t forbid American companies from doing business in Cuba, we should force them to do so. Bring them ashore with Marines if necessary. Although I guess we’ve tried that. And the Cubans are stupid for rising to the bait. There’s another little island next to a gigantic, powerful country that threatens to invade and enforced an embargo for decades. And Taiwan has done okay.
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