St. Petersburg Times: Fresh Thinking on Cuba Overdue

[illinoisprogressive]

We're not likely to hear any of the leading presidential candidates call for normalizing relations with the Castro government, but at least Barack Obama is not afraid to call America's policy toward Cuba what it is: harmful to U.S. interests and cruel to Cuban families.

Obama, the Illinois senator polling second in the Democratic presidential primary contest, said Tuesday he would remove restrictions on travel and gifts between Cuban-Americans and their families on the island. In 2004, running for re-election, President Bush imposed new restrictions on travel. Cuban-Americans could visit once every third year, instead of the annual visit allowed previously, and Washington would tighten the flow of cash and gifts from Cuban-Americans to the island.

Obama is right. The restrictions are "both a humanitarian and a strategic" mistake. Separating U.S. citizens from their families is indefensible. They are people, not pawns, and their lives matter more than playing games with Fidel Castro's dictatorship. The policy also is counterproductive. Building a wall between families here and back home denies Cubans firsthand knowledge of what the American experience is about.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/08/23/Opinion/Fresh_thinking_on_Cub.shtml