End the U.S. blockade on Cuba?

[JackRiddler]

Is it time for the United States to end its policy of economic blockade on Cuba?

4 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	End the policy and offer an opening.
	3 (75%)
	Continue the policy.
	0 (0%)
	End the policy and pay reparations for damages.
	1 (25%)
	Intensify the policy - work to topple Castro.
	0 (0%)
	Huh?
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[JackRiddler]

1. My view

My view: I want the Cuban people to have a real choice in their future -- therefore I oppose the 55-year U.S. government policy of economic blockade, terrorism, sabotage, assassination, and destabilization. The U.S. should immediately end its attack and pay reparations.

I hope we all support democracy in Cuba. That means we should stop supporting U.S. attempts to commit acts of war on Cuba.

[onehandle]

2. We play openly with China and The USSR 2.0. Why not Cuba?

No reparations.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. There is no US "blockade" on Cuba.

I believe the word you're looking for is "embargo".

[JackRiddler]

5. It is an aggression and a crime.

Sorry, I prefer the more accurate terminology, not the U.S. government's euphemism for this long-standing criminal policy.

[ieoeja]

8. Embargo is a euphemism?

We do *not* have Cuba surrounded by ships preventing vessels from other countries from trading with Cuba. We are *not* shooting down planes as they approach or leave Cuba.

In other words, we are *not* blockading Cuba.

We have an embargo against Cuba. Which means *we* do not trade with Cuba. The rest of the world can interact with Cuba all they want. This is not a euphemism. This is fact. There is no blockade.

[JackRiddler]

9. Take it up with 188 members of the United Nations...

First of all, WE are not doing anything. The U.S. government is. It should legally be my government, certainly, but it doesn't do what I want and I do not identify with its actions to the point of using a first-person pronoun. I'm sorry that you suffer from such an identification. Odds are, IT is not blockading Cuba for your benefit!

In 2012, for something like the 20th consecutive year, a record 188 members of the United Nations voted in favor of a Cuban resolution to "put an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba." http://www.cubaminrex.cu/en/cuban-ambassador-jamaica-offers-radio-interview-recent-endorsement-un-resolution-against-us-blockade

Embargo has the too-gentle connotation of one country refusing to do business on legitimate grounds. A blockade need not involve a total physical blocking of the ways into and out of the island. In the past, of course - even before the missile crisis, one might add - the U.S. imposed such full physical blockades. The U.S. policy of sanctions, reinforced since 1996, is highly damaging, aggressive and international, and seeks to coerce other countries to go along -- by imposing regulations on subsidiaries incorporated in other countries, and by abusing NAFTA and WTO into instruments of the economic blockade. Therefore the legitimate aggrieved party in this matter, the attacked nation of Cuba, prefers the term of blockade. I respect that.

Here's a discussion of the matter by a U.S. scholar who prefers the "embargo" term, but makes clear the myriad ways in which the policy goes beyond the harmless-sounding "embargo," the damage done to Cuba, and also how regime change is explicitly enshrined as the goal in the letter of the law.

Berta Esperanza Hernández-Truyol, Embargo or Blockade? The Legal and Moral Dimensions of the U.S. Economic Sanctions on Cuba, 4 Intercultural Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 53 (2009).

http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1219&context=facultypub

[JackRiddler]

11. Yes it is. Your question was answered.

In post 9.

[Xolodno]

4. Economics alone would bring down the Castro regime.

The embargo actually helps the Castro regime stay in power.

[JackRiddler]

6. Or expose the 55 years of U.S. government lies...

You go ahead and believe that the Cuban majority are hankering to hand their country back to a Miami elite. In any case, you're at least favoring the end of an insane policy.

[Xolodno]

7. Oh I don't think they want the old boss back...

...but would like to be able to:

1. Trade for more goods.
2. Be free to express their disdain for current government policies.
3. Elect a leader whose last name isn't "Castro"

etc.

Oh and exposing lies is a two way street. Neither side has the moral advantage.

But I would like the end of the embargo for my own selfish reasons.....

Cuban cigars are overpriced and over rated. Free market would fix that problem.

Oh and I love Havana Club Rum...I do not call anything a Mojito with out it.

[Blue_Tires]

10. The embargo should have ended the day we opened free trade with China...

It was hilarious to see some of the hardline old-school cold warriors in congress argue in favor of one while arguing against the other...

[dawg]

12. We blockade Cuba. Because they are Communist.

Meanwhile, we grant China "Most Favored Nation" trading status.

Our blockade is 100% about Florida politics and makes about as much sense as running our vehicles off of corn.