That comment wasn't on embargos per se. The point I wasn't making well is that when we do those things people are, hopefully, harmed AND you can't blame those folks for hating the folks who imposed the embargo, US. The posters seem to be really, sincerely puzzled as to why various people around the world dislike the US.

I think the South African embargo did hasten the end of apartheid, don't know if it was worth it to the average South African. I also think it was a way for people in the US to posture without it costing them much, if anything. I just don't know. I agree we probably don't want to be selling plutonium, enriched uranium, super-computers and that sort of thing. I do not believe in embargos which adversely affect innocent civilians WITHOUT degrading the capacity of the government in question to continue the disputed activity.

Regarding Cuba, the only reason it's not recognized is the Cuban-Americans in Florida. It's absolutely ludicrous that we recognize Vietnam and don't recognize Cuba. And what happened in Cuba was ridiculous - Castro threw out the gamblers and other hoodlums, closed the whorehouses and casinos, and, like Batista, needed markets for sugar and other products. Our government told him to open the casinos or piss up a rope, we wouldn't buy his stuff (embargo). Castro found the USSR - he really wasn't all that interested in becoming allied with the communists until then. And the USSR found an agent for their foreign policies in South America and Africa by buying the sugar we wouldn't. One of the ways we helped cement his revolutionary government with his own people was the "us against them" situation we set up with the embargo.

I don't think the "Cuban-Americans" are very "American" and I think Cuba should be recognized sooner rather than later.

By the way, do you know the story behind the shooting down of the two religious Cessnas who were dropping leaflets over Havana? They'd been doing that for months, Castro was complaining to everyone he could find. A couple of weeks before they were shot down there were several American Generals visiting Castro, regarding what I don't know what. At that meeting Castro asked that the flights be stopped, warned he would shoot them down.

No changes. They flew over Havana dropping leaflets, and Castro's air force waited until they were not over populated territory and shot 'em down.

Now the politicians knew all this, and STILL screamed their lungs out about what an evil, bad guy Castro was, and is.

I wonder what we would do if a couple of Cuban Cessnas flew over Miami dropping anti-American literature. Could any President survive not shooting them down immediately? Doubt it.

Arf