Regarding Cuba, the only reason it's not recognized is the Cuban-Americans in Florida.

* There are thousands and even millions of Cuban-Americans that don't live in Florida and that's not the only reason why it is not 'recognized'. If Castro's beef was with Batista, that's where he should have taken his revolution, not with innocent people.

It's absolutely ludicrous that we recognize Vietnam and don't recognize Cuba. And what happened in Cuba was ridiculous -

*Yes, it was.

Castro threw out the gamblers and other hoodlums, closed the whorehouses and casinos, and, like Batista, needed markets for sugar and other products.

* He did a lot more than that. Now, as in Batista's day... it still goes on.

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.

* Yes, he was.

And the USSR found an agent for their foreign policies in South America and Africa by buying the sugar we wouldn't.

* It wasn't exactly 'buying'. Castro received plenty of goods for his military.

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.

* It has worked to Castro's benefit and he has used that line more on the island than anyone would care to remember. Whether you would like to believe it or not, Cubans in the states and in Cuba don't buy that/most really do know better.

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

* Maybe when free elections are held.

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

* Being that America is a free country and not perfect (although pretty close, IMHO) she's seen some of that already. I semi-agree with you there though.

Marcia