After the fall of Iraq, and the revelations of the looting of the people by the regime, the oppression, the false hospital reports, and the complete fraud that pervaded the entire society, one would think liberals overseas would have fielded at least a small clue about what a regime says, versus what is true.

The first linked article is so full of crap, I don't know where to start. I can't link the Washinton Post article. It costs money. The ASCUBI statement, from Cuba, that no librarians have been arrested is an outright lie. Communists lie like a firehose. Refuting this stuff would be a full-time job.

As for the second link...

So now, the SRRT the hard-left wing of the ALA, is going to tell us how it is with Cuba. Poor Fidel, oppressed by evil politicians disguised as librarians.

Take a look at one sample of SSRT's newsletter, where they knock each other out of the way to fall on their knees in front of Cuba's official representatives--apparently, even as I write this there's a party going on in their honor--just before bewailing the horrible loss of civil liberties in the United States. If this doesn't make you sick, what would?

The official library associations of Cuba are appendages of the totalitarian regime, and certainly you are not naive enough to think that this is not true. Why pay any attention at all to what they say? Why are they any different than other Castro puppet apologists?

Why do people want to cut Fidel slack? What's the motivation? Why the hell are you even remotely on their side?

And I'm sorry, but anyone who believes the embargo of Cuba by the U.S. is responsible for its current situation is, too put it mildly, not thinking clearly. Independent librarians and other dissidents are not being jailed because there's a computer shortage.