Tom,

Your efforts to paint the "left" as pro-Castro is pretty darn simple minded rotgut. I think you would find that people on both the left and the right abhor Cuba's censorship practices. I certainly find what happened to Mr. Valdés to be pretty pathetic as do you.

I think the main difference between the left and the right with respect to Cuba is more about what to do about the problem there. For my money, we should have opened up trade and relations with the island nation twenty years ago. Had we done so, I suspect Castro would no longer be in power and Cuba would one of the most thriving democracies and capitalist economies in all of Central America.

All isolation has done has been to solidify Castro's hold on power for all these years. Its given him the perfect "scapegoat" to blame his nation's troubles on and its also allowed him to control the flow of information and ideas into the island. Unfortunately American foreign policy towards Cuba has pandered to Cuba's refugees living stateside. Ironically, this foreign policy has had exactly the opposite effect of what it intended and what these refugees hoped would happen.

Castro, of course, is an old man. He can't live forever and when he passes there will be an important opportunity for change. If we are smart and engage in wise diplomacy, we could very well see Cuba become free without bloodshed or acrimony.

Mr. Bush's present efforts to tighten the screws on Cuba will accomplish little more than buy votes in Miami. Instead of hastening the day freedom arrives, it will prolong the dictatorship. Its essentially the same poor public policy American presidents (R's and D's) have employed for forty years.

Donald