I haven't seen anything that would make me believe those folks like Castro.

MA and Tony seem to react to what they perceive as extreme RW opinion. Sometimes I do the same against the left. Tony is fairly even handed and MA is usually equally mild mannered if you stay away from anything to do with womens rights.

Davin seems to be driven only by his viseral distaste for Bush and his defensive stance on the war. He took a strong position against it and he is not going to budge an inch. Shields are at max and phasers are on auto-fire. God only knows what his opinion is on Cuba and Castro. The only thing certain is, whatever his opinion was to begin with, it probably hasn't changed.

Unmentioned is Don who is unable to voice an opinion on Cuber until he has read the latest DNC talking points on the subject. The Dem preoccupation with Iraq quagmire is playing hob with the conversational skills of their sycophants

As for my take on free trade with Cuber, years of embargo have done nothing to help that situation and they haven't posed any potential military threat since the USSR fell. Do you suppose that free trade would have made that nation a jewel of socialism. The people still would not be free and presumably they would still be too poor to afford the full fruits of free trade.

It seems to me that the best way to maintain a socialist state is to keep the people primarily concerned with where their next meal is coming from. The embargo has helped to facilitate that condition.