Letters: Opening the door to Cuba

In Havana, a man drives a classic American car that serves as a taxi past a poster that reads in Spanish, "Embargo, the longest genocide of history."

Feb. 19, 2014 12 AM PT

Re “Time for a U.S.-Cuba thaw,” Editorial, Feb. 16

It’s way past time for us to join other nations and allow American citizens unfettered travel to neighboring Cuba.

How can we possibly explain why it’s legal to visit and do business in communist China while at the same time we deem spending money in Cuba as trading with the enemy? Traveling to North Korea, Iran, Syria, Somalia and other similarly hostile places is not illegal; rather, they simply appear on the State Department’s list of countries with travel alerts. Our perceived enemy Cuba is not on that list.

It’s time for those of us who abhor such hypocrisy to let our lawmakers know that we want to put an end to this unsuccessful and embarrassing embargo.

Richard Somers

Pacific Palisades

The Times cites a poll showing that 53% of Cuban Americans oppose lifting the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

You also cite the flawed Atlantic Council poll claiming that 6 in 10 Americans favor normalizing relations with Cuba. You fail to point out the criticism that poll has garnered and that it doesn’t single out Cuban Americans’ opinions.

In the same paper, you report that a North Korean ship that recently was caught in Panama transporting Cuban weapons and machinery was finally going back to Havana. The article makes no mention that the United Nations experts who studied the incident concluded that Cuba had violated the U.N. sanctions against North Korea.

I agree that U.S. policy regarding Cuba needs to change. But so does

Havana’s ongoing commitment to terror.

Enrico Mario Santi

Claremont

The writer is a professor of Hispanic studies at the University of Kentucky.

I believe the U.S. embargo of Cuba is the only thing that has kept the Castros in power.

Better U.S. relations with the Soviet Union culminated in that country’s breakup, and more open relations with China and Vietnam led to reforms in their communist governments.

The Castros’ provocations caused us to lose sight of how ending the embargo would have yielded the same result there.

A change in our policy is long overdue.

Thomas E. Locke

North Hollywood

The problem in Cuba lies not in the stars (and stripes) but in the Cubans themselves.

Many countries have not imposed embargoes against Cuba, and despite that, Cuba has become impoverished, both economically and politically.

The problem with Cuba is intrinsic. The Castro regime bought into a bankrupt economic and political system that resulted in the debacle that has become Cuba.

We should lift the embargo so that Cuba finally stops blaming the U.S. for its own plight.

Donna Salem

Los Angeles

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