UN votes on Cuban Trade Embargo
I think this may be the first time I've agreed with the UN:
The 192-member world body approved a resolution calling for the 46-year-old U.S. economic and commercial embargo against Cuba to be repealed as soon as possible.Well, I sort of agree with the UN, which is a world sponsor of socialism. My reasoning and justification for the lifting of sanctions is far different, I'm sure. And I guess its not the first time I've agreed with them since this is the 16th time the UN has passed this resolution."The blockade had never been enforced with such viciousness as over the last year," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told the assembly, accusing President Bush's administration of adopting "new measures bordering on madness and fanaticism" that have hurt Cuba and interfered in its relations with at least 30 countries.
[...]
Delegates in the General Assembly chamber burst into applause when the vote in favor of the resolution flashed on the screen — 184 to four with one abstention. That was a one-vote improvement over last year.The vote came less than a week after Bush delivered his first major address on Cuban policy in four years, attacking the communist government and challenging the international community to help the island shed Fidel Castro's rule.
The United States has no diplomatic relations with Cuba, lists the country as a state sponsor of terror and has long sought to isolate it through travel restrictions and a trade embargo. This year, it stepped up enforcement of financial sanctions.
The best way to bring freedom to the world is through trade. The economic boom that we are witnessing in China is what will ultimately bring that country political freedom. The same could happen in Cuba, if the United States would lift the trade embargo.
Comments
Seriously...the embargo on Cuba is one of the most antiquated policies that we still have.
It was a bad idea from the beginning.
Posted by: Jace Walden | October 30, 2007 04:51 PM
The embargo, for those of you too young to remember, was in response to that island dictator choosing to be the sole communist representative in this hemisphere. It worked for many years, too.
I sometimes wonder how big the cloud would have been if those 3 days in October 1963 had worked out differently.
The embargo serves no valid pupose today. In fact Cuba makes a decent vacation spot... let's allow the Vegas mob to return and open some hotels!
Fact is that a dictatorial government there would be so easily removed - especially since the USSR is not around to negotiate their fate.
Take a harder look at history to know why it happened. But the argument for maintaining an embargo has long been moot.
Today, only the fact that the UN delegates believe they have any right whatsoever to dictate US foreign policy remains as agood reason to maintain the embargo.
Posted by: Larry Stanley | October 30, 2007 05:02 PM
Once again the UN shows its bias and love for dictators. The simple answer is that once communism is gone, the embargo will go with it.
Posted by: John Douglas | October 30, 2007 05:44 PM
The simple answer is that once communism is gone, the embargo will go with it.
So...when do we put the embargo on China?
I agree that we shouldn't walk in lockstep with the U.N. In fact, I'd like to see the U.N. dissolved and ran out of New York on a rail.
But even a broken clock is right twice a day. The embargo serves no purpose other than prolonging the life span the socialist dictatorship in Cuba.
Posted by: Jace Walden | October 30, 2007 06:19 PM
The embargo serves no purpose other than prolonging the life span the socialist dictatorship in Cuba.
Jace, that is absolutely right.
Posted by: Jason | October 30, 2007 06:22 PM
The embargo isnt going away until some left wing lunatic democrat throws it out of Castro and communism die in Cuba. I support the President keeping it in place. Very little comes from the UN that I support. And this is not one of those few items.
Posted by: John Douglas | October 30, 2007 10:05 PM