End the stupid embargo. Key word, stupid. I can visit communist China but not communist Cuba? Well, my dad is a Canadian citizen so I could visit Cuba on a Canadian passport if I wanted to.

We have waited this long for the embargo to work and it has done what now? Jack and sh*t. No results, no reason to keep going.

I think the embargo has been crucial to propping up Castro since he used it as an excuse for the crappy quality of life. End the sucker and take away the excuse that they have been sitting on for so long.

Given the Cuban economy's need for a kick in the ass, maybe an end to the embargo could be negotiated if Raul Castro re-opened the brothels and casinos.

That would keep the Outfit happy, not to mention a few congressmen.

What is working and showing good results need to be kept in place. Establishing normal trade relationship with Cuba will only empower the current tyranny more and will delay even more the time when the people will come to the final decision of becoming bullet bags in their fight for freedom, as it happened in Romania and other ex communist countries. Once the spark is set on an decades long accumulation of explosive and volatile environment, there is no stopping it. While Cuba was protected by the Soviet Union, Cuba was a dangerous revolution exporter in the destabilized and vulnerable nations of the world (remember Angola and Grenada) and a destabilizing factor through communist propaganda (look at Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and other countries). Once Cuba is liberated, the whole communist move in South America will die or retreat in the jungles to form terrorist groups. Cuba WILL be free, and in great measure, thanks to the American embargo.

This is another of those Wilsonian holdover bad things we do. Before Woodrow Wilson, we recognized the de facto government, that is the government that had control of the country. This was the realistic diplomacy that we had under cool-thinking officials. Then we had Woodrow Wilson and the moralistic approach and we never escaped that. George W. Bush seems to be channeling Woody. We should have relations with every country in the world whether we love it or not. That goes for left, right and in the middle governments or dictators. Another reason we keep up this ridiculous embargo is because of the JFK embarrassment over the Bay of Pigs fiasco that he perpetrated. He had to try to get even, hence the embargo. We would have dropped this dumb idea long ago except we are being "true" to the "sacred memory" of Kennedy.  Laughable.

Wait until Castro is dead. Then with his successor we can talk about US-Cuba relations.

Continue it, of course. America shouldn't back down and let anyone feel that we've caved for them.

I think the Embargo has been ridiculous for years.We trade with other countries who practice much worse things than Cuba does.I have friends who have been there,and stayed with someones family NOT at a tourist motel or hotel.They said that apart from rather poor food quality,folks there live well and are extremely well educated.They also have a great nightlife.

I am not being a punk but asking a real question- what the hell does Cuba have that we could possibly want?

Ya know rather than answering the quesiton, let's do this. Let's (along wtih Great Britain) start a war with Cuba unilaterally. So not only can we topple Castro's regime and liberate their people, we can take their Cuban cigars along for our own economic reasons. That sounds perfect for US foreign policy. ... YEAH RIGHT!

The embargo was a stupid idea at the time and its has only gotten monumentally mor idiotic with age. It had a point and it failed, do why keep it? Castro is an old man and he'll be dead soon. What post Castro Cuba looks like should be very much a concern of ours, but I doubt anyone will give a damn what we say if we don't normalize relations before then.

it doesn't matter b/c once Castro dies the USA will be down there plastering McDonald's and Cingular's on every Cuban block.

Get rid of the embargo

Having been to Cuba the only thing the American embargo has done is hurt the Cuban people...not the dictator. It's why they try and get into the States instead of building their own country. All other countries trade with Cuba and holiday there which is helping their economy. If you get the people to glimpse freedom, the act of overthrowing dicators looks after itself.

When President Kennedy (a democrat if I recall) imposed the embargo on Cuba in February, 1962, we had not yet discovered the Soviet missiles aimed at the US, but Castro's brutal regime was in its full gory fury. Thousands of Cubans were jailed and executed for speaking out against Castro and Socialism, or for attempting to flee the country for the US. The Bay of Pigs invasion was a futile attempt to overthrow Castro, which failed miserably and made Castro much more powerful and vindictive. Try not to forget the history and list those things the Cuban government has done to indicate that it is less of an enemy to the US than it was in October, 1962. It is still a brutal dictatorship, oppressive of the rights of its own citizens, hostile to the US and unlikely to change any time soon. So your only remaining argument is that the embargo hurts individual Cubans and I would contend that the oppressive dictatorship hurts the Cuban people. Canada and most European countries have either ended similar embargoes with Cuba or never had one in the first place. There are plenty of imported goods flowing into the country, it is Castro who keeps his people impoverished. And when did it ever make sense for the US to follow the lead of Canada and western European countries?

I say we pull all the troops out of Iraq and invade Cuba. No, no but I think we have been way to easy on Castro, why end the embargo now.

I think it's time to remove the trade sanctions. Let's face it, sanctions and embargoes have done nothing to remove leaders from power. Castro is still there after all these years. Sadaam was still there 12 years after the 1991 sanctions. Embargoes instead hurt the innocent people who had nothing to do with dictators they're trying to get rid of. I'd saying lift the embargo, which would improve the relationship and prosperity of both countries.

My family comes from Cuba, so I have a very personal opinion on this matter. They fled the island because of increased political persecution of non-communists after 1961. Since then, we've become fully integrated into American society; indeed I consider myself an American, I don't identify with Cuba at all, probably because I was born here and my parents came at a very young age. It makes me appreciate the freedom I have in living in this country, unlike in Cuba. In short, Castro isn't the benevolent leader that leftists like to portray him as. They say that health care and education have improved drastically under his leadership. Yes both of these are available to most people, but the quality of the services rendered is usually poor. I will give Castro credit where it is deserved, he saw entrenched poverty and sought to remedy it, but he did little to make people truly self-sufficient. Doctors in Cuba don't have modern technology to rely, so the quality of the service is very low; epidemics occur there yearly and malnutrition remains rampant here being that Castro doesn't permit food imports into his country. As for education, it can be said that he has spread it throughout the country as well, but most of it is based on Marxist ideology with its overly zealous political economy. Castro's would have been far more effective if he had sided with the non-aligned movement like Nasser in Egypt did or like Suharto in Indonesia. Castro believed that the US was too entrenched in Cuba's political and business affairs, so he became a communist in order to strike a blow against American imperialism. The reason why these Marxists governments ended up floundering is that instead of them playing the great powers against each other, they operated in a vaccum independent of the international political order. This only produced stagnation and isolation, conditions that brought about human rights violation, general depravation, and no political freedoms. Castro accuses government protestors of subverting the revolution. He doesn't treat other political prisoners any better, many times they are given 20 to 30 year prison terms in solitary confinement, their only crime being that they spoke out against an oppressive regime. The point is that he could have been far more moderate and less reactionary; he would have accomplished so much more had he taken this path. Despite all of this, I believe that we should remove the embargo with Cuba. This is an outmoded policy that arguably never really served a purpose. Most other nations trade with Cuba. Embargos only work when they are multi-lateral in nature. In fact, American products usually make it into the Cuba by way of 3rd countries, so nothing is accomplished by this. And at any rate, isolating Castro only entrenches his regime even more. It encourages anti-Americanism which isn't very good. The spread of goods and ideas is the motor that makes human society go. If you go to Cuba, you will find that it is like a time warp; you are back in 1959 with classic Chevrolets still riding the roads. Fidel Castro lives the good life; the people who suffer are the middle classes who can't make the most of their human talents. The command and control economy has kept the place stagnant for 40 years. This isn't a revolution of the proletariat, rather it is a dictatorship that thrives on isolationism and oppression. The Berlin Wall fell 14 years ago, along with it international communism. I hope that we get political leadership with the guts to make some changes here that will help the Cuban people while weakening the Castro regime. The embargo remains because our leaders don't have enough courage to stand up to the elite opinion makers here in Miami that refuse to acknowledge that global shifts in power demand a different policy. These types would rather be wrong than admit to advocating a failed policy. It would be smart for Bush and the Republicans to begin a policy of rapproachment with Cuba, for the old generation that is virulently anti-Castro is beginning to fade from the scene and the younger generation is not interested in propagating a failed policy that they have no stake in.

We should not support communism anywhere in the world. I mean, where's the Truman Doctorine when you need it? Fidel Castro is a cigar-munching punk who seems to take pleasure in the oppression of people. He also seems to hate the United States, which shows what kind of taste he has.

After reading Abichara's articulate, persuasive comment, I wonder whether it's even worth my time to offer an opinion. I guess that my feeling is that if the Cuban people are suffering, it's more Castro's fault than ours - he restructured the economy the way he did, not. Once the Russians stopped subsidizing Cuba, things went even further downhill. Lifting the embargo probably would help the average Cuban to some limited degree, b ut I believe that there would be a few well-placed Cubans (not to mention Americans as well) who would profit handsomely from kickbacks, payoffs, under-the-table deals, etc. I know it sounds cynical, but I'd bet that it would happen. the end result would be that a very select few would really reap disproportionate benefits, while the common Jose would not be a lot better off.

ending the embargo would do more to begin the process of removing castro from power than all the hot air generated by the anti-communist, cuban-american community in south florida

If i was a cuban i don't know if I would want the U.S. to lift it's trade embargo... the U.S. does have a way with forcing it's culture down the troats of others... but considering that it may help many starving people it could be worth a try.

The United States needs to end the embargo on Cuba and help the starving people there.

Yes - everyone knows Cubans make the best cigars

The US should be prepared to end the embargo as part of our welcoming celebration to a new government when Castro meets his maker. Cuba is not prepared to assume full responsibilty at this time for a completely restructured economy. Tobacco,sugar, coffee and rum are currently exported to the world at rates that would increase very little if the US lifed the embargo. National and local government is corrupt, but that's expected under dictatorships. This corruption would have to be addressed in matters of business. Also we have to be careful to guard against a massive emigration out of Cuba if the lifting of the embargo was interpreted as the acceptance of Cuba as a new'friend' in our hemisphere. The embargo will be lifted ,and when it is, rest assured the US will have another welfare state on its hands. The potential for resort income is endless and their future looks bright. Rum punch anyone?

End it. Get on with it. Are we going to embargo every regime we don't like? The embargo is there because the right wing of the Jesse Helms generation is still sore about losing access to the Batista whorehouses and plantation economy. Get over it already.

The embargo clearly hasn't had the desired effect so.. yes, I think we should end the embargo and enter into some kind of dialogue with the Cuban government.

The following comment has been written seeing both sides of the pro/anti Castro argument in mind and is meant to show whichever side you're on this is still the best idea. Now I can certainly respect the fact Castro has been quite iron-fisted with potential dissenters to the regime in the past and this is unacceptable, but to be fair, as dictators go, (and I use the term loosely, there are many local elections in Cuba) he's certainly not as bad as some nations we trade freely with. Castro is certainly no threat to the U.S. whatsoever, rather he has always thought the american people stelwart and intelligent and he considers the 9/11 bombers miserable insects. Cuban military spending is down 62% since the start of his tenure as leader. Cuba regularly sends thousands doctors abroad to aid developing nations. I could rail on about all the free public services that are freely provided (university, transport, water, electricity, healthcare, housing etc) as well but this is missing the point. The fact is, whatever your opinion of him, it is not in Castros best interests to be seen as a monster and if the United States pursued friendly relations with Cuba he would no longer see any reason to (if you're pro-Castro) or have any excuse to (if you're anti-Castro) continue pursuing such authoritarian methods and a relaxing of regulations and greater democratic reform would almost certainly follow (as was the case in China). If you want figures to underscore this, then how about the following? The annual lost revenue for potential trade with Cuba: over 3 billion dollars. The number of years the embargo has been in place and failed to produce results: 42 and counting...

Something like this should have been done years ago. Given that Castro hates the USA, it would be interesting to see his reaction and he would handle the idea of normal trade relations. He would probably make a lot of outrageous demands.

I agree with the hypocrisy as pointed out by PBeavr, BUT I think the solution is to remove all trade relations with the enemies of this nation, not capitulate to everyone instead. This nation, unfortunately, has given in to our enemies for waaaaay too long, and it would be nearly impossible to detach ourselves from being tied in economically with our enemies. But that's utopian thinking on my part; the above would never happen if I lived to be 5000 years old. The embargo against Cuba should remain, but there ought to be a mechanism in place to accept Cuban nationals who wish to leave that corrupt nation in an equitable way. I dislike the idea of people with their children floating over in inner tubes risking their lives to escape Castro's murderers.