To: Greg or e who wrote (67821 ) 7/10/2015 3:55:24 AM From: Solon Read Replies (1) | Respond to The embargo no doubt made sense over four decades ago, when it was adopted as a retaliatory measure for the crimes of the Castro regime. But looking at it now, we must ask who, exactly, the embargo has hurt. Justice demands that force be used only in retaliation, and only against those who have initiated the use of force , but the embargo has used force mostly to hurt ordinary people who are guilty of no crime. How does punishing innocent Cubans and Americans who want to trade with one another help to correct the injustices of past expropriations, or the continuing injustices under which ordinary Cubans suffer?Somehow . This is more magical thinking. After all these years, we know that the embargo has not worked, and it does not serve Americans’ long-term interests—including their interest in justice. The embargo has not hurt Castro and his regime; it has made them stronger. If a punishment’s effect is to empower its intended target, then surely it is an unwise policy. The point is not that we must abandon our pursuit of justice, that justice is fine in theory but not in the real world. It is rather that applying the principle of justice successfully requires being rational, and part of being rational is admitting when a strategy has failed and developing a better one.The Best Revenge Report from Havana concludes, “Current U.S. policy toward Cuba is based on historical inertia, domestic political calculations, and emotionalism.” The embargo’s continued existence has more to do with power than principle, more to do with the preferences of a well-organized minority of Cuban expatriates in Florida, a swing state, than with any objective appraisal of the situation.The best revenge, in fact, would be the freest, most open trade in goods, services, and ideas, in order to undermine the stranglehold Castro’s regime has had on the Cuban people. Several decades of this kind of engagement with China, another communist regime and a far bigger potential threat, has loosened its grip. The best revenge against Mao has been to bring China into the international fold and to coax, rather than to force, its government into the 21st century. ideas would flow between travelers and businessmen, and a Cuban middle class would begin to grow, undermining both Castro’s regime and its communist ideology. The Atlas Society
