CounterPunch: Cui Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off

[Osolomia]

Weekend Edition
November 1 / 2, 2003

Cui Bono?
The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off
By SAUL LANDAU

OPINION: "U.S. law forbids Americans to travel to Cuba for pleasure. That law is on the books and it must be enforced. We allow travel for limited reasons, including visit to a family, to bring humanitarian aid, or to conduct research. Those exceptions are too often used as cover for illegal business travel and tourism, or to skirt the restrictions on carrying cash into Cuba. We're cracking down on this deception." G. W. Bush, October 10, 2003

FACT: Administrative regulations don't prohibit Americans from traveling, but from spending money in Cuba, unless licensed to do so for research, media reporting, or family visits. "Freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society, setting us apart.it often makes all other rights meaningful." Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, (concurring) Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 520 (1964).

For more than four decades, I've read false, stupid and downright zany reports about the US embargo and travel ban on Cuba. On October 10, when President Bush announced his new and tougher measures against Fidel Castro's regime in order to "hasten the arrival of a new, free, democratic Cuba," I almost laughed.

These steps are "only the beginning," Bush said, "of a more robust effort to break through to the Cuban people." Had he forgotten the last forty-four years and ten months of other presidents' robust efforts? Enough, I said. It's time to offer my own observations on the subject.

Much more...
http://www.counterpunch.org/landau11012003.html