Great. Seems we keep worsening off our diplomatic relationships with everyone not named Israel, UK or India. The most ironic part is in bold. Denial or arrogance. You pick one, or both. Leaders Ask U.S. to End 'Blockade' of Cuba By CIARAN GILES, Associated Press Writer Sat Oct 15, 6:18 PM ET SALAMANCA, Spain - Leaders of the world's Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries demanded on Saturday that the United States abide by U.N. resolutions to end its "blockade" against Cuba, in a resolution that earlier drew criticism from the U.S. government. The U.S. Embassy in Madrid objected to the use of the word "blockade" instead of "embargo" in the statement by the 17 leaders present at the annual Iberoamerican summit. Spanish officials countered that "blockade" had been used in U.N. resolutions as well. "We call on the United States of America to comply with that laid down in 13 successive resolutions approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations, and to bring an end to the economic, trade and financial blockade it maintains against Cuba," one of a set of final statements said. Foreign ministers from Latin America, Spain and Portugal at the summit had drawn up a similarly worded draft Thursday, irking the U.S. Embassy, which said it could be interpreted as a "kind of support for the dictatorship in Cuba." The final statement on the embargo differed only in the title and final phrase by qualifying the word "blockade" with the adjectives "economic, trade and financial." Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said similar wording had been used by the United Nations and nothing should be read into any change in the final phrasing. Hours before the summit's end, the U.S. Embassy issued a statement saying Spain had excellent relations with the U.S. government. Relations between Madrid and Washington suffered when Zapatero withdrew troops from Iraq shortly after being elected in March 2004. Those relations have yet to fully recover. The most notable absence at the summit was Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who reportedly stayed home to coordinate relief aid for Hurricane Stan.
Is this because of anti-US bias or just an example of how sanctions and embargos just don't work with regard to dictators? Castro is doing what Saddam did: Portray sanctions and embargos as hurting the children of his country in order to get them lifted. Sanctions always hurt the wrong people. Not to mention that Spain elected a Socialist as Prime Minister who probably sees Castro as a visionary and not as a murderer. There is an emargo against Cuba because Castro, as a communists revolutionary, violently took over that country and has remained as a dictator ever since. You get ride of the dictatorship in favor of Democratic elections and the problem goes away. You may not like Bush or the U.S. be we can at the least wait out Bush's two terms, or vote him out or impeach him. The people of Cuba don't have that right. The people of Spain do. I wonder why the leader of Spain doesn't feel its necessary for Cubans to have a say in their government? Besides, a ton of countries do have relations with Cuba. Why is it so important for the U.S. to have relations? Why do they need us?
Uh the people of a large chunk of the world cant pick their leaders either. And most of them have worse human rights records than Cuba and if i'm not mistaken we have diplomatic relations with most of those.
The Cuba situation won't change until Castro dies, there is just too much 'ego' involved here on both sides. Castro is much less of a 'murderer' than most dictatorships in the world with which we have excellent relations. It's just part of the standard 'double-standard' foreign policy of the U.S.
Couldn't agree more. Approximately 90% of Cuban property was owned by Americans prior to the Cuba Revolution. Cuba, which was briefly occupied by the United States after the Spanish-American War, was heavily influenced by American interests. Cuba was essentially a giant U.S. plantation and vacation resort prior to the revolution. This is why U.S. leaders took such drastic actions to sabotage Cuban revolution, because it was felt that if Cuba, especially being so close to U.S. and because it was previously dominated by U.S., were shown to improve its condition through the use of socialism that it would validate the socialist system to Americans, South Americans, and the world. This is why it was deemed a top priority to undermine the country of Cuba or to overthrow its socialist government. To achieve this U.S. led decades-long international trade embargo on Cuba. U.S. persuaded all of South and Central America, as well as Europe, to break all trade with Cuba.
