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Letter: Castro, not United States, is to blame for Cuban misery

Thursday, Jan. 29, 1998 | 11:08 a.m.

The United States, through its embargo, is simply refusing to participate in Cuba's self destruction. Our embargo tells Cuba, in effect: "We oppose Communism and its crush of capitalism and individual rights. We will have nothing to do with it. If you want to commit suicide, then you will have to do it without our cooperation." By lifting the embargo, the U.S. would help the Cuban government retain its totalitarian grasp on the people -- extending its path of starvation and destruction still further.

If the Pope really wants to build the morale of the Cuban people, he should tell them to assert, without compromise, the supremacy of individual rights and freedom. He should explain how a dictatorship is morally impotent, and can only survive so long as people hold their heads down in fear and humility. He should point to the heroic dissidents who helped overcome or weaken dictatorship in the early days of America and, more recently, in Soviet Russia and Communist China.

Instead, the Pope grants Castro's Communist regime respectability it most certainly does not deserve.

Michael J. Hurd

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