The Cuba vendetta

By
Max J. Castro                                                            Read Spanish Version
majcastro@gmail.com

The
amazing thing about U.S. policy toward Cuba is that it seems
impervious to the test of reality. Nearly fifty years of failure, the
end of the Soviet bloc, and the emergence of new threats to U.S.
national security have not produced a rethinking. Instead, what has
happened is that counterproductive approach long-maintained by the
federal government has become more perverse. That has not prevented
the state of Florida from taking it up with a vengeance. Consider:

• The
  determination to wage economic war against Cuba, even at the most
  trivial level, is distracting the U.S. government from the much more
  crucial task of pursuing terrorists and criminals.

A
Government Accountability Office report on the efforts of the Customs
and Border Protection (CBP) division of the Department of Homeland
Security to catch those bringing cigars, rum, and similar goods from
Cuba “have strained CPB’s capacity to carry out its primary
mission of keeping terrorists, criminals and inadmissible aliens from
entering the country at Miami International Airport.”

• Top
  State of Florida officials were intimately involved in the costly
  and highly unusual attempt by the Department of Children and
  Families to prevent Rafael Izquierdo, a Cuban farmer, from retaining
  custody of his young daughter and returning with her to Cuba.

According
to a source quoted in a Miami
Herald story,
“Nothing is done [regarding the case] without running it through
the governor’s office.” Julie Gilbert Rosicky, the head of an
agency hired to do a home study on Rafael Izquierdo, wrote, of a
guardian ad litem who sided with the state in the effort to strip
Izquierdo of custody, that she “appeared very biased in favor of
keeping the child in the U.S. no matter what, and indicated that she
wished for a negative report.” Said the highly experienced judge
who heard the case, which cost the state $250,000: “I’ve never
seen a case like that…ever, ever, ever, ever…

• A
  law passed by the Florida legislature last year that prevents
  professors at state universities from using either public or private
  funds to conduct research in Cuba “runs afoul of the academic
  freedom accorded to universities under the First Amendment,”
  according to a lawsuit filed by the Board of Governors of the state
  university system. 

These
three examples suggest that nothing is too important, sacred, or
central to American values — including the fight against terrorism,
the right of parents to raise their children, and the First Amendment
— not to be subordinated to the vendetta against Cuba.