U.N. urges U.S. to lift embargo against Cuba

U.N. urges U.S. to lift embargo against Cuba

www.usatoday.com

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly has overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging the United States to repeal its 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba.
The vote Wednesday in the 192-member world body was 185 to 3, with 2 abstentions. Last year, the vote was 184 to 4 with 1 abstention.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said before the vote that it will be up to the next U.S. president to decide whether the embargo is a failed policy. But he stressed that the United States will never bring the Cuban people to their knees.

U.S. diplomat Ron Goddard said the embargo is justified because the Cuban government is undemocratic and restricts political and economic freedom.

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That's pretty much the whole article. Not really much left to the imagination. What kills me is the way we continue to ignore completely the wishes of our supposed allies. We have this ego problem of "We're the biggest and baddest and don't have to listen to anyone else".

It's time to move on in this world. It's obvious that Cuba is NOT a military threat. Yes, they are close and will have to be monitored but the embargo serves no real purpose anymore.

I'm not for the NWO as in 'the elitists ruling all' but I am for a more friendly and open world. Right now it seems to be coming down to arrogance and ignorance that has kept this embargo in place for so long.

www.usatoday.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

U.S. diplomat Ron Goddard said the embargo is justified because the Cuban government is undemocratic and restricts political and economic freedom.

So, by that logic, we should also have an embargo against China, Saudia Arabia, and Russia.

Hmmm, maybe we are just bullying Cuba because we are big and they are small. Nice. Way to set a good example for the rest of the world to follow!

The embargo against Cuba serve no purpose but to stroke the egos of the men whose parents and grandparents thought up the idea in the first place!

Russia? you guys still live in the past.

[edit on 29-10-2008 by pepsi78]

I have always found it to be humorous that we can have an embargo against communist Little Cuba but yet do normal business with communist Russia and China who have tried to hurt us a million times more.


Guess those Cuban votes count a whole lot cause I have never understood the embargo against Cuba.


Lift the embargo..... Should have been done a long time ago.

The Spanish American war wrestled Cuba, a Spanish colony away from Spain and essentially made it an American colony.
Sugarcane harvested in Cuba was shipped to the eastern USA where it was processed into sugar and then sold to the Europeans for big profits.
Castro and Cuba kicked out the American corporations who were making big profits on Sugar,Tobacco and the Mob who were involved with tourism and gambling while paying the Cubans next to nothing.

If we do away with the embargos against Cuba, does that mean we can do away the the BS Wet Foot Dry Foot crap and let them gain US citizenship just like the rest of the world?

I am the son of Cuban immigrants. Although I don't subscribe to communist ideology, I believe the US embargo clearly shows a double standard.

We have diplomatic relations with China and Vietnam. Both are communist countries. In Vietnam, we lost over 50,000 American lives. How many did we lose in Cuba?

I don't have to be a doctor to think like one. If the treatment doesn't work (after 47 years) something is wrong. CHANGE THE TREATMENT. Do I want to see a free Cuba? Absolutely! But the embargo will only perpetuate this futile effort. By engaging diplomatically and allowing interaction between the American and Cuban peoples, this will equip the Cuban people with new ideas and some desperately needed capital.

I've been asked many times why the Cuban people haven't revolted. Because the youth keeps the energy to leave and the ones who stay keep their energy to survive. Both are products of the US embargo.

There will be billions of dollars and thousands of new jobs, both for the US and Cuba, in tourism were to become a legal reality. Unlike my Miami counterparts, I am tired of the same recalcitrant song. Are they waiting for the last person who was born in Cuba to die before they take the risk and lift the Embargo?

I hope whomever becomes our new leader has the COJONES to stand up to a few Cubans in Miami and proceed with lifting this absurdity.

We are supposed to be living in a free country where you are not told where you can and cannot go. Where's the right to free movement? I can't travel to Cuba because their government disagrees with our government's ideology? Why are we allowed to travel to China, Vietnam and plenty of other countries who disagree with us? Once we remove that veil of arrogance, the world will look at us with more respect.

Yes, I speak like an American because I am one. Let's embrace our brothers and sisters 90 miles away. Remember, they love Americans; they just disagree with our government's approach. Let's agree to disagree and turn the next page of history! It seems we would rather see Russia park their nuclear submarines there in a hostile manner.

[edit on 29-10-2008 by manticore]

Originally posted by 38181
If we do away with the embargo against Cuba, does that mean we can do away the the BS Wet Foot Dry Foot crap and let them gain US citizenship just like the rest of the world?

By consequence, once the embargo is lifted, the choke hold will be removed, and plenty of those people looking to step on our land will stay behind because there will now be a purpose. We can enable that by lifting the Embargo. New ideas and investment will help the island flourish. Cuba had the highest per capital index in all of Latin America prior to Castro, as well as the highest index of professional graduates.

It is estimated that the US embargo costs Cuba 4 billion dollars per year, and remember money creates money, Cuba is a beautiful country full of natural resources, if US didn't do this from 50 years ago, Cuba may have become a developed country, if so, Americans may wonder why communism is such a bad thing. So it is not just an embargo, but a conflict of ideology. My 1 cent.

For the first time that I can remember, I'll have to agree with the U.N. on this one. There was a time that the embargo was the right thing to do, but that was many yaears and 3 generations ago.

This issue is where I'm against the current (and the last 4 realy) stance on Cuba. Although I am against communism, I don't feel it's right to trade with China, who is on the other side of the world and not with Cuba who is in our back yard.

It's my feeling that if we would open up trade with Cuba, the relations between the U.S. and Cuba would thaw and Cuba would eventually become a free market.

It's sad what the Cubans had to go through for almost a half a century. I know there was a cold war, but it wasn't the common Cubans fault.