Cuba/U.S : 50 years of ineffective embargo
Amanpour - Cuban embargo - Howard Berman - Cold war - Dramatic failure - Zero influence - Laurence Wilkerson
First of all, the embargo was due to punish Fidel Castro’s brutal regime and to isolated him. But Fidel Castro victimized himself in such a way that America appeared an inhumanitarian State that empoverish the poorest and leaving them face to face and helpless with the Cuban brutal Regime. Stepping aside, America disqualified itself from speaking for the oppressed.
Secondly, the scandal of corruption on an international scale of the program " food for oil" just confirmed how cynical the embargos goes : economic sanctions are blind sanctions. They are anything but intelligence.
To emphazise this point, the Chairman of the American Congress foreign committee, one of the 3 guests of Christiane Amanpour, Congressman Howard Berman, openly critized the embargo of being anachronic and ask for a new approach. The embargo affected the fundamental individual rights of American to travel. During the Cold war, Americans could travel to the Soviet Union and to the others communists countries. Iran is facing economic sanctions for a while. But Americans still can travel over there. Why not in Cuba ?
Either him and Laurence Wilkerson, a former Colin Powell adviser totalizing 31 years of service in Army agreed that the Cuba’s embargo was a "stupid policy" and has had "zero influence". If that influence were a change of Fidel Castro’s regime, as the human rights activist in Cuba reported it to Christiane Amanpour, then it is a "dramatic failure" (Laurence Wilkerson).
Knowing that, what is the purpose applying the same anachronic policy that did’nt work in Cuba for 50 years to Iran today ? Is History a repetitive process ? Are economic sanctions of today a stalemate or an escalade ?
The three guests of Amanpour agreed unanimously that the embargo should be lifted for Americans interests and for the Cubans ones.
