End the Cuba embargo now

Lawrence Wilkerson, retired Army Colonel and past aide & adviser to Colin Powell, on why Cuba embargo needs to end now.

Let’s chalk up the losses of late in Latin America:

We’re being tossed out of Venezuela.

We’re being tossed out of Bolivia.

We’re despised in Argentina.

Nicaragua looks favorably on Russia’s move into Georgia.

Honduras and Guatemala hold their noses when they deal with us.

We’re barely tolerated in Mexico and puzzled over in Brazil, the real looming giant of Sudamérica. In fact, the best leader in the Western Hemisphere, Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva, just ignores us most of the time because to him, I’m sure, we are indecipherably stupid.

His solution? End the embargo on Cuba and normalize relations with them. Then Latin America would know the US was serious about change.

There’s another, more pressing reason, Wilkerson says. The recent hurricanes have devastated Cuba. “There were reports of walls of water 50 feet high hitting the north shore.” 440,000 homes were destroyed. Food is running out. They need construction material and heavy equipment so they can rebuild. Immediately.

America needs to put politics aside. It is time to do the right thing. Protect the lives of innocent Cubans, protect our electoral process, end a 50-year-old failed policy, and be good Samaritans.