A rare Gallup poll conducted in 2006 in Havana and Santiago, Cuba, reflect that Cubans have a good grip on reality regarding the two root causes of the horrible economic misery under which they have long been suffering.
The first cause is Cuba’s socialist economic system. According to a New York Times report of the poll, “80 percent said that they backed a market economic system that included the right to own property and run businesses.”
The second cause is the cruel and brutal embargo that the U.S. government has enforced against the Cuban people for almost five decades. According to the Times, “Most Cubans in that survey also attributed their economic woes to the American trade embargo.”
While U.S. officials blame Cuba’s economic woes on socialism and Cuban officials blame Cuba’s economic woes on the embargo, the truth is that they are both right. The Cuban people have had the economic life squeezed out of them by the twin jaws of the vise — Castro’s socialism and the U.S. embargo.
Of all the failures of U.S. foreign policy, the embargo against Cuba must rank among the top. From the very beginning of the embargo, the purpose has been regime change. The idea has long been to squeeze the Cuban people into ousting their president Fidel Castro from power and installing a Cuban puppet who could be controlled by Washington officials.
What is sad about the Cuban embargo is not only the horrible economic damage it has caused the Cuban people but also that the embargo adopted anti-capitalist methods to fight communism and socialism.
Some Americans have convinced themselves that the U.S. embargo constitutes economic control on the Cuban people. Not so. The embargo is actually a control on the American people. The embargo places harsh criminal and civil penalties on Americans who travel to Cuba and spend money there.
Freedom of travel and the right to spend one’s own money the way he sees fit are fundamental rights that preexist government. They go to the essence of the inherent and unalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence.
Yet, with the embargo the American people permitted their federal officials to establish the same type of harsh economic controls on them that Fidel Castro established on the Cuban people.
Was there a better way to fight socialism and communism in Cuba? Absolutely — with freedom. If Americans had not permitted their government officials to impose the Cuban embargo, the American people would have been free to travel into Cuba, talk to people, help Cubans accumulate wealth, and expose Cubans to diverse ideas, especially ideas on liberty. What better way to influence foreigners than to let the American private sector flood into a country? Wouldn’t freedom have been a better way to move Cuba in a positive direction than by fighting socialism with socialism?