Cuba Libre

Bohemian


Metro

SF Station

MetroActive

Boulevards

Santa Cruz Weekly

Bohemian







News & Features

Music, Arts & Culture

Food & Drink

Columns & Blogs

Deals & Giveaways Browse News & Features





News & Features Home

Culture

Features

News

News Archives Browse Music, Arts & Culture





June 13, 2012 Columns & Blogs » Letters to the Editor





Letters to the Editor: June 13, 2012

















Cuba Libre

The United States is trying to blame Cuba's poverty and troubles and everything else on Castro, when for 50 years this country has devastated Cuba through American sanctions and embargoes, etc. Before Castro took over, the U.S. was Cuba's closest and biggest trading partner, and they used to supply America with sugar, coffee, tourism and a lot of things. It was notorious that American men would go to Cuba to visit the prostitutes there. But Castro got rid of them and got rid of Batista, who was the bad guy.



Before that, the U.S. was very happy to recognize Castro. They said, "Yes, he's gotten rid of Batista, a bad man, and he made Cuba better for the Cubans"—until he started nationalizing all the industries, businesses and plantations of the rich. They thought the embargoes and the sanctions would work, that they'd starve Castro and his supporters out. That was too much. So then the U.S. government began to fight Cuba, and they helped some Cuban exiles stage the Bay of Pigs invasion under John F. Kennedy—becoming a laughingstock because they lost so badly.



Terrorist groups based in Miami have even confessed to being killers, in published books published and in interviews on television. But they have not been brought to justice. However, Cuba has more than 5,000 victims of state terrorism between the dead and the wounded. Thus, as a society, as a sovereign nation, we have the right to defend ourselves, and we do it peacefully. It's hurting the poor of Cuba more than anybody, whom they claim they want to help!



—Ted Rudow



Palo Alto