Talk to anyone who worked with Raul Castro, or anyone clued in to the process that produced Cuba's economic reforms in the early 1990's, and you get the same story: that he supported those reforms and is not averse to the use of market mechanisms to improve Cuba's economy.

But with his brother in power, we could never know Raul's preference for Cuban economic policy if he were in charge.

That may soon change.

Fidel Castro has not appeared in public for more than a year, and in the video released last week he doesn't appear capable of taking back the reins of executive power that he delegated in July 2006.

With Raul Castro now serving as interim chief executive, Cuba is engaged in an economic policy debate of potentially great consequence. (To follow this issue, check out our blog, The Cuban Triangle.)

Fidel Castro started this debate, but the longer it goes on the more it seems to follow a path that he would not have planned.

Delivering his last major policy speech in the formal lecture hall of the University of Havana in November 2005, Fidel confronted his generation's mortality. "The veterans are disappearing," he said, "and making room for new generations of leaders." He asked whether socialism is "irreversible," and his answer was clear. "This revolution can destroy itself," he said. "We can destroy it, and the fault would be ours."

To ensure the long-term political survival of socialism, Fidel argued, Cuba needed to put its economic house in order.

At the time of that speech, Cuba was reaping the benefit of Venezuelan oil, high nickel prices, and stronger tourism revenues. With breathing space, Fidel was asserting his orthodox economic thinking. He reduced the number of joint ventures with foreign investors by about 100, and squeezed Cuba's small entrepreneurial sector.

In the speech, he detailed the black-market activity that pervades Cuba's economy, from pilfered inventories to off-the-books entrepreneurship, and he wanted to put an end to it. He called for more control and policing. He threatened to close Cuba's remaining private restaurants and to give a "Christian burial" to private taxis that help Cubans get to work amid insufficient public transit. He planned to deploy teenage "social workers," who were already watching the till in gas stations, to combat corruption in bakeries, pharmacies, and cafeterias.

But then Fidel fell ill, delegated executive power, and left public view.

As interim leader, his brother Raul made the economy his priority, telling Cuba's legislature that he is "tired of excuses." He settled the state's debts to farmers and tripled prices paid to milk and beef producers. He ended abusive pricing at Cuba's airports, where high landing fees and refueling charges were making Cuba a less competitive tourism destination. He changed customs regulations to allow Cubans to receive video equipment and car parts from relatives overseas -- a change in direction from a policy that seemed to seek to squeeze every possible bit of revenue from visitors. Rather than "bury" private taxis, he ordered police to stop harassing them -- a small step, but the first bit of good news that Cuba's entrepreneurs have received in years. Private restaurants remain open. Fidel's social workers returned to their normal jobs.

And under Raul, the debate about Cuba's economic future took a different turn.

Articles in official media showed that many of Cuba's socialist enterprises are dysfunctional, abusing consumers, and able to operate only because employees use black-market fixes to keep them going.

Officials took up the discussion of the black market, but unlike Fidel, they aren't scapegoating "egotists" and "cheapskates" who skirt the law. Raul Castro and others argue that Cubans resort to "indiscipline" because they can't make ends meet with meager state salaries. There's a big difference between blaming greed and saying people deserve a day's pay for a day's work. There's also a big difference between targeting the black market and targeting a root cause, which is the stark inequality of income in Cuba's workforce.

Last July 26, Raul Castro gave his first major policy speech. He told folksy stories about milk and farm production that ridiculed the bureaucracy and low productivity of state agriculture. He stated a need to examine and expand the practices that work in the agriculture sector, which would imply an expansion of private farming, where productivity is highest. He called for increased foreign investment. He called for "structural changes" which, in Marxist terms, could imply a change in property relations and a selective shift away from state ownership. He closed by quoting Fidel, seven years ago: "Revolution is a sense of the historical moment, it is to change all that must be changed."

This speech was preceded by a process where the party, state enterprises, research centers and other institutions across Cuba were summoned to describe problems and solutions that would raise output, productivity, living standards. It was followed by grass-roots discussions now taking place in workplaces, union locals, and neighborhood Communist Party units.

This debate is producing proposals that were taboo one year ago: to expand private agriculture and small enterprise and provide micro-credits, have the state stop providing services it provides poorly, grant autonomy to state enterprises, expand foreign investment. Some of the proposals and calls for change have emerged on foreign websites and in interviews with foreign media, and through the Internet these ideas have recirculated in Cuba.

Having unleashed this debate and highlighted fundamental economic problems, Raul Castro has yet to make major decisions. That will likely occur once his own policy team completes its work and, as one Cuban economist argues, "political consensus" is obtained.

Cuba's political system has an orthodox wing -- its detractors call it the "Taliban" -- and there are indications that its weight is felt in the current debate. A new salary policy, geared toward increasing state salaries so workers could cover their basic needs without outside income, was promised for June 2007 but not delivered. A study of "socialist property" that could promote fundamental reforms was initiated last fall, but later it was announced that its results would come "within three years." And the sharpest comment in Raul Castro's July 26 speech -- that instead of guaranteeing milk to children only, Cuba's goal should be to supply milk to all who want it -- was dropped from the text printed in Cuban newspapers the next day.

Taking all this into account, it is my view that Cuba will initiate some degree of economic reform during the coming year.

I reach this conclusion for three reasons.

First, while there are differing opinions within the Cuban political system regarding economic policy, there is consensus that something must be done -- for both political and economic reasons -- to address the unfinished business of the reforms of the 1990's, especially income inequality. That task requires a degree of economic growth that small-scale changes cannot provide.

Second, if the Cuban government's intention were to stand pat, it would surely be directing an old, tried-and-true message to the Cuban people now: that Cuba is besieged by a hostile U.S. Administration that perceives weakness, and this is a time to concentrate on defense and to avoid experimentation in domestic policy. But Raul Castro's message has been the opposite.

That is because, third, as more and more time has passed with Fidel Castro offstage, Raul Castro has steadily raised expectations for policy changes that will improve Cubans' daily lives. He has done so through small initial policy steps, through his public speeches, and now by pushing a discussion of economic problems and "structural changes" to Cuba's grass roots organizations. It is hard to conceive that a politician in any political system, much less one in Raul Castro's circumstance today, would embark on a strategy of raising expectations to this degree if his intention were not to deliver results. It bears noting that Raul Castro has tempered expectations by telling the Cuban people not to expect dramatic improvement overnight.

There are two kinds of policy change that could liberate productive energies and yield positive results in Cuba. One is administrative change that would make the state sector more productive: decentralization, greater flexibility for state enterprises, new policies to bring more foreign investment. The other would involve granting more space for private economic activity. My guess is that we will see a combination, with initial moves in the agriculture sector.

A turn to significant reform would change the trajectory of Cuba's domestic policy and would carry political implications in Cuba and abroad. The Cuban public would surely welcome an economic improvement and the government gain support. And those who have called for change in Cuban policies -- dissidents, the Bush Administration, European governments -- would have to decide how to react.

President Bush is awaiting the day when "the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away" and views that day as a moment of opportunity for the United States and others to exhort Cubans to change their political system. He may be waiting for a moment that, in practical political terms, has already passed. Change in Cuba, however gradual, is far likelier to come from within the system itself as it grapples with its economic future and the prospect of Fidel Castro's entire generation soon leaving the scene.

-- Philip Peters

Sooner or later, US policymakers will have to dismantle this last relic of the Cold War, our flawed and futile isolation from Cuba, and think and act anew.  The following reflection, by a young bartender living in Washington, is a reminder of how personally destructive the old policy is and how modern presidential campaigns are more than TV ads but also the sum of personal encounters that can take place in unexpected ways.

My girlfriend is Cuban-American, and much of her family remains on the island, so what happens on U.S. policy toward Cuba, especially whether Cubans here can travel there to visit their families, is quite more than an abstraction to me.

She and many like her feel cut off from the lives of blood relatives and it is an enduring ache for them all. I watch her suffer on a daily basis. I lived with her family for six months while studying in Havana, care for them deeply and I feel cut off from them as well.

Cuba, surprisingly, has poked its head into the middle of the U.S. presidential campaign, and a little piece of the campaign poked its head into Washington the other day at the restaurant on Capitol Hill where I happened to be tending bar.

Senator Obama dropped in and had dinner with a group of key supporters from New England that had come down to see him. Drying glasses and pouring drinks from a discrete distance, I still could hear his remarks to the group and was heartened by what I heard.

Among other things, he once again mentioned how Latin America has been neglected and it will not continue to be neglected if he is elected president. He said he has an upcoming article in NY Times Magazine that will continue his work to outline his foreign policy for the campaign.

Obama, bucking conventional wisdom, had earlier traveled to Miami, the heart of support for tight sanctions on Cuba, to argue for loosened restrictions on families with relatives in Cuba, a position which earned him a special place in our hearts at home.

He concluded his remarks this night by saying that he is very positive about the campaign and they are focusing on winning Iowa, where his internal polls show that he and Hillary are tied.

Anyways; at the end of the dinner I waited among the 17 supporters who, I am sure, paid a lot of money to fly down from Boston and attend this special dinner.

Entonces [and then], I scribbled on a napkin, "As an American with close ties to family in Cuba I am very excited about your support for family travel. I urge you to take it to the next step and vow to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba. The Cuban American community supports you!"

As he left he shook my hand and I asked him if I could give him the note. He said "please." As I handed him the note I told him that what he has done in regards to Cuba is great and that he should take it farther and propose ending the embargo. As he walked away he read my note and thanked me for my support.

It was pretty neat. I am not saying that he is going to base his foreign policy on advice from a random bartender, but he is a people person and maybe it will make him think a little bit. I signed the note with my first name only, and maybe if he reads this post he will remember me, and my reasons for caring, and learn my last name.

--Sarah Stephens

This piece, originally published at The Huffington Post, was co-written with Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archive, a non-profit research center in Washington D.C.

Think of how angry Americans would be if Pakistan's government let Osama bin Laden emerge from his cave of refuge and take up open residence in Islamabad?

A scene just like that is the reality here in the United States where Luis Posada Carriles, who ranks in the top ten list of the world's most prolific terrorists, is living freely in Florida--despite his known involvement in blowing up a civilian airliner and other bombings and assassination attempts over more than forty years. Since May, when a Federal judge tossed out the minor charges of immigration fraud leveled by Alberto Gonzales's Justice Department, Posada has been enjoying life in Miami's hard-line Cuban exile community. The U.S. media has all but forgotten about him. His victims, however, remain seared by this remarkable injustice and so should we.

Today [October 6th], after all, marks the anniversary of the mid-air destruction of Cubana Airlines flight 455, which took the lives of 73 passengers and crew, including the Cuban Olympic Fencing team and a group of teenage Guyanese science students on their way to Cuba to go to medical school. Their families will commemorate this day of loss, as they have for 31 years, wondering whether Posada and his co-conspirator Orlando Bosch--who is also living freely in Miami--will ever be brought to justice.

But for those of us in the United States, the case of Luis Posada Carriles is not only about a long overdue legal reckoning for the victims of terrorism, it is about the hypocrisy of the purported leader in the global fight against international terrorism now harboring a renowned purveyor of terrorist violence. "The United States cannot tolerate the inherent inhumanity of terrorism as a way of settling disputes," declared a 1989 Justice Department ruling that Orlando Bosch should remain detained or deported after he illegally returned to the United States from Venezuela. "We must look on terrorism as a universal evil, even if it is directed toward those with whom we have no political sympathy."

That principle was ignored by the administration of George H.W. Bush which, urged on by politically powerful rightwing Cuban exiles in Florida, set Bosch free in 1990. Following in his father's footsteps, George W's administration has politicized the Posada case as well, allowing him to go free and flaunting the credibility of the U.S. war on terror in the process.

Make no mistake, this former CIA asset and demolition trainer is a resolute and unrepentant advocate of terror. As early as 1965, declassified CIA intelligence reports cite Posada's operations to blow up ships and other targets, financed by benefactors in Miami. Documents uncovered in his office in Caracas link Posada to a string of sabotage attacks on consulates and travel agencies that did business with Cuba in the summer of 1976. Those same records contained information on the route of Cubana flight 455.

Indeed, the part Posada played in the first atrocity of aviation terrorism in the Western Hemisphere is especially well corroborated. Declassified FBI reports place him in meetings in Caracas where the attack on the plane was planned. According to a secret CIA intelligence report, a high level informant overheard Posada declaring, "We are going to hit a Cuban airliner and Orlando has the details" only days before the plane exploded after take off from Barbados. Confessions by the two Venezuelans who brought the bomb on board--plastic explosives stuffed into a large tube of Colgate toothpaste--and who worked for Posada, noted that their first calls after the airliner plunged into the ocean were to Posada's office. "The bus has gone off the cliff and the dogs are dead," they reported.

Both Posada and Bosch were arrested in Caracas. Posada was held in Venezuela for nine years for the aircraft bombing but escaped from prison in 1985. (He then went to El Salvador to work on the Reagan administration's illicit contra resupply operation.) In the spring and summer of 1997, he orchestrated a bombing campaign against Havana hotels and discotheques that resulted in the death of an Italian businessman; "That Italian was sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time," Posada noted in an interview with the New York Times a year later in which he publicly took responsibility for the attacks. "I sleep like a baby."

Three years later, at age 73, he was caught in Panama with 34 pounds of C-4 explosives, which he planned to use to blow up an auditorium where Fidel Castro was scheduled to speak.

After serving only four years of a prison sentence, Posada and three co-conspirators were inexplicably pardoned and freed; still wanted in Caracas for the bombing of flight 455, Posada became a fugitive once again. But in March 2005, he illegally entered the United States and surfaced in Miami, sufficiently comfortable in the cradle of the anti-Castro exile community to announce his presence to the media and actually seek political asylum. If Orlando Bosch could live freely in Miami, why couldn't Luis Posada?

For two months, the Bush administration basically pretended that he was not there. But this is the post 9/11 world. Massive and embarrassing publicity finally forced Bush's hand. On May 17, 2005, DHS agents detained Posada on illegal entry charges, and then indicted for lying to immigration authorities on how he came to the United States.

Yes, you read that correctly: one of the world's most infamous terrorists charged as an illegal immigrant. Using the counter-terrorism provisions of the Patriot Act, the administration could have certified Posada as a terrorist danger and detained him indefinitely. But apparently the Justice Department viewed his brand of political violence is different than those other terrorism suspects with Middle Eastern names.

The Administration could have also accepted Venezuela's formal petition for Posada's extradition. After all, Posada is a naturalized Venezuelan citizen; the crime was planned in Caracas, and he is a fugitive from justice from Venezuela. But Bush has his priorities: it is more important to mollify rightwing Republican Cuban-American voters in Florida who would view Posada's extradition as a betrayal and as a victory for Chavez and Castro, than to turn over a terrorist to the country that has a legitimate claim to hold him accountable for the first act of airborne terror in the hemisphere, a devastating crime.

The charade of detaining Posada on immigration violations has not been lost on the U.S. courts. Indeed, last May a Federal Judge dismissed the entire illegal entry case against Posada, citing prosecutorial misconduct and incompetence. Without even a slap on the wrist, he returned to Miami a free man, limited only in his movements by the ironic DHS decision to place him on a government "no fly" list.

To date, Bush has made a mockery of his motto that no nation should harbor terrorists and all nations should take steps to bring those who commit acts of terrorism to justice. If his administration will not certify and detain Posada for the international criminal he is, if his administration will not extradite Posada to Venezuela because Bush doesn't like Chavez, the administration still has one option to redeem itself: the Justice Department can indict Posada for the hotel bombings in Havana ten years ago for which he has publicly claimed credit.

The known body of evidence in this case is strong: the FBI has an informant who witnessed Posada's meetings in Guatemala where the bombings were organized, and saw a bag of 23 tubes of plastic explosives in the offices Posada used. Couriers have told how they were recruited by Posada associates to transport the explosives in Prell shampoo bottles and in their shoes. Federal authorities are also in possession of an August 1997 fax, in Posada's own handwriting and signed "Solo"--one of his nom de guerres--stating that "if there is no publicity, the job is useless" and arranging for funds to be "sent by Western Union from New Jersey." Additional evidence was gathered during a rare FBI trip to Havana late last year and presumably turned over to a federal grand jury which as been impaneled in Newark to hear this case.

With a new attorney general designate soon to face confirmation hearings, the Senate Judiciary Committee has the opportunity to voice its concerns about the way the Justice Department has allowed a known terrorist to go free. Retired judge Michael Mukasey, who is known for being tough on terrorism, should be given every opportunity to disassociate himself from the political contamination of this case and to commit the Justice Department to finally holding Posada accountable for his acts of international violence.

Prosecuting Posada matters. It would put our country on the side of justice for a crime that took place in Cuba that was inspired politically to hurt the Castro regime. This, in turn, would send a signal to Cuba and the world that Washington is serious about deterring acts by terrorists using U.S. soil as their base of operations. It would end a dramatic and hypocritical inconsistency in our policy toward terrorism. Moreover, the families of Posada's many victims deserve their day in court.

And, who knows. If we take the man known as Latin America's Osama bin Laden off our own streets, someone might just help us take America's bin Laden off theirs.

-- Peter Kornbluh & Sarah Stephens

Silvia Wilheim of La Noche Se Mueve, 1210 AM in Miami, scored an interesting radio interview with former State Department Chief of Staff and Pamela Harriman Visiting Scholar at the College of William & Mary Lawrence B. Wilkerson.

You have to work through a bilingual discussion with Wilkerson in English and then translation -- but it's an excellent summary of why our current posture towards Cuba is badly in need of a makeover.

To listen, click on "Jueves" for Thursday.

I really like Wilheim's radio series titled "In the Best Interests of the United States."

I hope some of Hillary Clinton's folks listen in. I know that Chris Dodd's, Dennis Kucinich's, Bill Richardson's, and Barack Obama's have not only listened in -- but subscribe to the line.

For those wanting more, Lawrence Wilkerson, former Senator George McGovern, former Cuban-American National Foundation Executive Director Joe Garcia, former Ambassadorial-Equivalent to Cuba (i.e. Chief of the US Interests Section in Havana), former Reagan and Bush administration State Department official Phil Peters, US- Cuba Legal Forum President Tony Zamora, and many others including myself will be speaking at a conference titled "Imperatives for a New Cuba Policy" on Tuesday, 16 October (next week). Attendance is free and open to the public. RSVP information is here.

-- Steve Clemons

Have you heard the one about the difference between U.S. policy towards Cuba and our policy towards China?

About a billion people.

That helps to explain why President Bush would take another opportunity today to say that the United States should maintain the travel and trade embargo on Cuba, and why his administration would only embark on new initiatives towards Cuba if a democratic opening were to take place.

Contrast today's remarks on Cuba with a very different speech that then-candidate Bush gave on the floor of a Boeing airplane factory during the debate over whether to grant normal trading relations to China. At the time, he said "trade with China will promote freedom," and that "economic freedom creates habits of liberty." He went on to say that "Our greatest export is not food or movies or even airplanes. Our greatest export is freedom."

"Simply put," Bush said, "China is most free where it is most in contact with the world economy."

The President was right then, and we should apply his arguments vigorously now when it comes to Cuba.

It may be inevitable that certain countries (particularly those of tremendous strategic and/or commercial importance to the United States) are held to different rules than others; yet, for a President who sees so much of the world in black and white, it is difficult to understand how he could have such conflicting views of the benefits of trade and engagement to two populations ruled by undemocratic elites.

President Bush is right in one sense -- there is a unique opportunity for the Cuban people. But it is also a unique opportunity for American policymakers. Unfortunately, the "if-the-Cubans-do-this, then-America-will-respond-like-this" steps that President Bush laid out today is a stale approach reminiscent of the two unhelpful reports produced by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.

Today the President wasted another opportunity to produce a meaningful plan to start to rebuild the relationship with Cuba and to help the Cuban people.

USA*Engage promotes trade, travel and humanitarian assistance because they are the best ways to encourage freedom, democracy, and American values among the people of Cuba, regardless of the policies of this or any Cuban government.

I agree with the recent statement by Senator Christopher Dodd that, "the United States' most potent weapon against totalitarianism is the influence of ordinary American citizens. They are some of the best ambassadors we have, and the free exchange of ideas and the interaction between Americans and Cubans are important ways to encourage democracy in Cuba."

The trouble is, not only have sanctions on Cuba been ineffective -- they have failed to bring about democratic change -- but they have been counterproductive as well by bolstering support for the Castro regime. As Ivan Eland, a fellow at the Independence Institute likes to say, sanctions have a "rally around the flag effect." In his words:

When attacked, either militarily or economically, by a foreign power, the populace of a country usually rallies around the existing leader -- no matter how odious he or she may be. Fidel Castro, despite the disastrous consequences of his centralization of the Cuban economy, has been able to blame poverty and economic stagnation on the coercive economic measures imposed by his powerful northern neighbor. In other words, the Cuban people likely would have thrown out Castro long ago if the United States hadn't declared him "enemy number one."

A fresh approach is needed -- not more stale rhetoric.

-- Jake Colvin

When Steve Clemons and I visited Cuba in March of this year, one of the places we both were excited to see and tour was the home of Ernest Hemingway -- "La Finca Vigia" -- near Cojimar, Cuba. Hemingway lived there for longer sustained periods than anywhere else.

In my youth, I was such a fan of Ernest that I tried to emulate his writing style -- so aggressively, in fact, that I even did formal papers in college using his succinct, simple but often laden-with-irony methodology. I remember a sociology professor's writing on one of my papers something like "Wilkerson, Hemingway does not belong in our classroom". He gave me a "C" on the paper. I was incensed -- not by the "C" but by the implied disparagement of my artist hero. I loved Hemingway and had read everything he ever wrote that hit the public domain. I envisioned my self as a modern Robert Jordan (perhaps explaining my 31 years in the military later on) and, besides admiring Donne's poetry, never read his lines about "Ask not for whom the bell tolls" again without thinking of Hemingway who, by the way, wrote that book while at Finca Vigia.

Since my heady salad days, I've lost some of my ardor for the bullfight-loving big game hunter, but not enough to keep me from feeling a shiver of excitement as I stood and looked at the Pilar, his sea-going fishing boat, as it was being refurbished by the Cubans in charge of Finca Vigia. (I couldn't help but think of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in Key Largo, because the boat looks a lot like the one in that superb movie, the boat in which the movie's denouement is worked out over blazing pistols). I felt similar excitement as we toured Hemingway's house and grounds as well. Seeing the items in the rooms, just as they may have been in Hemingway's own time, and hearing about who stayed in those rooms -- from Hemingway himself to people such as Errol Flynn and Ava Gardner -- was a stroll through the past I never thought I would make, and learning that he used to run in the streets of the village below and then come back to his swimming pool, shed his clothes entirely, and jump right in was an added insight into the life in Cuba of this ruggedly individualistic but nonetheless global citizen.

There is no question that Hemingway loved Cuba and its surrounding sea. Indeed, perhaps his best work -- The Old Man and the Sea -- derived its inspiration and probably its central character from the location. Equally, there is no question that Ernest Hemingway belongs to Cuba as well as to the United States and, more importantly, to the entire world, as do all great artists. So, imagine my surprise when I discovered how difficult the United States is making this restoration effort in Cuba. And why? You guessed it: because it is in Cuba and Cubans are responsible for it. After all, the thought among the hardcore Cuban-Americans who control U.S. Cuba policy, is that the Cubans may make some money from it.

U.S. policy wasn't always so ridiculous. In the past, the U.S. decided to help the Cubans in their efforts to preserve this very special place and legacy. But after George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004 and wanted to repay the hardcore Cuban-Americans in Florida and elsewhere for helping him get re-elected, all of this cooperation began to change. Now, listen to what sort of "help" occurs more recently:

As we toured the house, Steve Clemons asked what was being done to preserve the historic collection of books that are stored in the house -- on tables, in bookcases, and elsewhere Hemingway located them -- books that have Hemingway's own marginalia on many of their pages as he commented on what he was reading.

The answer we received would make a grown man cry.

It seems that the machine the Cubans needed most was a sort of digital copier that costs upwards of $30,000 (U.S.). With this machine, they could photocopy all of the books, complete with Hemingway's notations, and thus preserve them for posterity. In the humid, moist air of Cuba, even with some modern precautions, the books are rapidly decaying, so such action is imperative if this precious legacy is to be saved.

When Steve Clemons offered to orchestrate the purchase of such a machine and ship it to Cuba, the Cubans had to tell us such a move would be impossible because policies enacted by the Bush administration prohibited it. We then learned how draconian those policies truly are, even with regard to something such as the Hemingway legacy, a legacy of the entire world.

This situation is so absurd it borders on being pathetically laughable (and there is much more to add to the pathos and the laughter, including the fact that American citizens cannot travel to Cuba to see Finca Vigia -- or anything else in Cuba for that matter).

A few members of Congress (Democrat Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona being prominent among them) are aware of this pathetic situation which makes the United States a laughing stock among its friends and allies. But so far, they have been unable to interest their colleagues in the Congress in taking corrective action.

Perhaps more cards and letters should be in the making?

--Lawrence Wilkerson, die-hard Hemingway fan

No matter how many times I listen to George W. Bush, I can still be stunned by his absolute detachment from reality. Whether Iran or Iraq, World War III or General David Petraeus, his remarks sometimes are baffling. The President's recent words with regard to Cuba are yet another proof. The President demonstrated an ignorance of the real situation on the ground in Cuba that defies belief and scares the bejeezus out of me. Here is a man, for example, who doesn't even know that the transition of power in Cuba has already happened. Moreover, he doesn't understand that given the present U.S. Cuba policy, Cubans don't want U.S. help -- indeed, the U.S. is increasingly irrelevant to any meaningful change in Cuba. In part, this reality is simply due to the inability of any outside power to bring democracy and freedom to another country by fiat. But with respect to Cuba, it is also because U.S, policy is geared to do precisely the opposite, i.e., it is by design crafted to keep Fidel Castro's revolution alive and well. Vicki Huddleston, a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution and a former chief of the United States Interests Section in Cuba, covered these points well in a recent op-ed in The Washington Post. Here's the gist of what she argued:

President Bush yesterday [24 October 2007] made a case for bringing democracy to Cuba. Yet by telling the Cuban people not to expect help from the U.S. until they have made Cuba free, and by refusing to make any substantive change to U.S. policy, he is actually forestalling democratization….

We…won't see meaningful movement toward democracy without changes to the U.S.'s rigid travel restrictions. These prevent the person-to-person contact and exchange of ideas that could build support for democracy and competition within Cuba.

At the same time, the U.S. provides a safety valve that allows the most disillusioned Cubans and their families to escape rather than press for change at home. Bush was joined by many Cuban-born, could-have-been-reformers at the State Department yesterday, including Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and former Sen. Mel Martinez, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida….

Fidel Castro has outmaneuvered two Bush administrations and a total of nine American presidents. By continuing hard-line policies, President Bush is making it more likely that the Castro family will be in power on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution on Jan. 1, 2009.

The president said our goal in Cuba is democracy. But it should be both democracy and stability. No one -- most of all the Cuban people -- wants bloodshed or a humanitarian disaster. To encourage democratization and a peaceful transition, the U.S. must start a dialogue with both the people of Cuba and their government.

In his speech, Bush said the Cuban government "isolates its people from the hope that freedom brings, and traps them in a system that has failed them." By maintaining the status quo, the U.S. government is just reinforcing that isolation.

My hat is off to Ms. Huddleston for speaking the truth. The U.S. has reconciled with the Communist governments in China and Vietnam. We support dictators throughout Central Asia under the strategic mantra of "contact and influence is better than isolation". We talked to the Communist Soviet Union for the duration of the Cold War. But we cannot bring ourselves to deal with Havana and have maintained that failed policy for 47 years. There must be something about those 27 electoral votes in Florida that contaminates reality.

--Lawrence Wilkerson