1115.org

Last time we checked, Vietnam was still considered as one of the few remaining Communist countries. But somehow that didn’t stop its prime minister from visiting Washington DC last week, where he met with President Bush in the Oval Office and discussed issues such as expanding religious freedoms, recovering the remains of US servicemen and Vietnam’s impending entry into the World Trade Organization. Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam war, and 10 years after diplomatic relations were restored between Hanoi and Washington, the meeting affirmed how former enemies could move past their animosity to forge new relationships.

In the year 2005, America no longer has to fear the red menace; you can easily buy a Big Mac in most of the few remaining Communist countries. But while we happily make political and financial inroads into countries such as Vietnam or China, for a certain nation the calendar will always be set at 1959. Of course, I’m referring to Cuba, who has been on America’s shit list since Cadillacs sported tailfins. As recently as last year, we tightened the sanctions on Cuba by severely restricting travel to a period of once every three years; theoretically, this is supposed to be the straw that breaks Fidel Castro’s back once and for all. But, as expected, the policy has wound up hurting more people than nasty old Fidel:

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday rejected a proposal to ease American travel restrictions to Cuba that would have allowed a Cuban-American veteran of the Iraq war to visit his ill son.
A majority of senators supported the idea to open travel to Cuba when humanitarian concerns were at play, voting 60-35 for the measure, but under a Senate agreement, two-thirds of senators, or 67, were needed to win passage of the measure.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, proposed the legislation, attached to an unrelated spending bill, to help Sgt. Carlos Lazo travel to Havana to visit his 16-year-old son. It would also have helped others in Lazo’s situation.

Dorgan said it was unforgivable that an Iraq war veteran was being barred from visiting his sick son.

Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican, countered that it was “a good thing” that hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars were not flowing into Cuba because of travel restrictions.

Lazo, who fled Cuba on a raft in 1992, according to an aide to Dorgan, was deployed to Iraq in March, 2004. The decorated soldier returned to the United States last June.

Almost exactly a year ago, we wrote a post that asked why American can’t seem to move beyond it’s animosity toward Fidel Castro, and why we still devote so much time and energy putting the screws to a country that is absolutely of no threat to us. The answer, of course, is because politicians don’t want to piss off the influential Cuban-American population of Florida, who fled to America when Castro came to power and never stopped obsessing over it. Considering how crucial Florida is to the ambitions of both parties, no one has the stones to stand up and say that enough is enough. And, ultimately, the Senate didn’t have the stones to support Carlos Lazo for fear of interrupting this pointless vendetta against Castro. It’s pathetic.

America has a rich history of reaching out to past enemies and building strong relationships from the wreckage — just ask Japan, Germany, Russia, Vietnam, China, Spain, Mexico or even England. But we will never forgive Fidel Castro, and whoever is impacted by our myriad embargos and restrictions on Cuba is simply out of luck. It makes perfect sense.

But at least certain groups in Florida are happy. That’s all that matters, right?