* For now, the U.S. State Department will keep intact its list of countries it officially considers state sponsors of terrorism. They remain: Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba. To include Cuba is as ludicrous as it is outrageous. It’s as if “W,” Rummy and Cheney never left, the Cold War never ended and North Korea has never been more of a threat than Cuba.
For the Obama Administration to continue to perpetuate this travesty is unpardonable because it knows better. Yes, there are more important foreign-policy concerns than Cuba. But, no, that is no excuse for not doing the right thing for so many right reasons–including telling Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and fellow vendetta traffickers that they no longer matter, because what’s right for America matters so much more.
I’d rather consider the unbiased input of Col. Larry Wilkerson, a former member of the National Security Council under President George W. Bush and former chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell. “The Pentagon has absolutely no inclination in considering Cuba a threat to the U.S.,” he said in March at a “Rapprochement With Cuba” conference in Tampa. “Quite the opposite. It thinks our policy is preposterously stupid. Hell, they’re (Cuba) not sponsoring revolution. They’re sponsoring health care.”
* The good news: There are now 59 signatures (including that of Congresswoman Kathy Castor) on a letter from House of Representatives members urging President Obama to support travel to Cuba by granting general licenses for ALL current categories of travel. This would basically undermine the onerous Office of Foreign Assets Control and scissor most of the bureaucratic red tape that now complicates licensable travel to Cuba.
The less-than-good news: 376 House members haven’t signed. Moreover, Castor is the only Representative of the 27-member Florida delegation to do so.