• Submitted by: manso
• Politics and Government
• 01 / 20 / 2011

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January 20, 2011. It was late last week when the White House signaled a long-awaited change in this country's Cuba policy. This move has a lot of people cheering on both sides of the Florida Straits.

President Barack Obama ordered administration officials "to take a series of steps to continue efforts to reach out to the Cuban people in support of their desire to freely determine their country's future," the White House news release declared.

The steps, which relax restrictions on travel and money transfers to Cuba, moves this nation closer to a rational foreign policy toward the communist state, which a succession of U.S. governments have tried to topple since 1959.

Cuba is the last Cold War battleground where the United States is not just at loggerheads with an old Soviet client state but is actively trying to undermine the government. Our obsession with regime change in Havana has been fueled more by domestic politics (pandering for votes among anti-Castro Cubans in south Florida) than a well-reasoned foreign policy.

Obama's decision to relax the ban on Americans traveling to Cuba is an act of political courage and good sense. Under the new rules, it will be easier for academics, students, religious groups and journalists to travel to Cuba. Also, when this change takes effect in a couple of weeks, Americans can send up to $2,000 a year to someone in Cuba as long as that person is not a senior member of the Cuban government or the Communist Party.

Under the old rules, Cuban Americans had unlimited freedom to travel to Cuba and send money to people there. Other Americans were prohibited from sending money and severely restricted from visiting.

The travel ban, its supporters have long argued, is necessary to keep dollars out of the coffers of the Castro government. That's laughable given the exception made for Cuban Americans. But what the ban effectively has done is reward the families of the white Cubans who disproportionately immigrate to the U.S.

Not surprisingly, there is little support in Cuba for the trade embargo and travel ban that have defined America's relationship with Cuba for five decades.

The vast majority of Cubans whom I've met during my many reporting trips to Cuba — including those who oppose the government dislike the travel ban and trade embargo. Keeping Cuba sealed off from the American people and U.S. businesses does little to alter the politics of that nation. What it does do is keep Cuba and the United States locked into a foolish Cold War standoff.

Wisely, albeit deliberately, Obama is rolling back this bad policy.

Source: www.dailyrecord.com/article/20110120/OPINION03/110119040/-1/