Cuba Overwhelmed With Tourists

Obama Today Eases Embargo

{Tuesday, January 26th, 2015}

Photo courtesy: Reuters/Alexandre Meneghini.

         This photo of vintage American cars in old Havana was used to illustrate a major article by Reuters today -- Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. The article is entitled: "Surge of Americans Tests Limits of Cuba's Tourism Industry." The article stated: "Cuba's tourism industry is under unprecedented strains and struggling to meet demand with record numbers of visitors arriving a year after the United States renewed interest in the Caribbean island. It's tropical weather, rich musical traditions, famed cigars and classic cars were for decades off limits to most Americans under Cold War-era sanctions but those restrictions are fading. Once a rare sight, Americans are now swarming old Havana along with Europeans and Canadians. 3.52 million tourists visited Cuba in 2015, including 161,000 Americans, and that's not counting hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans." Charter flights, inconvenient and expensive to book, are the way Americans have been going to Cuba but Reuters said "commercial and ferry services are due to start this year."

         This photo of a Cuban flag on a car is courtesy of Carlos Garcia Rawlins and was used to illustrate yet another major Reuters article today, this one entitled: "U. S. Eases Air Travel, Export Financing Sanctions On Cuba." The article stated: "The United States on Tuesday {today} announced changes to its sanctions on Cuba, lifting export payments and financing restrictions and facilitating airline travel in Washington's very latest moves to ease the U. S. embargo."

   When it comes to Cuba, President Barack Obama has displayed more guts, more intelligence, and more decency than the previous ten U. S. Presidents combined. Today's new lifting of sanctions continue to slice into the egregious tenets of the U. S. embargo against Cuba that has, in the eyes of the world, shamed the U. S. since 1962. A few Cuban-American zealots aligned with the necessary right-wing sycophants in the U. S. Congress maintained, for all those decades, an embargo that the rest of the world, as validated by the yearly vote in the United Nations, abhorred along with democracy-lovers everywhere. Till Obama, no President was smart enough or brave enough to seriously challenge the self-serving grip Miami hard-liners and Congress have on a policy that denigrates the image of the U. S. while gaining pugnacious Cuba much international support.

Rosy-checked little Cuban girls should not be punished by embargoes.

President Obama agrees.

His enemies disagree.

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