Happy Birthday, Cuba (Edit'l) Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [The Toronto Star is a fairly right-wing newspaper but even its editors -- along with much of the tame mainstream press in the US -- cannot stomach the hypocrisy of Bush's "Initiative for a New Cuba."] Toronto Star - May 22, 2002 Happy Birthday, Cuba U.S. President George Bush wished 11 million Cubans nothing but the best Monday on the 100th anniversary of their independence. His appeal to President Fidel Castro to relax his one-party Communist grip is one that most Canadians can heartily endorse. Cubans would be better off with multi-party democracy, a free press, respect for human rights and a market economy -- things we take for granted. Yet an odour of hypocrisy clung to Bush's remarks, cheered though they were by Florida's fiercely anti-Castro Cuban community, who helped catapult Bush into the presidency by a few dangling chads. Washington's crippling trade embargo won't be greatly eased, Bush warned, until Castro embraces the American way of life. And that is where things get whiffy. Americans did a brisk $6 billion two-way trade last year with the "axis of evil" -- Iran, Iraq and North Korea. They did $120 billion worth with China (a one-party Communist state), $19 billion with Saudi Arabia (undemocratic kingdom), $1.5 billion with Vietnam (one-party Communist), even $500 million with Myanmar (repressive military dictatorship). Why continue to impoverish Cubans with a trade embargo? For defying Washington for 41 years. And for Miami votes in a U.S. election year. source - JosePertierra@aol.com ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytmed-05.22.02-23:34:14-14232