Cuba: Ending 50 years of failed policy

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/joe-conason-ending-a-cuba-policy-that-s-failed-for-50-years

JOE CONASON ON BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
(Photo: Gardenparty)Listen carefully to the Republican leaders and presidential hopefuls roaring with outrage over President Barack Obama's courageous decision to normalize relations with Cuba; listen very carefully, because no matter how long or how closely you listen to them, there is one thing you will surely never hear.
You will never hear a new idea — or any idea — about bringing liberty, democracy and prosperity to the suffering Cuban people.
Instead, the furious denunciations of the president's initiative from his adversaries reveal only an intellectual void on Capitol Hill, where the imperatives remain partisan and cynical. Everyone paying attention has known for decades that the frozen relationship between the United States and Cuba has accomplished nothing — except possibly the prolongation of the Castro regime, which has long considered the embargo a plausible excuse for its own economic failures and viewed the United States as a politically convenient enemy.