More on Embargo and Baseball

Here's an interesting editorial by the Wall Street Journal titled "End the Embargo", published yesterday.

Their argument to end the embargo, at the surface, is dissapointing for those who believe in clamping down on castro to bring about change. However, the WSJ editorial seems to contradict itself a bit, purposely so. At the very least, it doesn't discount the moral and ethical reasons why some of us advocate a hard line when it comes to dealing with the Havana regime. For that, the WSJ should be given credit. If only most MSM outlets could see the complexities of this issue the way the WSJ does.

As far as the baseball issue is concerned, I generally agree with the article.

H/T Mike Pancier

End the Embargo
Import Cuban baseball.
Friday, January 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

The World Baseball Classic sounds like fun. Now that baseball has been dropped from the Olympics, the new Classic actually offers a more exciting field for international competition. When the series featuring teams from 16 countries begins March 3, America's Major Leaguers will be in the mix for the first time. And now that the issue of Cuba's participation has been settled, it's tempting to sit back and say, "Play ball!"

If only life were that simple for everyone. An article on Major League Baseball's official Web site this week explains that the U.S. Treasury Department initially barred Cuba's team from entering the U.S. to play Classic games because of "financial concerns." That is MLB's delicate obfuscation for the American embargo, in effect for 45 years now, that seeks to keep dollars and other benefits of U.S. trade out of the hands of Cuba's communist dictatorship. The recent flap about Cuba's team playing here, which some found so "petty," was in fact part of a long and morally serious debate about the best way to help the powerless citizens of a repressive totalitarian regime.

We happen to believe that the embargo hasn't worked and that trade and other contacts with the Cuban people are more productive ways to pry open their society and promote freedom there. Yet ending U.S. sanctions won't automatically lift Cubans out of their misery--not as long as Maximum Leader Fidel Castro and his socialist economy are in force. Cuba has always been free to trade with other nations, but it produces little to sell, and few outsiders want to do business there.

It's good, though, that Treasury found a legal way to OK visas for Cuba's baseball players. (Any money they win here will go to Katrina relief.) Cubans back home deserve the thrill of cheering on their team. Entertainment for the rest of us will include watching America's major leagues broken down into competing national components. In fact, so many MLB stars have chosen to play for the country of their birth or family's origin that the U.S. roster resembles a passenger manifest for the Mayflower.

With luck, the Classic will now proceed smoothly. Regrettably, the last time a Cuban team played here, in Baltimore during a 1999 match arranged by Orioles owner Peter Angelos, Americans got a taste of repression, Havana-style. Much of it came from their own side. While Cuban political minders kept their players on tight leashes, Baltimore police cracked down on free speech by U.S. citizens, enforcing a ban against political posters or chants in the stadium, where Immigration Service officials--at Mr. Angelos's request--were not allowed to tread. Later, an Orioles official confirmed that the team had a policy of not hiring Cuban defectors. Under fire for such discrimination, Mr. Angelos backed off by saying that he just didn't want to encourage defectors.

Let's hope that officials at Classic sites in California and Arizona do not take similar steps to appease Fidel. Instead, let's offer all our guests a look at the real America, land of the free.