[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 31 (Tuesday, February 26, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H1033]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   FREEDOM FOR CUBA IS A WORTHY GOAL

  Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, just 2 days ago, we witnessed a transition 
of power in Cuba. It is no surprise that the new government in Cuba 
looks a lot like the old. It's time for a get-tough policy on Cuba. 
It's time to end the isolation that has been both a friend and an 
enabler to decades of oppression. This isolation has given the Cuban 
Government a convenient scapegoat for the failure of socialism. We 
should not give Raul Castro the same benefits that we gave his brother 
Fidel. We cannot continue to be the Goliath to their David.
  For too long, U.S. policy toward Cuba has missed the island by about 
90 miles. Our Cuba policy, under both Republican and Democratic 
administrations, has been more about Florida than about Cuba, more 
about securing votes in Miami than securing the right to vote in 
Havana.
  Madam Speaker, we are too great a country than to deny Cuban American 
families the right to visit family members in Cuba. We are too great a 
country than to deny our own citizens the right to travel to the island 
and to give aid and comfort to those who have endured decades of 
oppression.
  Freedom in Cuba is a worthy goal, a goal that would perhaps be more 
easily achieved if we practice a little more of it ourselves.

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