Correa Condemns U.S. Blockade of Cuba at Inter-Parliamentary Meeting

[Jim Lane]

9. It's misleading to call this a blockade. It's an embargo, which is much less provocative.

The title of the thread made me think, "Whoa, when did we resume blockading Cuba? Are we back in October 1962?"

It would be a blockade if the U.S. Navy intercepted ships bound to or from Cuba and turned them away. What the U.S. government actually does is to prohibit U.S. companies and their foreign subsidiaries from doing business with Cuba, with limited humanitarian exceptions. Ecuador and other countries can and do trade with Cuba with no interference.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the embargo makes sense, especially considering some of the regimes that we don't embargo. My objection is merely that the word "blockade" conjures up an image of the Navy stopping Ecuadorian ships and preventing them from reaching Cuba, which I think could be considered an act of war.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the countries denouncing this so-called "blockade" were then doing precisely the same thing with regard to Israel -- that is, an embargo that affects their own citizens but doesn't affect corporations based elsewhere.