Pot calls kettle repressive
Though American politicians are presently oversupplied with foreign enemies, Fidel Castro has obligingly given them another target: his crackdown on dissidents resulted in prison terms of up to 25 years for some of his political opponents. The House of Representatives has unanimously voted to condemn the repression. There were cries of outrage from Florida Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, and New Jersey Reps Robert Menendez and Republican Chris Smith, in particular.
Each of these four hypocrites was among the 356 Representatives who voted for the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act without first reading it. That law provides for life imprisonment for terrorism offenses, which are defined so broadly as to include just the kind of free speech activities that landed the pro-democracy Cubans in prison.