Monday, June 13, 2005
On this day:

National Summit on Cuba

The National Summit on Cuba was held in Mobile this weekend in spite of the bad weather due to Tropical Storm Arlene. (See the Mobile Register here and here.) Seems that it turned out quite as expected - with Castro apologists fully in charge of the agenda.

The ostensible aim of the summit was to promote an end to the American embargo. The issue of trade with Cuba is a complicated one, even for conservatives, and it deserves an appropriate level of attention. However, it's unfortunate that this weekend's summit only told one side of the story, in the end amounting to little more than a forum for airing pro-Castro propaganda.

Dennis Hays is a former ambassador who was "disinvited" from the summit due to his anti-Castro views. (See here.) In this piece he wrote for the Mobile Register, he discusses why doing business with Cuba may not be such a great thing, after all.