More Than Just the Cigars.

If I may be so bold as to ask an unpolitically correct question: Why are we still enforcing a trade embargo against Cuba?

Seriously, I think of myself as one of an entire generation of younger-than-thirty-somethings who have no real clue why we can import and export with Communist China, can forgive East Berlin all its former evil doings, can now sit across the table from a Russian Parliment, are making amends with Pakistan, in discussions with Syria, and are best friends with the only Country ever nuked (and by us no less) and here we're still holding a grudge against Cuba.

A 40+-year trade embargo. Wow! And why; why 40+ years? What speical form of current threats are the Cubans poised to unleash on America that hold us to this embargo? If it's because they're communist, what about China? They're communist, too, and yet we trade with them to the tune of billions of dollars. Ah! Is it because they're broke? Well, so are Canada and Mexico and we still like them.

Yes, I understand there was a missile crisis some four decades ago. There were a lot of nasty things going on over the past forty years : a War in Korea was just cooling, a War in Vietnam was just heating up, there were plane hijackings and hostage takings in the 70's, the Cold War was prevalent throughout at least half of this time period, skirmishes in Panama, a US raid on Somalia, War in Iraq (x2), Palestine vs. Israel... a whole bunch of mean and nasty things going on in the world and here we are sitting on this grudge against a very small, very poor, and very near-by country.

What am I missing?