Will Cuba's Real Enemy Please Stand Up?

The opinion-page essay ``Why Give Castro Another Platform?'' Sept. 1, states: ``The US should take the political offensive. It should argue that it is not an American embargo against Cuba, but Castro's own inept management of an outmoded Marxist system that has brought the Cuban people to their current despair.''

In the next paragraph the author tells us that we shouldn't lift the embargo against Cuba, arguing that this would bring ``badly needed dollars and goods into Cuba.''

Either the embargo is not hurting Cuba economically so there is no reason to maintain it, or it is hurting Cuba, so Fidel Castro Ruz's argument has merit. You can't have it both ways, and any ``political offensive'' would be so transparently flawed as to make us look even sillier than we do now.

The author also tells us that the establishment of a free-market economy in Cuba should be a precondition for normalization of relations. Since when is it the right of a foreign state to dictate the internal economic conditions of a sovereign state?

With this kind of silly logic and disregard for history on the part of successive United States administrations and most of the mainstream American press, it is no wonder that Mr. Castro has been able to ``successfully [outmaneuver] a series of American presidents yet [keep] his people in fear of the American giant.'' Conway B. Leovy, Seattle

Will Cuba's Real Enemy Please Stand Up?

The author discusses reasons for Castro's survival, but he totally ignores the possibility that Castro has been a good leader. For three decades, Cubans were much better off under Castro than they had been previously. Castro elevated health care, housing, and rights to education, and Cubans benefited greatly. Cuba and its experiences are a threat to US policymakers because Americans can see a poor nation providing what they do not have.

The author didn't want to give Castro another platform and he has good reason to worry. Given the opportunity, Castro could point out that the duplicitous US administrations of Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton failed to honor the 1984 agreement signed by Mr. Reagan.

This violation and the US embargo are among the primary causes of the immigration problem today. It's time for the US to get over its snit about Castro and to end its childish embargo against Cuba. By all means, give Castro another platform. Ronald Forthofer, Longmont, Colo.

Will Cuba's Real Enemy Please Stand Up?

I arrived in Miami in March of 1959 after having fled Cuba. It was rare to find a person that spoke Spanish then, and our contacts were with other recent arrivals.

To call the present problem an immigration problem is ludicrous, as it is a continuing refugee problem. If President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno want to call it an immigration problem, so be it. But the fact remains that the only Cuban that has to leave Cuba in order to solve the situation is Castro, and the more pressure that can be put on his regime, the sooner these problems will come to an end.

Economically Cuba will flourish, once the know-how and the capital that is sitting in Miami can come back home. We are near the end of this nightmare and all that we ask for is a little more time and understanding. Once Fidel is gone, no more rafts and no more refugees. Alberto Salas, North Hollywood, Calif.

Will Cuba's Real Enemy Please Stand Up?

Now that ``communism'' is mostly dead, why are we still so worried about Castro's tiny Cuba? Our refugee problem with Cuba seems due in large part to the economic embargoes we inflict upon it, aimed at its leaderships, but striking the poorest of the poor instead. We helped make Cubans' homeland economically uninhabitable, and they, in desperation, reluctantly choose to leave their beloved native land.

Why not lift the embargo and help them to live where they are even if Castro gets some of the credit? Their economy won't really thrive until they get with the market principles, and they can't likely do that without first freeing up their politics. But at least they will be able to survive in their homeland, not impelled to migrate elsewhere.

Let's help Cuba be for the Cubans - it's their home. Carl Baumann, Oswego, N.Y.