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03/01/13 - Antiwar.com - US: Cuba is a State Sponsor of Terrorism 

Washington refuses to lift the harsh economic embargo on Cuba

 by John Glaser, March 01, 2013 

The United States is grasping at straws in justifying the continued
economic embargo on Cuba by claiming the country is in a category with
Iran, Sudan, and Syria as officially recognized state sponsors of
terrorism.

Washington, of course, refuses to provide any evidence of this, even as the
charge of Cuba's "support for acts of international terrorism" is
increasingly questioned.

Responding to press reports that Obama's new Secretary of State John Kerry
was considering lifting the harsh economic sanctions on Cuba, State
Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland such rumors are false.

"This department has no current plans to remove Cuba from the state sponsor
of terrorism list," said Nuland. "We review this every year, and at the
current moment we - when the last review was done in 2012 -didn't see cause
to remove them."

Cuba has elicited particular ire from Washington ever since the Eisenhower
administration, a byproduct of Cold War justifications for US grand
strategy, which seeks to maintain hegemony and crush economic,
geo-political, or ideological defiance.

The claim of being a state sponsor of terrorism is a mere pretext, a
blanket accusation Washington applies to any government it doesn't like
(and one that ignores America's own history of supporting and carrying out
international terrorism). A State Department report last year found that
Cuba's ties to so-called terrorist groups are tenuous at best.

Cuba has repeatedly reached out Washington, as President Raul Castro did
last summer, insisting that Cuba "is willing to mend fences with bitter
Cold War foe the United States and sit down to discuss anything, as long as
it is a conversation between equals," The Associated Press reported.

"Any day they want, the table is set. This has already been said through
diplomatic channels," Castro said. "If they want to talk, we will talk."

But the Obama administration has refused, intent on continuing to isolate
Cuba and maintain the embargo.