During World War II, Germany attempted to conquer the western world and Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor. The U.S. spent billions of dollars to defeat them, and hundreds of thousands of our best were killed or wounded. We then invested billions to rebuild those countries, their economy and infrastructure. Both are now giants in the world economy.

We invaded Iraq twice: once with a justifiable reason, while the second was based on a sham. The second war cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, thousands of Americans killed and wounded and more than a trillion dollars spent with much more to come.

Then there is Cuba, whose leaders decided to become a Marxist nation. Cuba did not invade us. It did not start a war. We suffered no dead and wounded. We did not spend billions to rebuild the country after destroying it. Yet we embargoed the country and isolated its people for 50 years. (We did the same to thousands of Japanese Americans during WWII.)

Considering our past, Cuba would have fared better if it had launched its Russian missiles at us. Perhaps it’s time to treat them as well as we did our real enemies.

Ronald J. Chayer

Sidney