It's possible to disagree with the parent commenter without egregiously stuffing words into their mouth. Please read comments charitably.

> I'm surprised your head didn't explode from the irony

Please don't include things like this in comments, it violates the guidelines that ask for civility.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Well, at a minimum you're asking him, in quite an accusing way, to defend against a bunch of things he didn't say. That's pretty close to "putting words in his mouth, but with question marks after them". It's not a fair form of debate, and it's not welcome here.

You said:

> Or you're suggesting that any nation that doesn't act as a puppet of the US should be forced into severe economic sanctions as punishment? In other words, the US should be the only sovereign nation in the world?

That's stuffing words in his mouth, because he literally didn't say anything remotely like that. It's also far more inflamatory than anything he said.

The embargo had little effect, as with embargo Cuba could/was doing business with Spain, several nordic countries, Mexico, various South American countries, etc. It is the retrograde economical system in the island what has caused most of the problem, and that is linked to the political/dictatorial behaviour of the current system.

For the records, I do not agree with the embargo, as I see it as 1) worthless, and 2) only affecting Cubans and Americans (the people).

For the record, the Cuban embargo has been great for Canada. Energy and mining companies (nickel) have done very well without having to compete with American companies and it has been a beautiful low cost vacation destination to one of the safest places in the Carribean. I think the embargo kept Fidel in power. With the US constantly trying to assassinate their head of state, the dismal record with American organized crime, and their multinational corporations already behaving badly, Cuba had an enemy. An enemy + control of the press = a beautiful world for a dictator. Today, much of their infrastructure is a disaster, but they are some of the most enterprising people I have met, reasonably well educated, remarkably socially cohesive and very happy (though ridiculously poor). This can end well, but does require that America finally end the disastrous embargo policy Apologies to Cuban Americans who won't agree because they hate Fidel too much to realize it...