Tom Casey, off the reservation

Why should Americans be permitted to travel freely to Cuba?

It would emulate the policies we pursued toward Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union – including through the Helsinki accords, which we judged to be in our interest even though we knew full well that the communist countries would not comply with all their terms – that democrats in those countries welcomed and believe contributed to their success.

It would foster communication, freeing universities, charities, churches, and citizens – left, right, and center – to exchange information, ideas, and arguments with Cubans in and out of government who constitute the post-Castro Cuba that we want to influence. It would stop our reliance on government programs, government grantees, and government-licensed travelers to communicate with Cuba.

It would bury the Administration’s pretense that sanctions, aid to dis- sidents, and broad- casts are going to change Cuba’s political order, and it would put us more realistically in a play for long-term influence.

It would increase American knowledge of a place we all care so much about. It would take a big chunk out of the Cuban government’s argument that the United States is the enemy.

If your supreme goal is to deliver aid to Cuban dissidents, it would achieve that far better than the current government system, which operates with the efficiency of Amtrak, the speed of the U.S. Congress, the frugality of our Department of Agriculture, the accounting standards of Enron, and the discretion of Britney Spears.

It would increase the income of lots of average Cubans in the tourism industry and in private businesses, both legal and black market, improving their living standards and their independence. It would enable lots more Cubans to enter private business.

It would increase the government’s income, but considering that Cuba’s economy is growing now at a 9.5 percent clip, it would make no decisive difference at the margin.

It would end the bizarre system of travel licensing that requires, for example, that if you want to donate Bibles or baseballs to a Cuban church, you need a license from one federal agency to travel and another license from another agency to “export” your donation. It would end the restrictions on family visits – can anyone think of another case where America has targeted economic sanctions against families to reduce their contacts and acts of charity? – that make even the strongest supporters of the embargo wince.

It would heed the advice of Pope John Paul II – “Open the doors to Cuba” – and that of Cuba’s Catholic bishops and many dissidents. (Have you noticed that neither Havel nor the Eastern European governments and NGO’s that work on Cuba issues – whose experience with communism is manifest – have ever endorsed American travel restrictions or called on other countries to adopt them?)

It would create a situation where all the restrictions on travel are imposed by the communist government, and none by the government that leads the free world, which would kind of make intuitive sense. It would have zero opportunity cost for Washington, and it would not threaten the part of U.S. policy that is strong, which is its human rights advocacy.

One could even argue that it would strengthen that advocacy. To wit: It would allow State Department spokesman Tom Casey to say what he said on Tuesday, invoking a basic freedom that the Cuban government denies, and be taken seriously:

"Well, look, the leading cause of instability and misery in Cuba is the Cuban Government and whether it’s Fidel Castro or Raul Castro, the problems in Cuba will only continue so long as there is a dictatorship in power that doesn’t give people the right to freely choose their government, to decide how they want to live, and to freely travel."