: >> DONT LUMP CUBA IN WITH THE PRETENDERS SUCH AS CHINA OR, PREVIOUSLY, THE USSR.: Ok, I admit it. I've been guilty of this generalization, because I've never looked carefully into the situation in Cuba (which I shall do). This assertation of your would indeed explain why the US is so cozy with China and still so afraid of Cuba!
It's possible that much of the Federal Government's Cuba-phobia has to do with the position of Cuban emigres within the Federal Government's own covert organizational structure. When Castro took over, the Mafia gambling connections in Havana were forced to move to Miami, and later many of these people were employed by the CIA to control the international drug trade (i.e. the Secret Team) and as accomplices in the conspiracy to assassinate JFK.
Keep in mind that one of the goals of almost all of the Cuban community in Miami is to go back to Havana as conquering victors, and that it's also quite likely that these people are being given positions of power within the Secret Team. And the Secret Team enforces the loyalty of all those who have been given the security clearances to know what the CIA, the NSA etc. is really doing in the world. So the reason why Cuba is a US enemy may have more to do with the struggle for power within Cuban politics itself, rather than with any purely American ideological opposition to Castro's rule.
