, the US Congress once againincreased the standards Cuba most adhere to for the embargo to be lifted. Itaccomplished this by passing the Helms-Burton Law. Three of the stated purposes of thehelms-Burton Law focus on the democratization of the Cuban government, two deal withprotecting the US, and the last one is concerned with global sanctions. The law alsoincreases the amount of compensation Cuba most pay before the US will drop thesanctions. The Helms-Burton law, by insisting that Cuba pay compensation to over400,000 Cuban Americans, makes it literally impossible for the Cuban state to reach theUSs terms.Embargo supporters claim that sanctions against Cuba must be maintainedbecause Cuba is still a national security threat to the US, however current facts aboutsecurity reveal this to simply be untrue. Initially, Castros socialist platform and alliancewith the Soviet Union did indeed pose a threat to American security. The reason for thisis that the state of international politics in that era was one of bipolarism betweenliberalism and communism. This meant that the US felt that its balance of power in itsown hemisphere was being threatened by the Soviets presence in Cuba. Also theSoviets armament of Cuba posed a severe threat to US security, as was seen during theCuban missile crisis. However, with the fall of the Soviet bloc, Cuba ceased to be anissue of national security. Present day Cuba does not have the economic ability ormilitary ability to be a threat to the US. This conclusion was supposedly supported by aclassified report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1998 (Ratliff and Fontaine31). Many embargo supporters disagree with this statement saying that Cuba is still abase for intelligence activities and that Castro could develop biological weapons to useagainst the US. If these concerns are actually warranted, then would not US security bebetter served by lifting the embargo so that the US intelligence communi...
