Ambassador Armando Valladares, who was himself a prisoner of Castro and, upon his release was made out Ambassador to the Human rights Commission, takes up the case of Alan Gross, an American being held in Cuban prisons as a hostage to Castro's demands for more concessions from a spineless administration.

His unfortunately too true observation deserves wider coverage than it's getting:

The White House has abandoned you. It does not matter to them that you may be very ill and slowly dying.

It does not matter to them that your daughter has cancer, or that your wife, too, is ill.

The American president, who has made a habit of publicly bowing to foreign powers, bows to your torturers and would-be executioners. Meanwhile, the adult daughter of Cuba's dictator recently visited the U.S. to applaud and show her support for President Obama. She receives a visa to come to the United States and a Secret Service escort. And you? You suffer the torture of imprisonment.

The Obama administration must step up its efforts to press for your release through its diplomatic channels. Should those diplomatic efforts fail, then they must be followed by real action, including the suspension of flights and remittances to Cuba until such time as you are allowed to return to the United States. If the Obama administration even threatened to do this it is my considered judgment that you would be on the next flight back to your home in Washington, D.C.

Only with real action will your freedom be secured. Unfortunately, if past is prologue, such action is unlikely to ever happen with this administration.