The NY Times has another angle on lifting embargo against the Castro regime.  It's those Cubans again – i.e., the ones who don't like the newspaper:

Politics aside, the issue remains deeply personal for the holdouts, Cuban-Americans of that generation say, because it continues to evoke raw feelings about ancestry, homeland and loss.

Those sentiments, which have lasted for more than 50 years, cannot be ignored.

But they should not continue to anchor American policy on a failed course that has strained Washington’s relationship with allies in the hemisphere, prevented robust trade with the island and offered the Cuban government a justification for its failures.

As a Cuban-American, who came here at age 12, I base my opposition to lifting embargo on facts, not emotion.  I look at the issue from the perspective of a U.S. citizen and improving the life of 10 million Cubans who didn't have my luck – who weren't able to leave the island and grow up in freedom.

First, don't be silly about anti-embargo statements from allies in the hemisphere.  Do you really think that Cuba's neighbors want Americans traveling to Cuba rather than Cancún?  There was no Cancún before the embargo.  Mexico, and other Caribbean nations, have benefited a great deal from the embargo.  Again, don't take their criticisms of the embargo too seriously.  They are entertaining leftist elements in their countries.

Second, lifting the embargo will provide only "credit lines" to the Castro regime and zero freedom to Cubans, as Professor Suchlicki pointed out recently:

Money from American tourists would flow into businesses owned by the Castro government thus strengthening state enterprises. The tourist industry is controlled by the military and General Raul Castro.    

Tourist dollars would be spent on products, i.e., rum, tobacco, etc., produced by state enterprises, and tourists would stay in hotels owned partially or wholly by the Cuban government.

The principal airline shuffling tourists around the island, Gaviota, is owned and operated by the Cuban military. 

Third, and finally, trading the "embargo" for Allan Gross's release would be an insult to his family and every political prisoner in the island.

Again, show me a good reason to lift the embargo, and I will listen.  

So far, all I hear from the NY Times is that "everything is America's fault" and the canard that "tourists" will bring change to Cuba.

Change will come to Cuba when the U.S. joins the island's dissidents and squeezes the Castro mafia out of power!

P.S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.