Hypocrisy and irrelevance

Re “Bush urges Cuba to reform,” Oct. 25

As the Bush administration issues invectives against Cuba and Iran, the world hears only hypocrisy. Both regimes came into being as the result of America’s foreign policy.

In 1959, Cuban revolutionaries overthrew a corrupt military dictatorship backed by the United States as a supplier of cheap products for the American consumer market.

In 1979, Iranian revolutionaries delivered a similar fate to the shah, who was backed by the U.S. and Britain, which had helped overthrow his democratically elected predecessor in 1953.

Having long denied the people of Cuba and Iran the basic right of self-determination, and having ultimately lost in both cases to revolutionaries who in spite of all excesses still enjoy broad support among those they rule, the United States talks today of freedom and democracy. I suspect few are listening.

Mark C. Eades

Oakland

--

The degree of hypocrisy and lack of responsibility shown by the president is only surpassed by the giant irrelevance of the United States’ attempts to influence Cuban reality. Aren’t Bush’s comments shameful by wishing to provide Cubans with freedom while preventing Cuban Americans in the United States from visiting their families? Isn’t it irresponsible of Bush to call for changes in Cuba while disregarding the stability and welfare of the Cuban people? Is the president suggesting a recipe for Cuba similar to Iraq?

The people of the U.S., Cuba and the rest of the world wait for a transition -- not for the one on the streets of Havana but the one happening in the U.S. after the presidential election.

Carlos Lazo

Lynwood