the funny thing is that until i was a senior in high school (okay,so that was two years ago) i had no idea that cuba had such a bustling tourist trade. the entire reason we don't lift sanctions is it makes the boys in dc feel big. of course, if you wanted to be sly about it, you could argue that lifting the sanctions would allow all sorts of american tourists in and then the cubans would see how "wonderful" our democratic (mostly) government is. (insert sarcasm) because, or course, no one would want to live in a country where over 90% of the adult population is literate.