You know, your American "Founding Fathers", when they made their revolution, were dead lucky they didn't have a neighbour like the United States.

In normal life it seems pretty clear that if you treat people as enemies, they turn into enemies.

What's happening with these trials is ugly, but in countries under threat from a powerful neighbour, things like that happen. During World War II civil liberties in Britain took a hell of a hammering, and innocent people, including Jewish German refugees, were locked up for years.

I suspect it can only be months before there will be a concerted effort by Bush to "bring about regime change" in Cuba, very probably involving a hi-tech Bay of Pigs. And I can't see that the wishes of the Cuban people, which, as Art said, would surely be for Socialism without Totalitarianism, will be given any more chance than they have been in other countries.