There is a great piece today from Ambassador Everett "Ted" Ellis Brigs on Capital Hill Cubans. The ambassador reminds his readers who is really behind the embargo against the people of Cuba. It is a truth that is hard to swallow for the opportunists out there who want to make a buck off the blood and sweat of the enslaved Cuban people. And even more difficult to swallow for the Castro apologists out there.

My father was a U.S. diplomat stationed in Cuba when I was born. Thus I am an American by birth who spent my life as an American diplomat serving in many countries, including Portugal, Honduras, and Panama where I was the American ambassador.

Because we lived in Cuba for many years, I have remained interested in the island's affairs.

I attended this month's House Foreign Affairs Committee hearings on whether to lift restrictions on tourist travel to Cuba. Many in Congress, who favor a softer U.S. policy, argue we should neither demand nor expect anything in return from the Castro regime for lifting what remains of the U.S. embargo. It doesn't bother them that Havana rejected President Obama's request, when he lifted restrictions on remittances and family visits, that Cuba respond by releasing its political prisoners.

In fact, it is misleading to continue to call U.S. restrictions on commercial dealings with Cuba an "embargo." Today's restrictions aim not to undermine the regime, but rather to avoid financing its longevity, and they do so without harm to the Cuban people.

That's because the hardships of Cuban life don't stem from the U.S. "embargo." They stem from the mind-numbing economic and heavy-handed political policies of Cuba's communist regime.

You can read the entire piece HERE.