Secretary Gutierrez on Cuba Solidarity Day

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez appeared on CNN today promoting Cuba Solidarity Day. AFP has an article about it here.
What pisses me off is this passage:

Gutierrez appeared to back the embargo policy he argued was “designed to deny resources from a country that is a state sponsor of terrorism,” though he did not detail on what basis Washington believes Havana has any terror links.

The dingbat that wrote that could have easily found the page about Cuba on the State Department web site:

The Cuban government continued to permit more than 70 U.S. fugitives to live legally in Cuba and refused almost all U.S. requests for their return. These U.S. fugitives include convicted murderers (two of them killed police officers) as well as numerous hijackers, most of whom entered Cuba in the 1970s.

Then there’s this from the AFP article:

“The problem isn’t the US policy. The problem is communism. It doesn’t work. The problem is the policies in Cuba, the repression, the fear. … I think the question that should be asked is, when are they going to change?”
Gutierrez did not question communism in key US trade partner China.

This is something that gets thrown around all the time, but it should be obvious that China is communist in name only today. The heart of China’s economy is capitalist. With its authoritarian government it is closer to fascist than communist. But don’t let the details trouble you there, anonymous AFP reporter.