They will tell you the embargo is about "democracy." About "human rights." About the Cuban people’s "freedom." For the Cuban people’s freedom, they have spent 66 years making the Cuban people’s lives harder. For the Cuban people’s freedom, they have blocked medicine and food and economic development. For the Cuban people’s freedom, they have maintained a policy their own analysts say strengthens the government they claim to oppose. If this is what concern for the Cuban people looks like from the outside, one wonders what indifference would look like. The stated rationale and the actual mechanism are in complete contradiction. A policy designed to help a population does not function by harming that population. A policy designed to harm a population until its government changes is not a human rights policy. The cruelty is in the policy. The compassion is in the press release.