Editor, Gazette-Journal:

The sudden announcement by Barack Obama of the recognition and establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba and the Castro brothers’ regime belies the cause of human rights and slams shut the lid on the coffin of American exceptionalism. This totalitarian regime, just 90 miles from our shores, has firmly established itself as a grotesque violator of human rights every bit as virulently despotic as that of Mao’s China or Pol Pot’s Cambodia.

The regime of the Castro brothers has a long and pronounced record of torturing and killing Americans. During the Vietnam War, Fidel Castro sent his henchmen to North Vietnam to conduct interrogation and torture of American POWs. This torture occurred at the CuLoc Prisoner of War Camp in Hanoi. The torture and interrogation of Americans by Castro’s Cubans was referred to by the Army of North Vietnam as the “Cuban Program.” Americans simply referred to it as “The Zoo.”

The ...