Cuban whipping boy.

• Position: United States relations with Cuba

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Just days before the Cuban government shot down two private American Cessna planes flown by an anti-Castro group, the United States was tidying up a much larger catastrophe in the air, one that our own armed forces had created.

On July 3, 1988, the U.S.S. Vincennes shot down a civilian Iran Air Airbus jet over the Persian Gulf. All 290 people aboard were killed.

The Iranian jet was not invading U.S. air space; the Cessna planes were invading Cuba's.

The Iranian jet was not dropping leaflets on the United States, urging American citizens to overthrow the government; the Cessna planes had previously dropped leaflets urging Cubans to "fight for your rights."

The Iranian jet had not been warned by American air-traffic controllers to change course; the Cessnas had been warned by Cuban air-traffic controllers.

The United States has condemned Cuba in the strongest terms for shooting down the Cessnas. At the same time, the United States continues to defend to this day the shooting down of the Iranian Airbus, claiming that the Vincennes was taking "appropriate defensive measures." (To get the matter settled, however, the United States agreed to pay off the families of the Iranian victims.)

The double standard couldn't be more obvious. Nor could the continuing foolishness of U.S. policy toward Cuba.

For thirty-seven years, the U.S. government has been trying to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro instead of respecting its right to self-determination. But the economic embargo, the Bay of Pigs invasion, exploding cigars, fluttering leaflets, and Radio Marti have not succeeded in bringing down Castro. The only thing the U.S. government has accomplished is to make life miserable for the people of Cuba.

Now Clinton wants to make it even more miserable. He is catering to the rightwing Cuban Americans who have dominated U.S. policy toward Havana since the revolution, the very rightwing Cuban Americans who were behind the group called Brothers to the Rescue, which made the Cessna flights.

These were private taunting missions at best, and CIA destabilizing missions at worst, as a former member of the Brothers, who defected to Cuba, now alleges with some justification. The head of the Brothers, after all, was a veteran of the CIA's Bay of Pigs operation.

After the Brothers repeatedly violated Cuban air space, the Cuban government protested to Washington, and put it on notice that Cuba would take "all necessary steps" to halt the...