Cuba Doesn't Belong on New Screening List

The terrorist threat from Cuba “can be measured at precisely zero,” Eugene Robinson writes, so why did it make the list of nations whose residents will get extra screening at airports? The answer is simple, and ridiculous: The US persists in considering Cuba a “state sponsor of terrorism,” along with the likes of Iran and Pakistan. That is “simply laughable.”

“There is no history of radical Islam in Cuba,” Robinson writes in the Washington Post. It has “to be among the last places on Earth where al-Qaeda would try to establish a cell, let alone plan and launch an attack.” Why? Because Cuba “is one of the most tightly locked-down societies in the world.” We should be trying to change that, not worrying about a bogus threat. Change the Cuba policy, President Obama, and stop pretending “looking for al-Qaeda terrorists on flights from Cuba is anything but a big waste of time.” (More Cuba stories.)