Yup, the only impediment is the fact that Cuban pesos can't buy a damned thing on the world market.

Everything that Castro does is intended as propaganda and what urks me the most is that there is no consistency. Take for instance Castro's claims that the "BLOCKADE" is killing Cuba's children because essential drugs are prevented from entering Cuba [to start with this is false, because foods and medicines are exempted from the embargo], on the one hand, Castro and his cronies promote Cuba as this medical miracle with more doctors per capita than any country in the world and with an incredible pharmaceutical industry that creates life saving vaccinations against everything from influenzia to AIDs, but, on the other hand, when its convenient to his argument, Cuba is nothing more than a helpless little wee bit island that is at the mercy of the USA's medical establishment.

I remember several years ago how Castro's cronies in the USA were editorializing about how Cuban children didn't have paper to write on becuase of the embargo, and then OVER NIGHT quicker than you can bat an eye, Castro organized these forced demonstrations on El Malecon where thousands of people were holding professionally made Bring Elian back to Cuba posters. Of course, this little descrepency didn't seem to bother Castro's cronies one bit.

Now I see that the latest lame story is this braille canard. As I mentioned earlier, medical goods are exempted from the embargo, but so are educational goods and braille instructions would fall under that, so I don't see how our embargo is preventing braille supplies from entering Cuba, except in the mind of a Castro apologist hoping to score sympathy points for the poor "blockade" beseiged beast.

Cuba has full diplomatic and economic relations with every major nation in the world, except the U.S. Why can't Castro survive without the hated "Yankee imperialists"?
The embargo was put in place after Castro expropriated more than $2.4 billion in U.S. assets on the island during 1960-61. It was the largest seizure of U.S. property in history. Castro refuses to make ammends for those illegal seizures.
The U.S. renewed relations with China in 1978 after China agreed to pay back 48 cents on the dollar for all U.S. property confiscated in 1949. Vietnam also made an economic agreement with the U.S. for confiscated property before renewing relations.
Castro has made ammends with Canada and Spain for the property he seized from their nationals. In 1986, Castro made an agreement with Spanish Primer Minister Felipe Gonzalez to repay the assets lost by the gallegos in Cuba. The Gonzalez government then paid off the claims of its citizens, but Castro repaid only a fraction of the full amount by sending Spain shiploads of chatarra and caramelos viejos. No kidding! Castro is not paying off the interest on Cuba's foreign loans, inspite of the dollars he is making by reselling Venezuelan petroleum.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Castro held a fire sale with U.S. assets on the island to Europeans corporations. The Helms-Burton Act was supposed to prosecute those people buying American stolen property, but Clinton and Bush refused to enforce Titles III and IV of the act, that gives it vigor. Bush has not mentioned the Helms-Burton Act since being in office.

I worked in wholesale export distribution of computer hardware and software during the 80's and 90's. The US and the Commerce Dept had a hard-on about computer exports in those days because the technology was new and they wanted to enforce export regulations to non-friendly countries. The Cubans bypassed this by buying from Mexico and Panama who in turn purchased from the US (Miami). Commerce would get wind of this but if was difficult for them to stop the exports or make cases against middlemen in other countries. Cuba never had a problem getting the latest stuff...they just paid more.