If you drop chewing gum in Singapore, it's lashes or jail time...If you get caught smuggling dope, it's a potential death sentence. I'm not too sensitive for Mr. Gross. The punishment may not be proportionate, but he should have known better.

We are used to a tolerant and beneficent system.

Cuba is still a police state which is hypersenitive to fears of espionage from the U.S.. That's probably not a completely unjustified fear on their part; regardless and irrespective of our righteous self-view of the U.S. position.

Please don't get me wrong, Castro wasn't and isn't any angel.