With No End In Sight
{Saturday, May 10th, 2014}
{Saturday, May 10th, 2014}
Photos are worth a thousand words, at least. The one above might make you cry, but it is worth studying. Torero Alvaro Munera was one of the world's best and highest paid bullfighters. But in the midst of a fight, he collapsed from remorse. Even though he had plunged a sword very painfully deep between the bull's shoulder blades, he could not get the gentile beast to fight him. After he collapsed and sat in a very vulnerable position on the cement, the taunted bull did not take advantage of his plight. Instead, the animal seemed to offer him sympathy. After this true event, Alvaro Munera retired as a matador and now spends his life as a powerful opponent of bullfighting. His is a lesson, I believe, we all should learn from and heed in a troubled world where many people acquire money and fame by administering pain to those who are more vulnerable. This matador at least had a conscience.
The logo above identifies a travel agency in Argentina. This week it paid the United States millions of dollars because it allegedly violated provisions of the U. S. embargo against Cuba. Last week a travel agency in Holland paid millions of dollars to the U. S. for allegedly violating the same provisions. Yes, foreign companies such as "Despegar" regularly pay the fines because the United States is the world's economic and military superpower and such global companies need to comply in order to exist. Of course, Americans are not told exactly what is done with such gifts to the U. S. Treasury, nor should they. Americans since 1959 have accepted draconian laws dictated by a handful of exiles from Cuba's Batista-Mafia dictatorship, which was overthrown -- with justification -- way back in 1959 by the Cuban Revolution. Since then, Miami's war to recapture Havana has been waged not from Cuban soil but from U. S. soil and paid for by U. S. tax dollars. In the process, exiles freely dictate their own self-serving ideas of democracy. This war from U. S. soil also targets other sovereign nations, such as Argentina and Holland in the past week. Primarily to further the six-decades-old quest to starve and recapture Cuba, the U. S. regularly fines international banking giants hundreds of millions of dollars, which are ponied up just as small companies like Despegar pony up millions of dollars. Most Americans, including Cuban Americans in Miami, oppose the Embargo. Moreover, each October at the United Nations the entire world registers its strong opposition to the Cuban embargo. Yet it has persisted since 1962, shaming Democracy to benefit only an unconscionable few. Thus, the majority of good people need to be remorseful, like the bullfighter.
Despite all of these facts that the Argentine company was just saddled with, Barack Obama is the 11th consecutive U. S. President that has, either willingly or unwillingly, been forced to march to the tunes {above} dictated by a handful of two generations of Cuban exiles and their sycophants. For almost six decades, those facts have been illustrated on a daily basis by such things as the U. S. punishing foreign sovereign nations to comply with American laws dictated by a few self-serving exiles trying to regain control of a nearby island that, for seven centuries, was ravaged by domestic and imperialist scavengers.
It is an uncontested fact that Miami has targeted Havana on a daily basis since January of 1959, the month the Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. It is also well known that Havana, while stubbornly maintaining its sovereignty, has chosen to remain on the defensive because it did not desire to provoke the incomparably powerful United States into an all-out military attack. Moreover, it has always been apparent, in Cuba's eyes, that the rich and powerful forces that regrouped in Miami have continued to have the support or at least the tacit approval of the U. S. government, both its unmatched treasury and its omnipotent military. A news conference this week -- May 7, 2014 -- in Havana revealed that to this day, after all these decades, the Miami vs. Havana war is still very much ongoing.
Any American who has not read Ann Louise Bardach's seminal book -- "CUBA CONFIDENTIAL: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana" -- probably does not have a clue as to what has transpired between Miami and Havana since 1959 till this very day. Ms. Bardach, better and braver than anyone else, has explained in minute detail how the improbable victory of the Cuban Revolution created a Cuban government-in-exile that possessed, from U. S. soil, both the extreme motivation and the presumed wherewithal to quickly recapture Cuba. Ms. Bardach also explains how the Cuban government-in-exile, headquartered in Miami, spread its tentacles to Washington with the help of politicos such as Richard Nixon, the Bush dynasty, Robert Torricelli, Jesse Helms, Dan Burton, etc. In that manner, as accurately depicted by Ms. Bardach, the Cuban government-in-exile has been able to craft its own laws and dip into the U. S. treasury whenever it chooses. Yet, with no holds barred and with overwhelming and unchecked forces, the Cuban government-in-exile has been unable, for going on six decades now, to recapture Cuba. Ms. Bardach, in many books and essays, is also the very best at explaining why all that is so.
Andrea Rodriguez is an excellent journalist stationed at the Associated Press bureau in Havana. She covered a major news conference this week -- May 7th -- at Cuba's Ministry of the Interior. Her report flashed around the world, starting with this sentence: "Four Cuban exiles from Miami are being held for planning 'terrorist actions' against military targets on the island." Ms. Rodriguez identified the four men as Jose Ortega Amador, Obdulio Rodriguez Gonzalez, Raibel Pacheco Santos and Felix Munzon Alvarez. Ms. Rodriguez added: "The Cuban ministry said it was reaching out to U. S. authorities to investigate." The AP article also indicated that Cuba has turned over information to the U. S. regarding who Cuba believes "masterminded" the plot and, interestingly enough, the masterminds, according to Cuba, were Santiago Alvarez, Osvaldo Mitat and Manuel Alzugaray of Miami -- three well known men that the AP said were "linked to perhaps the best known militant exile, Luis Posada Carriles, whom Cuba and Venezuela have sought to prosecute for a 1976 airliner bombing that killed 73 people..."
To this day, memorials like this in Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean and Latin America pay tribute to the 73 victims aboard the bombed Cubana Flight 455. Luis Posada Carriles, a highly trained CIA explosives expert, has openly admitted to terrorist acts against Cuba, including a hotel bombing in Havana that killed an Italian tourist. In a famous New York Times interview conducted by Ann Louis Bardach, Posada Carriles admitted his part in the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 but later recanted that admission.
Luis Posada Carriles to this day is a celebrated and very free citizen of Miami. Peter Kornbluh's U. S. Security Archives uses many declassified U. S. documents that tie him to terrorist acts against Cuba. Investigative journalist Tracey Eaton secured the above declassified document in which question #10 from the U. S. to Posada Carriles was: "Have you EVER advocated...the overthrow of any government by force or violence?" In his own handwriting, Posada Carriles answered: "Many times." The Associated Press article this week reported that two famous Miami Cuban exiles -- Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat -- that long have been "linked" to Posada Carriles were also blamed by Cuba yesterday for the latest terrorist plot. The AP said: "Santiago Alvarez and Mitat pleaded guilty in 2006 in the United States to conspiracy after an informant tipped the FBI that a large cache of weapons, including machine guns and a grenade launcher, was being moved from an apartment Alvarez owned. A subsequent search of a storage area at the apartment revealed more weapons and thousands of bullets. Another arms cache was found in the Bahamas, including C-4 plastic explosives, which prosecutors claimed was linked to Alvarez. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and Mitat got a two-year sentence. Contacted Wednesday, Santiago Alvarez denied involvement in any plot and said he did not know the detained men. He said he rarely speaks to Posada Carriles and only sees Mitat occasionally. Posada Carriles declined to comment." {Exact quotes, Associated Press, 05-07-2014}
Cuba maintains that some 3,500 Cuban civilians have been murdered or severely maimed by Cuban-exile terrorist acts directed from Miami -- terrorism that includes shootings and bombs as well as machine-gun and cannon fire from both airplanes and speed boats. The lady speaking above is Nancy Pavon. When she was a teenager, she was in a coastal fishing cabin that was strafed by cannon-fire from two huge speed boats that then had a media-covered celebratory docking back in Miami. Two people were killed. Nancy lost a leg, which means she was one of the luckier victims of persistent terrorism against Cuba.
Speaking for the U. S. State Department this week, Jen Psaki told the Associated Press, "We have seen the statement by the Cuban Ministry of Interior. We don't have any further information at this time. The Cuban government has also not been in touch with us yet on these cases." However, Cuba -- according to the AP -- had indeed provided data to the U. S. and asked "U. S. authorities to investigate." In the past, the U. S. government -- including instances of aircraft from Miami intimidatingly flying over the Cuban mainland -- has confirmed Cuba's cooperation in seeking U. S. help in such matters. {AP quotes from 05-07-2014}
The May 7th AP article said that "Posada Carriles declined to comment" about this latest alleged plot against Cuba. However, his longtime powerful lawyer, Arturo Hernandez, did respond. That's Mr. Hernandez on the left of Posada Carriles in the above photo. Mr. Hernandez told the AP yesterday: "We categorically deny that Luis has absolutely anything to do with this or has any knowledge of any of these individuals who were allegedly arrested in Cuba." {Associated Press quotes from 05-07-2014}
The above photo shows Luis Posada Carriles being honored at a function in Miami. In the famous New York Times interview conducted by Ann Louise Bardach, Posada Carriles graciously thanked the Bush dynasty's favorite exile Jorge Mas Canosa, the Cuban American National Foundation, and the American taxpayers for the training and support they provided him over the years in his war against Castro.
SINCE 1959 THE POSADA CARRILES WAR HAS INVOLVED ALL AMERICANS.
Fidel Castro and Luis Posada Carriles have been mortal enemies since 1959. Fidel was born on August 13, 1926 in Biran, Cuba. Luis was born on February 15, 1928 in Cienfuegos, Cuba. Now Fidel is ill at age 87 in Havana; Luis is ill at age 86 in Miami. When one of them dies or when both of them die, will Miami's war with Havana finally end? Not likely. A war that reaps money, power and revenge for generational remnants from an old dictatorship won't stop even when its two most famed antagonists die. It will be left up to some distant generation to turn off the spigot that two generations have allowed to fester like an untreated cancer that was very treatable if post-World II Americans had respected their democracy more.
{Two U. S. generations supported first Batista in Cuba and then the Batistianos in America}
But Democracy deserved that support.
No comments:
Post a Comment