U. S. Isolated Regarding Cuba

Angering the Rest of the World
Monday, December 8th, 2014 

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Jose Mujica is the 79-year-old President of Uruguay.

             This weekend President Jose Mujica of Uruguay sent a letter to President Barack Obama of the United States. In the letter, President Mujica included among his suggestions this sentence: "I call on you, President Obama, to end the unjust and unjustifiable embargo on our sister republic of Cuba."

             President Jose Mujica of Uruguay has also lectured President Barack Obama of the United States face-to-face about "your unending Cuban policy that is doing more than any other thing to smear your country and your democracy in the eyes of the world, especially in the Caribbean and all of Latin American."

               This is Dr. Felix Baez Sarria of Cuba. He was among the first 256 medical personnel Cuba sent to West Africa to battle the Ebola crisis. Dr. Baez contracted the dreaded disease while working in Sierra Leone. He was flown to Switzerland's University Hospital in Geneva. After 21 days of intense treatment, he has been declared totally free of the disease. Dr. Baez is being flown back to Cuba this weekend but he has expressed a desire to return to work in Sierra Leone. "I am badly needed there," he said.

     Seumas Milne {left} is one of the world's most influential journalists because he has a huge forum at the London-based The Guardian, one of the world's most influential newspapers both in print and online. Mr. Milne, like the yearly vote in the UN, reflects the fact that the rest of the world is fed up with America's Cuban policy that, for going on six decades, has been directed by the remnants of a Cuban dictatorship that many, Mr. Milne included, believe was justly booted off the island in 1959. This week -- on 12-03-2014 -- Mr. Milne's column originated in The Guardian and then flashed around the world. It was entitled "Cuba's Extraordinary Global Medical Record Shames The US Blockade." The subtitle was: "From Ebola To Earthquakes, Havana's Doctors Have Saved Millions; Obama Must Lift This Embargo!" The last paragraph summed up the long, scathing article with these words: "If the blockade really were to be dismantled it would not only be a vindication of Cuba's remarkable record of social justice, backed by the growing confidence of Latin America. It would also be a boon for millions around the world who would benefit from a Cuba unshackled -- and a demonstration of what can be achieved when people are put above corporate profits." Mr. Milne pointed out that the World Health Organization lauded Cuba for "leading the world" by sending health care workers to fight the Ebola crisis in west Africa while "the US and Britain sent thousands of troops." Mr. Milne stressed that Cuba has for decades been the leader in responding to disasters, citing the earthquake in Haiti four years ago and "the Kashmir earthquake of 2005, after which Cuba left 32 field hospitals behind and gave a thousand medical scholarships to students from the area." He added: "Cuban doctors have carried out three million free eye operations. That's how Mario Teran, the Bolivian sergeant who killed Che Guevara on CIA orders in 1967, had his eyesight restored 40 year later by Cuban doctors in Bolivia." Mr. Milne wondered what victims in Haiti, Kashmir and other nations would have done without help from Cuba. He emphasized how the U. S. embargo against Cuba shames the U. S. democracy. He wrote: "But the island is still suffocated by the U. S. trade embargo that has kept it in an economic and political vise for more than half a century. If Barack Obama wants to do something worthwhile in his final years as president..." Mr. Milne suggested that President Obama has within his executive powers the chance to benefit the world and democracy by wresting at least some of the bitter hold vicious Cuban exiles have on America's Cuban policy. Mr. Milne wrote: "The embargo can only be scrapped by Congress, which is still stymied by the heirs of the corrupt U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship...but the U. S. President has executive scope to lessen it substantially and restore diplomatic ties." Like most of the world's top journalists have also pointed out, Mr Milne suggested that Mr. Obama could start by releasing the remaining three Cubans sentenced to up to life terms by a Miami court 13 years ago, a process that  shamed democracy by, first off, merely having such a trial in the toxic atmosphere of Miami. Mr. Obama also could use his executive power to remove Cuba from the Sponsors of Terrorism list, which Mr. Milne and others believe only serves the revenge and financial motives of Cuban exiles who continually use that list to sue unrepresented Cuba in Florida courtrooms. As far as Mr. Milne and others are concerned, Mr. Obama -- like all Presidents since the 1963 assassination of John Kennedy -- have simply been afraid to challenge the dictates of ultra-powerful and ultra-rich Cuban exiles.

The moral of Mr. Milne's article:

The U. S. Cuban policy should not shame its best friends around the world. 

       The rest of the world agrees with Seumas Milne at The Guardian regarding the U. S. embargo against Cuba. That fact is revealed each October by the vote in the United Nations. Yet, for going on six decades the United States of America has allowed this insult to democracy to persist. Sure, the U. S. is the world's economic and military superpower and thus it can do whatever it wants. But time and again, in a world threatened by terrorism and extremists as well as natural calamities, the U. S. begs other nations to join it in coalitions against an amalgam of threats. It would, of course, be far more sensible and diplomatic for the world's superpower to adjust its Cuban policy in alignment with the rest of the democracy-loving world.

The moral of this graphic:

Imperialism against small countries is out-dated in 2014.

        Even in America, journalists -- such as the creator of this political cartoon -- are more and more mocking America's Cuban policy. The weather-caster above is referencing Charlie Crist, who had the courage or temerity to suggest, while campaigning to be Florida's governor, that the U. S. should ease its sanctions against Cuba. A lot of Floridians -- not just this weatherman -- laughed aloud at Mr. Crist's bold suggestion in a state dominated since 1959 by the remnants of the overthrown Batista dictatorship in Cuba. But more and more, democracy lovers around the world are not laughing at the continuing joke America's anti-democratic Cuban policy has been since the 1950s. Perhaps most pertinent of all, this cartoon suggests that Mr. Crist, as a serious politician in Florida, would have to quickly...very quickly!...amend his suggestion about easing sanctions against Cuba, which he did. That's why democracy lovers in the U. S. and around the world do not consider this insightful political cartoon to be a joke. Instead, it is a sad fact of life. {This political cartoon is courtesy of the South Florida Sun Sentinel}.

The moral of this political cartoon:

Americans should be allowed to disagree with a failed Cuban policy.

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