Normalizing Relations A No Go
As this forum has indicated from the start, the euphoria attached to the presidential announcements in Washington and Havana at high noon on Dec. 17th-2015 that the two nations plan to normalize relations were pie-in-the-sky buckets of hot air. There are two reasons the efforts, if they were ever considered realistic by either side, will never come to fruition. Reason #1 is based on the fact that the U. S. will never come close to meeting Josefina Vidal's most basic Cuban demands. Reason #2 is the Cuban diaspora in the U. S. Congress controls America's Cuban policy and it will never allow a normalization of relations with Cuba to happen. In 1898 after the Spanish-American War the U. S. never considered democracy for Cuba when it had sole dominance of the island; since 1959, after the Cuban Revolution chased the Batista dictatorship first to Miami and Union City and then to Washington, the U. S. vision of Cuba has centered around everything except democracy -- namely, revenge and regaining control of the island. At least, that's Josefina Vidal's view of history.
Josefina Vidal, Cuba's powerful Minister of North America Affairs, last week received rave reviews for her spirited and astute handling of the diplomatic sessions in Havana that were heralded as the first of a series of such meetings designed to normalize relations between Cuba and the United States. Karen DeYoung, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist, seemed shocked at how deftly Ms. Vidal out-performed her American counterparts, and that was a universal opinion. She had an advantage because she can make her own decisions while U. S. diplomats often have to wait for instructions from the President or Secretary of State, leaving them weaklings in face-to-face confrontations with Ms. Vidal. In any case, Ms. Vidal has just addressed the Cuban people on state television and a study of her words -- a study that is happening today in Washington -- will indicate there is really no need for the second round of diplomatic meetings scheduled for next month in Washington. Ms. Vidal has long tired of the endless streams of U. S. schemes to support dissidents on the island and even to devise repeated efforts to create dissidents on the island. So study Ms. Vidal's exact words spoken to the Cuban people February 2nd, 2015:
"The total freedom of movement of the negotiations, which the U. S. side is posing, is tied to a change in the behavior of its diplomatic mission and its officials. Matters of internal affairs in Cuba are not negotiable." {Josefina Vidal; February 2nd, 2015}
Josefina Vidal has served at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. Since 2003 as Cuba's primary U. S. expert in Havana she has proclaimed: My main job is to protect this island from another foreign takeover. My daily priority is to monitor efforts from Miami and Washington designed to provoke Cuba into doing something that the Cuban contingents in Miami, Union City, and Washington can use as a pretext to get the United States government to recapture Cuba for them. My second priority is to monitor the incredible amount of American tax dollars that go to contractors to fund or create dissidence on this island. If China or some other big boy did such things in the U. S., how would the U. S. react? Carefully I guess because Communist China is a nuclear power that is a trillion-dollar business partner. Well, that being said...little Cuba can be wiped out by a nuclear power but such imperialist criminals will never get a surrender from us. Only cowards and criminals blow up Cuban airplanes, hotels and coastal cabins. Only cowards and criminals hide behind the skirts of a superpower and hurl darts and shout epithets. If the United States wants another diplomatic session with me, why not have some of those brave dart-throwers on the other side of the table?
Today {Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015} the three Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Senate will set aside their 2016 Presidential ambitions long enough to have a Cuban meeting. Then they likely will tell the American people what a horrible government the island has, implying that the Batista-Mafia regime that preceded it was a sweet Mother Teresa-type operation and the Batistiano regime that will replace it will make sure the island has a world-class democracy, albeit one run from Miami and Washington with Havana merely a decoy. And however they phrase it, they will probably expect everyone to accept their dictations as gospel. Meanwhile, it's for sure some less effusive elements in the White House and the State Department will be discussing Josefina Vidal's televised words to the Cuban people yesterday. Then they should simply cancel next month's tentatively scheduled second round of diplomatic meetings in Washington.
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