U.S.-Cuban Friendship

Obstacles Outweigh Hope
Friday, February 20th, 2015

         Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the U. S. Congress, has spent two days this week in Havana. She is shown above in a friendly conversation with Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. Ms. Pelosi led a 9-member delegation of Democrats to the island. Almost every Democrat in Congress, except, of course Bob Menendez of Union City, desires some sanity in America's relations with Cuba. Menendez and four Republicans from Miami will not allow it to happen. Americans, of course, are not supposed to consider that undemocratic. In my opinion, Nancy Pelosi, a good and compassionate person, is not primarily concerned with a superpower punishing everyday Cubans on the island for another 55 years, nor is she campaigning to roll back congressional laws that favor, enrich, and empower only Cuban-Americans and their sycophants. But Nancy Pelosi, as a democracy lover, is direly concerned about the image America's Cuban policy presents to the region and the rest of the world, which is a discriminatory policy that harms Cubans on the island and everyone else. 

Good people have hope but, sadly, it is mostly in vain.

      This Joe Raedle/Getty Images photo was taken this week -- Wed., February 18th -- at the Doubletree Airport Hotel in Miami. The Cuban images were flashed on a huge screen at a standing-room-only forum that attracted entrepreneurs very, very interested in participating in the massive reconstruction of Cuba, which is anticipated after President Obama's announced plans to normalize relations with Cuba. If the process comes to fruition, it will cost many billions of dollars and put many thousands of people to work. The U. S. embargo since shortly after the overthrow of the U.S./Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship in 1959 has helped create and hasten the deterioration of the island's infrastructure. The whole world, including most Cuban-Americans in Miami, long for the day when the embargo will end and more normal relations between the two neighboring nations can be established. However, for two generations since the early 1960s a handful of visceral Cuban-Americans, assisted by Republican administrations and the U. S. Congress, benefit from the embargo and other hostilities against Cuba. And that's precisely why forums such as this one in Miami are not only premature but a waste of time and effort. Democracy, decency, and the majority bedamned! It's been that way for over a half-century and it will not change, at least not substantially. Democracy is strong, but not quite that strong.

     This Ramon Espinosa/AP photo shows an American flag and a Cuban flag fronting the Saratoga Hotel in Havana this week. That's where three U. S. Senators -- Mark Warner of Virginia, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Claire McCaskill of Missouri -- are staying. The three Senators informed Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and the island's Minister of North American Affairs, Josefina Vidal, that the second round of diplomatic negotiations between the two countries will take place Friday, February 27th in Washington. The first round was held in Havana on January 22nd and 23rd. Senators Warner, Klobuchar, and McCaskill are among the members of Congress trying desperately to exude hope that sanity and decency will replace a half-century of indecent insanity tied to America's Cuban policy that continues, decade after decade, to be dictated by elements of the Batista dictatorship that was ousted way back on January 1, 1959. That entrenched fact is too much to overcome.

     Roberta Jacobson, shown here during last month's diplomatic sessions in Havana, will again represent the U. S. in next week's second round of meetings in Washington. Jacobson's State Department announced yesterday -- Wednesday -- some parameters prior to the resumption of talks. The United States says it direly wants to move ahead with the openings of embassies in Havana and Washington; the U. S. says it is anxious to remove Cuba from its very, very short list of nations that sponsor terrorism. Very nice but very veiled diplomacy. Such overtures are predicated on exacting concessions the U. S. fully knows Cuba will not accept. The U. S. is demanding that Cuba allow total freedom of travel for U. S. diplomats in Cuba and the U. S. is demanding that Cuban dissidents be allowed to freely visit the proposed new U. S. embassy in Havana. In other words, the U. S. State Department is merely making a show of desiring normal relations with Cuba. The U. S. knows that Cuba is tired of the U. S. Interests Section in Havana being used to foment, stir up, and fund dissident actions on the island, trying to create havoc and turmoil injurious to Cuba. Thus, Cuba wants some assurances that the proposed U. S. embassy in Cuba will not be a continuation or enhancement of providing tools and encouragement for dissidents at the expense of the other Cubans on the island. The U. S. will never give that assurance; Cuba will thus never surrender that demand. So, diplomacy ends there.

      Just as she did in Havana last month, Josefina Vidal will show up in Washington next week to represent Cuba in the ongoing diplomatic negotiations. Although she keenly desires normal U.S.-Cuban relations, neither the Obama administration nor the John Kerry-led State Department are capable of meeting Vidal's basic demands. Thus, as in Havana last month, the diplomatic sessions in Washington next week are primarily for show. The State Department can easily remove Cuba from the terrorism list and President Obama can easily open a U. S. embassy in Havana and allow Cuba to open one in Washington. And that's where things will end in these last two years of Obama's two-term presidency. Vidal will insist that the U. S. cease using its current Interests Section and its future embassy in Havana as "cesspools" designed mostly to support and recruit dissidents on the island; but the U. S. cannot even negotiate such things because of laws and policies dictated by a U. S. Congress in which a handful of members from Miami and Union City dictate America's Cuban policy. Therefore, in Washington next week the U. S. negotiators will mainly attempt to out-maneuver or intimidate Josefina Vidal. And that will not happen. Thus, normalizing relations will not happen. To think otherwise is being naive about relevant reality.

     This map and a contaminant comment by Josefina Vidal epitomize the impossibility of normalizing relations between Cuba and the United States. Note the extremely close proximity of Havana to Key West and Miami. Josefina Vidal is abundantly cognizant of this geographical fact. Between last month's diplomatic session in Havana and next week's meetings in Washington, Vidal has fielded a litany of questions. Perhaps the most pertinent was proffered by Reuters:  "Ms. Vidal, are these diplomatic overtures really a charade?" After a significant reflective pause, she replied: "I believe you are suggesting that it is impossible to negotiate a change in U.S.-Cuban geography and that it is impossible to negotiate a change that, for decades, has seen a few benefit so substantially from continued hostility between two neighboring countries." She paused significantly again, gazing off to the right. When she looked back at the reporter, she said, "If that was what you were suggesting, I think you are correct. Yet, on behalf of a lot of good people, I think trying as hard as we can to accomplish the impossible is worth the effort. And truth be known, I sincerely believe that my dear friend Roberta Jacobson agrees with me on that colossal issue."

Impossible.

The U. S. democracy is still strong,

but not that strong.
By the way..............................................

       ....................this handsome guy is a Baltimore Oriole. Yes, he inspired both the name and the colors for the Major League baseball team. This photo was taken by Sherry Nicholson and is used courtesy of my favorite magazine, Birds & Blooms.

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