So America Can Be America!!
{Updated: Thursday, April 16th, 2015}
As he promised Cuban President Raul Castro last weekend in Panama at the 7th Summit of the Americas, U. S. President Barack Obama this week -- April 14th, 2015 -- proposed to remove Cuba from the U. S. State Department's Sponsors of Terrorism list. The U. S. Congress now has 45 days to block that move but it is unlikely that, even in an easily malleable and readily purchased Congress, Cuban-American zealots can amass enough veto-proof votes. Mr. Obama's decision is a necessary step towards thawing U.S.-Cuban relations that have been, to say the least, icy for decades. Cuba was first put on the terrorism list in 1982 by the Reagan-Bush administration and kept there ever since by the Bush dynasty, Cuban-American extremists, and the U. S. Congress. Such enmity towards Cuba has very sharply and adversely affected America's respect and influence throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. Mr. Obama's action yesterday is the bravest and most decent thing any American President has risked since 1959, and there will, for sure, be repercussions. There remains in the U. S. an ultra-powerful Cuban-American contingent, always bolstered by easily acquired sycophants in the Congress, that will thwart most of what President Obama plans to accomplish related to Cuba, but his bravery and decency, in a world often intimidated by powerful miscreants, crowns and targets him as America's bravest and most decent President since the 1950s.
The handshake in Panama paved the way for Tuesday's announcement.
Josefina Vidal, Cuba's powerful and highly respected Minister of North American Affairs, made Cuba's official response to President Obama's decision to remove Cuba from the Terrorist list. Her exact statement: "The Cuban government recognized the fairness made by the President of the United States to eliminate Cuba from a list it never should have been included on, especially considering our country has been the victim of hundreds of acts of terrorism that have cost 3,478 lives and maimed 2,099 citizens."
Both Reuters and the AP Tuesday quoted Cubans across the island as welcoming the gesture from President Obama declaring that Cuba should not be on the terrorist list. The girl on the left said, "We love peace, not terrorism." The girl on the right said, "We have never been terrorists and the U. S. knows it."
Dana Milbank is a top columnist for the Washington Post and I believe he penned the best out of what has been a multitude of recent articles related to U.S.-Cuban relations, especially since Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro went on television in their countries on Dec. 17-2014 to announce attempts to normalize relations, and particularly since last week's Obama-Castro camaraderie in Panama. Mr. Milbank earned the top spot, maybe even a Pulitzer Prize, with his column entitled "Marco Rubio Fury Over the Cuba Shift Shows Why Obama Made the Right Move." If you Google that literary masterpiece, you, of course, can decide for yourself what makes it Pulitzer-worthy but, in my opinion, Mr. Milbank has done the best job of explaining the ridiculousness of the Cuban-American extremists who insist on dictating America's Cuban policy to whet their appetites for revenge, wealth, and politics at Cuba's expense and democracy's expense.
The aforementioned Dana Milbank column reached its zenith when he mentioned that Senator Marco Rubio, one of Miami's multiple Cuban-American contributions to the U. S. Congress, went into rages about President Obama's plans to challenge the Cuban-exile dominance of America's Cuban policy. When Mr. Rubio was reminded that polls showed the majority of people, including Cuban-Americans, favored correcting America's failed and flawed relations with Cuba, Mr. Milbank quoted Mr. Rubio as raging, "I don't care if the polls say that 99 percent of the people believe we should normalize relations in Cuba. I don't care if 99 percent of people in polls disagree with my position. This is my position." For many, many decades America's Cuban policy has been designed solely to benefit a few miscreants -- Americans, Cubans, Cuban-Americans and Mafiosi -- while harming everyone else. Since the 1950s, and especially since the first day of January in 1959 when the Batista-Mafia leaders were chased back to the U. S. by the Cuban Revolution, the sheer impunity with which the Batistianos, aligned with sycophants such as the Bush dynasty, have dictated U.S.-Cuban relations shames both the United States and democracy.
You may or may not agree with Dana Milbank's column entitled: "Marco Rubio Fury Over the Cuba Shift Shows Why Obama Made the Right Move." That is your prerogative. You may or may not vote for Marco Rubio to be President of the United States in 2016. That is your right too. But I believe that you should agree that even a Senator from Miami, and certainly a President of the United States, should be respectful of what "99 percent" of Americans desire. Instead of blissfully riding the coattails of the Tea Party, the Bush dynasty, Fox News, and South Florida billionaires like the Fanjul brothers and Norman Braman, Mr. Rubio should be held accountable for such things as permitting his bio to claim his parents fled the Castro tyranny in Cuba for Miami when, in reality, they fled the Batista tyranny in Cuba for Miami. And for sure, Mr. Obama should be held accountable for so boldly stating that the views of "99 percent" who oppose him on a particular issue don't count. The views where 1% percent dictate to 99% percent is not what the United States is all about, at least it wasn't prior to 1959. As Dana Milbank's column opined, President Obama evoked Rubio's "fury" by trying to inject a majority viewpoint into the enigmatic U.S.-Cuban equation.
Even in a presidential campaign in which young fledgling Cuban-American right-wing radicals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are official candidates, U.S.-Cuba Relations should not be a major factor in the race for the White House. America should allow Cuba to be Cuba because the U. S. democracy should not be tarnished by either out-dated imperialism or unacceptable mafiosi traces. And besides, the United States has a plethora of problems not related to Cuba. For example...........................................
...........this photo depicts a memorial service held recently in Denver. The girl in the white dress was Jessica Hernandez. Alone in her car, she was shot to death by policemen. She was unarmed. Three shots fired by two Denver policemen killed her. Never heard of Jessica? That may be because the national news media in the United States has become so saturated with many other instances of minority Americans being gunned down by police it is understandably hard to keep account. I mention Jessica's death, and such seemingly unending violent mayhem in the U. S., not to condemn policemen in the United States because, for sure, their job evokes danger and split-second decisions. But in particular Jessica's fate reminded me of a recent comment made by Josefina Vidal, Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs, who, by the nature of her work, is an expert on all things Cuban and American. Ms. Vidal apparently read the Denver Post coverage of Jessica's death because she mentioned it at a news conference: "I can't believe the American people put up with that. Since the revolution, Cuba has not put up with it." {4 Photos: Andy Gross/Denver Post}
Death is final and irretrievable. These young friends of Jessica truly understand that although they don't comprehend exactly why it happened. They are holding a candle-light vigil at the spot where Jessica died and they are wearing Jessica T-shirts to honor their friend. Unnatural deaths, especially young people, should not happen and, if they do, they should be thoroughly and fairly investigated. In the United States, a lot of politicians continually rave about problems in Cuba, which is almost devoid of crime. They should, perhaps, rave a bit more about problems in their own country, at least before they throw deadly stones or lethal hand grenades at other countries.
Young people who die unnatural deaths are remembered for happier times, like this photo of Jessica on Christmas Day 2013 when she visited Santa wearing her University of Nebraska jacket to show that she was a huge "Cornhusker" fan.
The family of Jessica Hernandez, as this graphic indicates, was not pleased with the explanation of her death as provided by the Denver Police Department. That parallels the often-televised thoughts of many other American families. Mentioning Jessica Hernandez is not a condemnation of Denver, a beautiful city, or America, a great nation. But it is a condemnation of holier-than-thou propaganda casting aspersions on others while, perhaps, the propagandists should first be staring at a mirror and then looking inward at themselves. It was the above graphic about Jessica Hernandez that reminded me of a persistent point that Cuba's Josefina Vidal makes, a point that resonates throughout Latin America but not in sacrosanct America.
No, young people should not die and if they do because of unnatural and unnecessary causes it should be investigated fairly. Young friends of young victims know that death is final but that's sometimes all they know. Take, for example, this young girl and her mother. They are Cubans. On Oct. 6-1976 they were waiting at Jose Marti Airport in Havana for the return of Cubana Flight 455 that had carried two dozen teenage Cuban athletes to Caracas, Venezuela, to participate in a Central American tournament. When this photo was taken, this girl and her mother had just been told that Cubana Flight 455 had crashed into the ocean and all 73 souls on board had perished. One of those souls had belonged to the beloved son and brother of this mother and sister. The mother had worried about the flight, as all mothers do. But the girl had not. Girls her age, unless it confronts them directly, don't think about such things. Although it was a Cuban civilian airplane, both the victims and the families of the deceased deserved a thorough and fair investigation. But it occurred during a period -- from 1959 into the year 2015 -- when well-trained Cuban-exile terrorists, acting with impunity from U. S. soil or U. S. embassies or military bases in Latin America, believed terror acts against Cuba were fully justified because they would hurt or overthrow Fidel Castro. Indeed, in Miami after word spread about the Cubana Flight 455 disaster, the most resounding declaration broadcast by the Miami media was: "It's the biggest blow yet against Castro!" Not exactly. While to this day Americans know little about Cubana Flight 455 or its significance, such terrorism against innocent Cubans helps explain such things as...Fidel Castro is 88-year-old and his soon-to-be legacy will impact Latin America for decades to come; and it helps explain why all Caribbean and Latin American nations today strongly oppose the U. S. embargo against Cuba, an island viewed as a victim of terrorism as opposed to being a perpetrator.
The 73 victims of Cubana Flight 455, such as the young girl in the lower-left, have been forgotten in the U. S. but remain very much unforgotten throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. The young Cuban girl waiting at the airport on Oct. 6-1976 is now a woman. She hasn't forgotten. And, from time to time, newspapers and magazines throughout the Caribbean and Latin America still tell their readers about the first civilian airplane ever downed by terrorists in the Western Hemisphere.
As confirmed by realms of de-classified U. S. documents, the U. S. within hours was well aware of the Cuban-Americans involved in the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 and other such anti-Cuban endeavors. Many in the Caribbean and Latin America cringed at the nexus of Oct. 6-1976 with Dec. 18-2014. On December 17-2014 President Obama announced grandiose plans to normalize relations with Cuba. On December 18-2014, the next day, the Cuban-American who will forever be tied to the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 led an anti-Obama rally in the streets of Miami. Americans are not supposed to understand that paradoxical nexus, but millions of people in the Caribbean and Latin America completely understand it.
There are Cuban experts and there are American experts. But, for sure, there is no expert in this world who knows as much as Josefina Vidal knows about both Cuba and America. She knows about America's unique greatness and, as indicated by this photo, some of her heroes are Americans. But as a prime protector of Cuba's sovereignty, she also knows about "the darkness that courses through all that American goodness -- Batista, the Miami Mafia...Cubana Flight 455..." She believes the Cuban Revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the first day of 1959 was spawned not only by American greed and American imperialism but by "the counter-productive murders of young Cubans, murders that were intended to support all that American greed and imperialism on a perceived helpless island."
Indeed there are countless black-and-white photos of the female marches that spawned the Cuban Revolution. Brave Cuban mothers took to the streets to protest the gruesome murders of their children, murders aimed at warning the Cuban people not to resist the wholesale thievery taking place on the island by Batistianos, Mafiosi, and U. S. businessmen. Such outrage as displayed here convinced Fidel Castro that...hey!..."with the total support of the female half of the population, we can win!"
The street marches continued, especially when Fidel Castro was in a Batista prison from 1953 till 1955. The Cuban madres {mothers} didn't like the asesinatos {murders} of their hijos {children and brothers}. Had there been no such murders in Batista's Cuba, Fidel Castro would probably have been a lawyer in Santiago de Cuba and the Batistianos would still be totally in charge of the nearby island of Cuba.
Women not only marched to tell the world what was happening in Batista's Cuba, women were the fiercest revolutionary guerrilla fighters. Study the expression, as they marched to battle, on the faces of Cuba's two greatest female warriors -- Haydee Santamaria and Celia Sanchez. In order for Batista to remain in control of Cuba, he would have had to kill women like Haydee and Celia...and he couldn't kill them all.
This photo shows Cuban female guerrilla fighters riding into Havana right after they had chased the Batistianos and the Mafiosi to safer havens, especially the U. S. cities of Miami and Union City. On the left in this photo is the legendary Tete Puebla. Barely in her teens, she became a do-or-die warrior in the Sierra Maestra against Batista soldiers. Her inspiration: She had seen Batista's Masferrer Tigers come into her village and burn people to death in a locked shed and a gas-soaked gunny sack.
This is General Tete Puebla today. She is a General in the Cuban army. She is still inspired. She is a kind lady but be gentle if you ask her about the Masferrer Tigers.
Rolando Masferrer, the ruthless leader of Batista's Masferrer Tigers, chose not to hang around and fight Tete Puebla's all-female unit that was charging toward Havana in the closing hours of 1958. Masferrer reportedly escaped Havana on his getaway boat with at least $10 million in cash. He quickly resurfaced in Miami as the head of his anti-Castro paramilitary unit that got additional funding from the U. S. government, Mafia kingpin Santo Trafficante Jr., and Jimmy Hoffa, among others. Masferrer called his Miami militants the 30th of November unit. Also, it was well-known that Masferrer extorted money from Cubans in Miami "to help finish Castro." But, like other anti-Castro paramilitary units, Masferrer had no trouble with the authorities although his terrorist activities against Cuba were known to all. Masferrer was born in Holguin, Cuba in 1918. A car-bomb killed Masferrer in Miami on Oct. 31, 1975 when he turned the ignition in his car at his home. Car bombs were a specialty in Miami for years, many never seriously investigated. But it is believed that Masferrer was killed by rivals who, like him, had lofty visions of being the next leader of Cuba as soon as they could get rid of Castro and use their U. S. support to recapture the nearby island.
This photo was taken by the legendary Cuban photographer Alberto Korda on May 1, 1960 -- barely a year after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. It highlights reminders that Cuban women, after the revolutionary war, remained at the forefront of the island's defense, making sure that the Batistianos like Masferrer and the Mafiosi such as Traffcante did not regain control of the island. In April of 2015 General Puebla and Minister Vidal are continuing the tradition of Cuban women defending Cuba.
Therefore today -- in April of 2015 -- I believe it is fitting that a dedicated and determined Cuban woman, Josefina Vidal, is at the forefront of defending Cuba against threats poised off her shores. The murder of 17-year-old unarmed Jessica Hernandez by three police bullets in Denver, on the heels of many other such events recently in the U. S., elicited this thought from Josefina Vidal: "I believe Cuba is one of the safest places in the world today. Apart from the war-torn places around the world...Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Libya, and the like...American newspapers constantly remind me how unsafe U. S. cities are, even from police attacks. Therefore, I wish Americans would find it strange that so much of their tax dollars are being spent to create turmoil and dissidence on Cuban streets where otherwise there would be no turmoil or dissidence, or at least very little. Heaven forbid if a Cuban soldier or policeman even accidentally bumped someone and knocked them down and some U.S.-paid dissident got it on film and sent it to Cuban agitators in the U. S. Congress or to that channel...what is it, Fox? If so, I guess they would cease all other activity for three weeks while they were encouraging the U.S. government to attack Cuba for such a human rights violation. Are unwarranted police shootings human rights violations? I think so. I also think if a Cuban policeman intentionally bumps an innocent, unarmed person on the arm just for meanness, it is a human rights violation. The Hernandez girl in Denver? Such a thing would be an anomaly in Cuba. I want that always to be so. And I think those U. S. tax dollars aimed at creating havoc where it does not exist on this island is a ludicrous distortion of how U. S. tax dollars should be spent. Moreover, I think the rest of the world, in this digital-Smart Phone age, now understands all that."
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