More U.S.-Cuban History

With More To Come

         U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez, have made history recently. They will make some more Friday, August 14th, in Havana when Kerry will be on hand to officially raise the U. S. flag at its new Cuban Embassy. The last time the U. S. had an embassy in Cuba was 1961. On Friday John Kerry will be the first U. S. Secretary of State to visit Cuba since 1945. Kerry and Rodriguez had a long sit-down discussion in Panama City back in April. Last month, on July 20th, Rodriguez made his first trip to Washington for the raising of the Cuban flag at the island's new embassy in the U. S. capital.

        In both Panama City and in Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry has made it a point to tell Bruno Rodriguez, "Normalizing relations between two important neighboring countries is long overdue. The past half-century has maybe satisfied a few but greatly harmed the majority of Americans, Cubans, and Caribbeans."

       Jeffrey DeLaurentis is currently {since July 20th} the acting U. S. Ambassador at the new embassy in Havana. It is believed that President Obama will soon appoint him as the full-time Ambassador; it is his...if he wants it. He is well qualified as a Cuban expert that has represented Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Obama in delicate negotiations with Cuba. Recently he has represented the U. S. in delicate efforts to persuade Cuba to accept the deportations of known Cuban criminals in America. Mr. DeLaurentis twice has been the U. S. chief at the Interests Section in Havana...from 1991 till 1993 and again from 1999 till 2002. 

             Cuba would accept Jeffrey DeLaurentis as the official U. S. Ambassador in Havana. This EFE photo shows Mr. DeLaurentis chatting with America's Roberta Jacobson and Cuba's Josefina Vidal, the two women who conducted the four diplomatic sessions that led up to the historic opening of embassies.

          Michael Kozak is another veteran U. S. diplomat with highly respected Cuban credentials. He is on President Obama's short list of prospective Ambassadors to Cuba and he would be accepted by Cuba.

Mr. Kozak has advised all U. S. Presidents on Cuba since Reagon-Bush in the 1980s.

        Fulton Armstrong is John Kerry's pick to be the U. S. Ambassador to Cuba. An indication that Mr. Armstrong would be a good choice is the fact that the anti-Cuban lobbyists in Washington have already spent considerable time and money smearing Mr. Armstrong's Cuban credentials, which are strong.

        The U. S. Senate, of course, has to approve President Obama's appointment of the Ambassador to Cuba. Unfortunately, the U. S. Senate includes three Cuban-Americans -- Rubio, Menendez, and Cruz -- who will try to block every positive overture President Obama and Secretary Kerry will make regarding Cuba.

          Restoring diplomatic relations between the U. S. and Cuba will proceed over the course of the next seventeen months as Barack Obama closes out his two-term presidency. If he is succeeded by a Republican administration, restored relations will be destroyed forthwith in 2017. In the interim, Cuban hardliners in Miami, Union City, and the U. S. Congress are perfectly capable of defying national and international aspirations regarding U.S.-Cuban rapprochement, especially by encouraging and funding dissidents who are fully capable of squelching any peaceful diplomacy and replacing it with fiery conflicts.

          This Cuban woman all her life has been severely and unfairly punished on the nearby island by a U.S.-Cuban policy dictated by the remnants of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship that was overthrown by the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. The Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders didn't hang around Havana to fight but, instead, hastily vacated the island in their getaway boats, ships, and airplanes. Before the end of January in 1959 those leaders had regrouped and were in charge of nearby Miami, a major U. S. city from whence many of the Batistiano-Mafiosi had originated. Hiding behind the skirts of the U. S. government, those exiles -- especially in collusion with the Bush dynasty -- have, for two generations now, wreaked havoc on many innocent lives -- with military and terrorist acts as well as congressional laws. This Cuban woman and the majority of Cubans on the island have been so excited about President Obama's efforts to normalize relations they have not only been waving but, like this woman, actually wearing the U. S. flag.

          By the end of this week, the U. S. and Cuban flags will be flying in the respective capital cities of Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961. But for how long? Since the 1950s a small contingent of Cubans, Americans, Cuban-Americans and other benefactors such as the Bush dynasty -- one way or the other -- have nefariously dictated America's relations with Cuba. That has lasted through one whole generation and deep into another. Now the second generation -- as personified by Rubio, Cruz, the Diaz-Balart brothers, Ros-Lehtinen, and the self-serving Jeb Bush -- are unwilling to give up the revenge, economic, and political advantages that accrue to them from a hostile U.S.-Cuban relationship. Moreover, the American people, as custodians of their democracy, seem unable or unwilling to correct what has been, from a longevity and cruelty standpoint, the most serious blight on America's image worldwide.

         A whole generation of Americans and Cubans has already suffered mightily under an American Cuban policy designed to benefit a few self-serving miscreants at the expense of everyone else. This young Cuban boy wearing the U. S. flag and his generation of Cubans and Americans are destined to suffer too. 

Jeb Bush, Mel Martinez, and the Diaz-Balart brothers.

Still in charge of America's Cuban policy.
And...not enough Americans give a damn.

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