"Congress Controls Cuba"

"Worse Than Apartheid"
Wednesday, October 14th, 2015

       An interesting new book -- "Churchill Comes of Age: Cuba 1895" -- reviews Winston Churchill's 18 days in Cuba in 1895 where he celebrated his 21st birthday on November 30th. It was during colonial times when Churchill's England and Spain were major players. Churchill arrived in Cuba on loan from the British army to observe Spain's army fighting Cuban independence fighters. Reportedly he was fired upon by a rebel army led by Antonio Maceo and Maximo Gomez, two of Cuba's greatest independence leaders. Churchill, one of history's most important figures, supposedly shaped his formative international ideas during his Cuban trip. Later -- on March 7, 1896 -- he wrote in the Saturday Review that he wasn't impressed with Cuba's independence fighters: "They cannot win a single battle or hold a single town. Their army consists to a large extent of coloured men in an undisciplined rabble." Antonio Maceo {a mulatto}, Jose Marti, and other famed Cuban independence rebels died fighting the Spanish army. By 1898 the United States had decided it wanted to also become a colonial power and a good place to start was Cuba, which the U. S. had long craved. A U. S. warship, the USS Maine, blew up mysteriously in Havana Harbor on February 15th, 1898, killing 266 crew members. It conveniently provided the U. S. with the pretext for the Spanish-American War. The easy victory over Spain in Cuba established the U. S. as an imperialist power. It's subsequent dominance over Cuba included the theft of Guantanamo Bay in 1903 but the biggest mistake the U. S. made in Cuba was teaming with the Mafia to support the brutal Batista dictatorship in 1952, creating a Cuban Revolution that stunned the world on January 1, 1959, by booting the Batistianos, Mafiosi, and U. S. businessmen off the island. If Winston Churchill came of age in Cuba in 1895, Cuba itself came of age in 1959 when it became a sovereign nation. For sure, on the eve of the Spanish-American War, American military and business leaders had studied the opinions of the young Winston Churchill regarding the strength of Spanish soldiers and Cuban rebels. The aforementioned book indicates that England as well as the U. S. in the 1890s had visions of capturing the lush island of Cuba from a weakened Spain. Interesting.

         And so, like Winston Churchill's 18-day visit to Cuba in 1895, the deadly explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, was an epic event in Cuban history. Indeed, "Remember the Maine!!" It spawned the Spanish-American War in 1898, which spawned the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s. In 2015, remember the Maine as you analyze President Barack Obama's influence on U.S.-Cuban relations. 

         Famed entertainer Mick Jagger is shown above enjoying the nightlife at the Shangri La Club in Havana. The 72-year-old leader of the Rolling Stones band is determined to arrange a concert...or two...at Havana's Latin American Baseball Stadium. The acclaimed Brit, like almost every notable individual around the world, is astounded that "the American people for all these decades allow a few individuals to commit apartheid, akin to genocide, against this smaller country." According to a Cuban that Jagger partied with, Jagger also commented, "The real criminals are two generations of Americans that have allowed this to persist." She also said that he said, "The U. S. Congress controls Cuba like a school bully controls the little kid who hands over his lunch money every morning, except this island has never run scared like that little kid."

        Mick Jagger's acute and aesthetic opinions regarding U.S.-Cuban relations are significant not because he is or has been a world-class entertainer for five decades. It's because his comments reflect the attitudes of the vast majority of people from nations that are America's best friends -- UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc. Jagger's alleged comments in Cuba also indicate that both his insight and courage are far superior to that of the "two generations of Americans" that "have allowed this to persist."

         President Barack Obama in the last two years of his two-term presidency has chipped away at the embargo against Cuba more than anyone thought he could, and far more than previous Democratic presidents Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton. The embargo was first imposed in 1962 for the purpose, according to declassified U. S. documents, of depriving and starving the Cuban people to pressure them to overthrow Fidel Castro, which the U. S. government had failed to do despite numerous assassination attempts beginning in 1959, the Bay of Pigs attack in April of 1961, and the murderous Operation 40 boondoggle. All Republican administrations since 1959 have aligned with Congress and the most visceral anti-Castro Cubans in the ongoing all-out effort to eliminate the now 89-year-old Fidel Castro and his now 84-year-old brother Raul. But the failed and flawed effort to regain control of Cuba has grossly harmed the image of the United States, as reflected by the graphic above, and also severely dented the U. S. Treasury because, it seems, any individual or group that proclaims itself anti-Castro can expect to receive a steady and enormous flow of tax-dollars in the Washington-to-Miami pipeline. Although the mainstream U. S. media does not have the courage or integrity to mention that fact, Tracey Eaton -- the highly respected investigative journalist and Cuban expert -- regularly lists on his Along the Malecon website exact dollar figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information law, that a vast army of benefactors receive via huge salaries in a vast array of regime change programs aimed at Cuba. American taxpayers are not supposed to be smart enough to figure out that the primary purpose of that Washington-to-Miami pipeline is to simply fatten the bank accounts of people favored by Cuban-Americans in Congress. For sure, even anti-Castro zealots such as the legendary Luis Posada Carriles in Miami have come to realize that recapturing Cuba or assassinating Fidel Castro are lost causes, but continuing to rake in astounding rewards from the lucrative Castro Industry in the U. S. is unending, presumably even after the old revolutionary dies of old age. Mick Jagger and most other interested and informed people around the world seem to fully understand U.S.-Cuban relations far better than Americans who have been successfully propagandized since the 1950s to accept without debate whatever the transplanted Batistianos and Mafiosi who fled the Cuban Revolution tell them to accept. {"It's the biggest blow yet against Castro!!" That's the mantra Americans were successfully told to accept when terrorists blew a civilian Cuban plane into the ocean killing all 73 on board. Accepting such things leaves Americans outside the Cuban equation.}.

         The image depicted in this graphic embarrasses America's two-term president, Barack Obama. It should also embarrass every American. It embarrasses Mick Jagger and America's best friends all around the world. Later this month, on October 27th, the United Nations will hold its yearly vote on the U. S. embargo against Cuba. In recent years the vote has been 188-to-2 with only Israel supporting the U. S. and the Israeli vote is considered purchased by billions of dollars each year in economic and military aid. At the moment, the Obama administration is planning to abstain when the vote comes up again on October 27th. {Presumably Israel would also abstain}. In other words, no nation in the entire world -- including the United States and Israel -- will likely vote in October of 2015 to support the decades-old embargo of Cuba. Yet, the embargo will continue because a handful of revengeful and greedy people who benefit immensely from the everlasting Castro Industry in the U. S. can easily dictate the embargo in the U. S. Congress, along with a myriad of other cruel abominations against the Cuban people. On October 27th, if the U. S. itself refuses to vote to support its own embargo against Cuba, it will merely confirm to Mick Jagger and the rest of the world that, amazingly, the U. S. democracy -- when it comes to Cuba -- is not strong enough to rein in the remnants of the ousted but relocated Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba in the 1950s. In other words, the obscene assaults on the island, on democracy, on the U. S. image, and the U. S. treasury will likely continue for another six decades or so. Mick Jagger blames an easily bought-and-paid-for U. S. Congress. He's probably right. At least he's astute enough and brave enough to have an opinion on the subject of Cuba.

        Katy Perry, the superstar American singer, enjoyed a lush dinner at Havana's El Cocinero Restaurant this past weekend. She is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and had advised her Cuban contacts that she wanted to attend a live concert by Cuban singer Isaac Delgado. She saw two Delgado performances.

       This photo is courtesy of Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images. It shows U. S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker purchasing coffee in Havana last week. She was the first U. S. Secretary of Commerce to visit Cuba since way back in 1950. Ms. Pritzker is a billionaire and she is an American who is ashamed of the embargo against Cuba. She told Cubans that she believes the embargo will end "but it will take time." It's been in effect since 1962, a long, long time ago. It is presumed Ms. Pritzker is ashamed of the U. S. Congress.

            Dr. Eusebio Leal is renowned as the official Historian of Havana and he is also a member of the Cuban Parliament. He made an insightful speech at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. It reflects Obama-fueled progress in U.S.-Cuban relations. Prior to Obama, Americans and Floridians -- with few exceptions -- were subjected only to the Batistiano-Mafiosi side of the two-sided Cuban conundrum.

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