Havana Has High Hopes
At 4:30 P. M. Eastern Time on Sunday afternoon, March 20th, 2016, this IBT photo showed Air Force One in its descent over Havana, Cuba. On board was the President of the United States Barack Obama along with First Lady Michelle Obama, daughters Malia and Sasha, and Michelle's mother. Also on board were 39 members of the U. S. Congress and 11 top business executives.
This epic Joe Raedle/Getty Images photo shows United States President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama getting off Air Force One during a fairly heavy rainstorm in Havana Sunday afternoon.
This Carlos Barria/Reuters photo shows President Obama and First Lady Michelle touching the pavement at Jose Marti Airport in Havana, marking the first time since Calvin Coolidge in 1928 that a sitting United States President has been in Cuba. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, on the far left, led the Cuban delegation that welcomed President Obama to Cuba.
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| Photo courtesy: Jack Gruber/USA Today.
The photo above shows a Cuban lady hastily dusting off the entrance to her home just hours before the arrival of U. S. President Obama Sunday.
This Jack Gruber/USA Today photo shows a sight that tourists see on the streets of Havana. Cuban poet Orlando LaGuardia has just sold a poem and a keepsake to a tourist. Note that Orlando updated his commercial stand with a type-written note fronted by colorful Cuban and U. S. flags. The note reflected his appreciation of President Obama's visit and it thanked the President for "the respect you have shown the Cuban people. We have waited a very long time for someone exactly like you."
President Obama is the only American president since the 1950s to have the guts, the intelligence, and the patriotism to seriously attempt to forge a truly decent, non-imperialistic relationship with Cuba. Although the remnants of the ousted Batista-Mafia dictatorship, which ruled Cuba from 1952 till 1959, still cruelly dictate most of America's Cuban policy and most of America's Cuban narrative, Mr. Obama has, with uncommon bravery and astuteness, sliced into that affront to democracy, at least to the extent he can. Because of him, the U. S. has an embassy in Havana for the first time since 1961; because of him Cubans on the island and the citizens all across the Caribbean and Latin America have a more favorable opinion of America and democracy. But on his historic three-day trip to Cuba -- from Sunday afternoon till Tuesday night -- Mr. Obama has no illusions. He is aware that this generation of Americans, like the one that preceded it, is not courageous enough nor patriotic enough to support his sane and decent Cuban policy. By the time Air Force One touched down in Havana, Havana-born U. S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen had assailed him for supporting a "thug and a killer," referencing the Castro brothers. And just as Mr. Obama was arriving in Cuba Sunday, Cuban-American U. S. Senator and presidential contender Ted Cruz was also typically demeaning the President and his Office by accusing him of "legitimizing a brutal regime." Such comments are designed to legitimize the thuggish killers in the Batista-Mafia regime, first in Cuba and then in the U. S., while also perpetrating a Cuban policy that sates the revenge, economic, and political appetites of a few. While most Americans, most Cuban-Americans, most Latin Americans, and almost all citizens of the world approve of Mr. Obama's Cuban overtures, they are doomed to failure, for two reasons: {1} This generation of Americans lacks the courage to support Mr. Obama; and {2} punishing Cubans on the island and enriching a handful of Cuban-Americans is now deeply ingrained in both the American democracy and the American psyche.
So, forget what Obama says in Cuba.
Just let Cruz and Ros-Lehtinen dictate the Cuban narrative.
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