Cuba's Post-Obama Plans

 It Plans to Survive 
{Updated: Tuesday, July 26, 2016}

      The London Daily Mail used the above photo of Hillary Clinton in an article that said that Ms. Clinton, as President Obama's Secretary of State, was the person who actually began the Obama administration's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. The Daily Mail.com website is the largest online newspaper source in the world and it reports intently and fairly about Cuba. So, that revelation is significant considering that Ms. Clinton is expected to succeed Mr. Obama as U. S. President on January 20th, 2017.

      The Daily Mail.com used this photo to illustrate the day in December of 2014 that President Obama announced to the world that he planned to normalize relations with Cuba, and he has indeed been the first U. S. President since the assassination of John Kennedy on November 22, 1963 to seriously attempt to accomplish that nearly impossible task because Cuban abnormality benefits a lot of powerful people.

         The Daily Mail.com used the above photo to illustrate that Miami-led Cuban-Americans will likely thwart any and all efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, just as a visceral minority of Cuban-Americans have done since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. On the left above is U. S. Senator and failed-wannabe President Marco Rubio. In the middle is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, also from Miami. In 1989 when Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager Ros-Lehtinen became the first of a steady stream of Bush-anointed Cuban-Americans in Miami who have been propelled to the U. S. Congress. On the right is Mirta Costa; her son Carlos was a pilot of a "Brothers to the Rescue" plane shot down by Cuba in the Florida Straits in 1996. At the photo-opt above, Rubio and Ros-Lehtinen used Ms. Costa to highlight their efforts to maintain their dominance of America's Cuban policy as opposed to President Obama's wishes for peaceful and normal relations. The Daily Mail.com and other international media outlets have reported fairly on that shoot-down of two small Brothers' planes in 1996. The U. S. media has not. In 1996 President Bill Clinton was the third Democratic president to attempt to normalize relations with Cuba, after failures by Presidents Kennedy and Carter. But then Brothers planes, ostensibly in the Florida Straits to rescue stranded Cubans, taunted Cuba with flyovers, even dropping anti-Castro material over Havana. Cuba for days begged the U. S. to stop the flights over Cuban land and/or waters. The U. S. didn't. Cuba then begged the UN to do something. It also didn't do anything because the U. S. has veto power. Cuba then shot down two planes killing four people either in international waters or on the edge of Cuban territorial waters. A third plane piloted by one of Miami's all-time most famed anti-Castro Cuban-Americans, Jose Basalto, turned back and landed safely. With the Miami narrative dictating anti-Cuban vitriol, Cuba was/is totally blamed for the 1996 shootdowns although highly respected and less biased Americans such as Wayne S. Smith, Peter Kornbluh, Sarah Stephens, etc. have pointed out that the Brothers' planes, the U. S. and the UN should also share the blame. In any case, as the Daily Mail.com and the international media have pointed out, the Brothers' shootdowns totally ended President Clinton's plans in 1996 to normalize relations with Cuba and instead caused Clinton to sign the Helms-Burton Act that to this day remains the primary vehicle designed to destroy Revolutionary Cuba via isolation, as opposed to the famously failed 1961 Bay of Pigs attack.

      This photo shows President Bill Clinton on March 12, 1996, signing the Helms-Burton Act into law. On the far left was Jesse Helms. Looking directly over Clinton's right shoulder in red was Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who has represented Miami in the U. S. Congress since 1989. The large man standing just to the right of President Clinton was Robert Menendez, the Cuban-American U. S. Senator from New Jersey. Second from the right was Havana-born U. S. Congressman from Miami Lincoln Diaz-Balart whose father Rafael was a key Minister in Cuba's Batista dictatorship before becoming, after the 1959 revolution, one of the all-time richest and most powerful anti-Castro Cuban-Americans. Helms-Burton was supposed to be the final nail in Revolutionary Cuba's coffin. The Daily Mail.com indicates that President Bill Clinton reluctantly signed it into law only after the Brothers' shootdowns ended Clinton's plans to normalize relations with Cuba. That generally accepted fact is interesting because now the Daily Mail.com says that Hillary Clinton, expected to be the U. S. President beginning in January, used her power as Secretary of State to initiate President Obama's ongoing plans to normalize relations with Cuba. But in any case, Helms-Burton can only be changed by the U. S. Congress and that means it is not likely to be changed. There always seems to be enough Jesse Helms-types in Congress to align with a handful of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans to make it a permanent, if very controversial, part of the U. S. government, a cancerous portion of the U. S. democracy that is denounced yearly in the UN by a boisterous but helpless 191-to-2 vote. But let's not forget President Bill Clinton's original plans in 1996. Likewise let's assume that, most likely, President Hillary Clinton's plans beginning in 2017 will be to continue President Obama's sane and peaceful efforts regarding Cuba.

    Hillary following Barack as U. S. President is necessary. 

As a conservative Republican, I never thought I'd say that.

       The Daily News.com used this inauspicious photo of U. S. Senator Marco Rubio to point out that the Miami Cuban-American remains determined to lead the fight against normalizing relations with Cuba.

      The Daily News.com used this photo of Texas Cuban-American U. S. Senator Ted Cruz to point out that the 2020 presidential wannabe plans to out-do Rubio in making sure that the U. S. never normalizes relations with Cuba, at least not until its back under the U. S. yoke, meaning a few Cuban-Americans.

      The Daily Mail.com used this photo of Cuban-American U. S. Senator Robert Menendez to point out that the Congress-mandated Cuban policy is dictated by anti-Castro Cuban-Americans. Yet, polls show that most Cuban-Americans favor President Obama's Cuban policy, but it seems moderate Cuban-Americans are not candidates to be elected to the U. S. Congress or have much of a say on America's Cuban policy.

       Another Cuba-related nuance that seems to mock the U. S. democracy is the fact that the American broadcast news networks appear to only hire anti-Castro Cuban-American zealots as their anchors and talking heads and then sic them on Cuba...uh, always unbiased, of course. Jose Diaz-Balart based in Miami, for example, is a top anchor on NBC and MSNBC and his views on Cuba are not supposed to be questioned even though his father was a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship before the Castro revolution chased him and many others to Miami. Two of Jose's brothers, Lincoln and Mario, have been elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami...but who's counting? And even if you can count, don't complain about the extraordinary wealth and power of the Diaz-Balarts, or about the absurd discrimination and cruelty of Helms-Burton, and certainly never mention the 191-to-2 anti-U.S./pro-Cuban vote in the UN.

       And similar to the American broadcast industry, the mainstream print media in the U. S. seems only to employ journalists who are anti-Cuban zealots -- such as the Miami-based Cuban-American Alan Gomez who regularly uses the pages of USA Today to assail and demean Cuba, with counter-views verboten. His latest vitriol was on July 21st when, as always, his massive USA Today article distorted Cuban reality and heralded what he perceived as the upcoming and wonderful demise of Cuba, with exact paragraphs like this: "Many hurdles remain. Cuba continues to arrest hundreds of political dissidents each month. Cuba's economy is faltering in ways not seen in decades, in part because its main benefactor, oil-rich Venezuela, is suffering a major economic crisis and massive food shortages. Cuban officials have warned of power outages and other shortages in the months to come." With such paragraphs, U. S. journalists regarding Cuba, such as Alan Gomez, seem to cheer loudest when they suspect that Cubans on the island will begin to starve or at least be without necessities such as electricity on the tropical island. Americans, meanwhile, have permitted a Batistiano-dominated Congress and a Batistiano-dominated news media to defame the U. S. and democracy a lot more than it has defamed Cuba. It that were not so, there wouldn't be a 191-to-2 anti-U.S./pro-Cuba vote in the UN, and if that were not so Revolutionary Cuba would have died long, long ago. Perhaps Alan Gomez can write a USA Today article and explain to the American people how little Cuba has survived over a half-century of...military attacks by overthrown exiles backed by the strongest military in the world, unpunished terrorist attacks such as the bombing of Cubana Flight 455, the longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation, and a U. S. Congress that mandates any law that anti-Cuban zealots believe will bring about the demise of Revolutionary Cuba.

       The Cuban who diplomatically and fervently defends Cuba against the Batistiano-directed threats emanating from the U. S. is Josefina Vidal. Normally the U. S. media distorts or ignores the Cuban side of all equations but, amazingly, in the aforementioned USA Today article, Alan Gomez actually included this quotation from Vidal: "It's up to the United States to disassemble the hostile, unilateral policies that created a confrontational character on the links between the two countries. Cuba doesn't have similar policies toward the United States." Of course, with revengeful Cuban-Americans controlling the Cuban narrative in the United States, Americans are supposed to accept any and all assaults on Cuba -- such as teaming with the Mafia to support the brutal Batista dictatorship in Cuba and, after it was overthrown in 1959, trying to recapture the island via military and terrorist attacks orchestrated from the United States. When that failed, history's longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a strong nation against a weak one has been imposed to punish Cubans on the island while enticing, enriching and empowering Cubans in America. As Cuba's primary bulwark against America's intransigence, Vidal says, "Eleven million Cubans on this island would not be targeted every day if the American people had the courage and patriotism to respect and protect their democracy more. I believe the world, despite the incomparable U. S. influence, agrees with me on that. If the U. S. wants to impose its will on Cuba, as it has tried to do since the 1898 Spanish-American War, it will have to destroy our revolution completely. If the U. S. allows us to exist and breathe freely, we will work with the reasonable people in the U. S. government to make things better for Cubans and for Americans." 

       A lot of people around the world love Cuba or at least admire its tenacious efforts to fight against 500 years of imperial domination and, since 1959, to wage its underdog battle to remain a sovereign nation. I have been to Cuba and I admire and like Cubans on the island and most Cubans in America. But my love is America and democracy, and therein lies my passion for Cuba. I believe Cuba and especially the Cuban Revolution say a lot more about the United States, the world superpower, than they say about Cuba. And what it says, as reflected by that 191-to-2 yearly vote in the UN, is that America's Cuban policy for centuries, especially since 1898 and most particularly since 1959, has been dictated by a handful of right-wing rogues who have usurped the U. S. democracy for their own salacious and greedy purposes. Yes, I am disappointed that the U. S. democracy has not been strong enough since 1898 to ward off its Cuban abomination that daily demeans the image of the United States around the world, an image that the Castro Cottage Industry in the U. S. couldn't care less about. So yes, I like Cuba but I love America. And I believe America's Cuban policy should be predicated by the hands and hearts of decent Americans, not rogues.

       It is my opinion that rosy-cheeked little Cuban girls and their loving mothers should not be punished all their lives by revengeful and greedy exiles and natives of a foreign power that target their very vulnerable island. Punishing little girls like this in the guise of hurting Castro is a lame and gutless excuse. And if that is not the case since 1898, perhaps some self-anointed American or Cuban-American patriot should attempt to convince me and the United Nations why it is not so. 2, not 191, should be the underdog.

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