Cuba Welcomes Americans

  The Stampede Commences 
{Sunday, August 28th, 2016}

Cubans welcome American tourists.

Americans in front of the new U. S. Embassy in Havana.

Cuban children like to pose for American tourists. 

           Poor little Cuba for years has provided totally free and excellent medical educations for Americans like these at the world's largest and one of the most highly respected medical schools. When they graduate, these Americans don't owe Cuba a dime or a peso. Cuba only asks that, at least for a time, they return to the poor areas in the United States from which they came and provide medical care as expertly and as cheaply as possible. {But shhhh...if you are an American, you are not supposed to know or say anything good about Cuba. Since the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Batistianos have dictated the Cuban narrative in the United States...as well as it's anti-Cuba/pro Cuban exile laws. That's why for decades everyday Americans have been the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. That law, which pusillanimous Americans meekly accept and the cowardly U. S. media promotes, is designed to prevent Americans from judging Cuba for themselves; instead, Americans are told that everything about Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 is bad and everything about the vile Batista dictatorship was good. Free-thinking Americans, like these medical students, know better.}

       Beginning next week -- on the last day of August, 2016 -- U. S. commercial jets for the first time since 1961 will become familiar sights at ten Cuban airports. Next Wednesday -- August 31st -- jetBlue will make history with a flight from Fort Lauderdale to Villa Clara in central Cuba. Then American in September will start direct flights from Miami to Cuba, followed by other major U. S. airlines before the end of 2016 making flights to Cuba from New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, etc. Currently 17 charter flights from the United States land in Cuba daily but commercial flights have been banned since 1961 until President Obama, beginning in December of 2014, bravely, astutely, and finally defied the decades-old control of America's Cuban policy self-servingly imposed by Miami hard-liners and a sycophantic U. S. Congress. In 2015 Cuba had a record 3.5 million tourists as Obama loosened the stranglehold Miami and Congress had on denying everyday Americans the freedom to visit Cuba although 300,000 Cubans living in the U. S. were allowed to visit each year. In 2014 only 91,254 Americans visited Cuba; in 2015 161,233 Americans visited Cuba. And that number will drastically increase beginning next week when up to 110 commercial flights will begin flying to Cuba from the U. S. each day after being banned since 1961.

      Cuba's top diplomat on U. S. matters, Josefina Vidal, this week -- Friday, August 26th -- said, "The jetBlue flight to Cuba next week reflects President Obama's wishes to treat Cuba fairly and decently. We appreciate that. The restored commercial flights to Cuba from the U. S. will tax us but we are prepared. Currently 110 airlines fly to Cuba and we are strong in matters of operational and aviation security. With Mr. Obama's cooperation, we now have a U.S.-operated hotel in Havana, and we have U. S. cruise ships docking in Cuban ports. That hasn't been allowed by the U. S. in half-a-century, but now U. S. companies and workers are making money along with Cubans on the new ventures, even before the commercial flights begin next week. Our burgeoning hotels are now buttressed by thousands of private homes now renting out rooms. Since Presidents Castro and Obama made their historic announcements on Dec. 17, 2014, 2,000 private restaurants have opened in Cuba. It is better for Cubans and for Americans to be friends, even if it displeases some. Endless animosity that benefits a few is senseless but for many decades it has been permitted to persist."  

      Josefina Vidal acknowledged some "growing pains" have emerged because of the island's fresh detente with the United States. "The U. S. airlines," she said, "craved the Havana route over the other nine Cuban cities and international flights to Havana were already constant. But we have worked hard, stressing safety and convenience, to accommodate up to 20 daily U. S. commercial flights to Havana by the end of 2016. In our efforts to normalize relations with the United States, we have always wanted Americans to visit us." 

 Cuba's Josefina Vidal.

        Study this interesting photo, which is courtesy of Fox News Latino. It shows Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arriving in Havana this week to begin a 6-day swing through Latin America. Zarif in the dark jacket was greeted by Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez in the white shirt, and Zarif then met with Cuban President Raul Castro. While America's best friends around the world are delighted with President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, America's enemies are not. Two U. S. experts on Cuba, Leah Soibel and Chris Sabatini, are not surprised that countries like Iran are increasingly trying to woo Cuba. Soibel told Fox News Latino, "Cuba is a very important player in regards to Iran's relations with Latin America. If Cuba gives the greenlight, the rest of the nations will follow suit." Sabatini told Fox News Latino, "The U. S. with Obama is being more and more influential in Cuba, and it will continue in the future." Soibel, Sabatini and other key U.S.-Cuban experts agree that Cuba has an out-sized influence throughout Latin America, and countries like Iran know it. And all sane, unbiased American experts on Cuba firmly believe that Obama's attempt to increase U. S. influence in Cuba is far better than the decades-old efforts to isolate and assail the very influential island. 

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