Targeting Cuba and Haiti

Congress and Hurricanes Take Turns!!

A CNN Image of Hurricane Matthew.

An enormous calamity for eastern Cuba and western Haiti.

       This Dieu Nalio Chery/AP photo shows a Haitian woman trying to take her child to safety as Hurricane Matthew began to assault Port-au-Prince last night and early this morning. A few minutes later a major bridge on the edge of the city was washed away. Hurricane Matthew is the most powerful Atlantic and Caribbean tropical storm in over a decade. Parts of Haiti got 40 inches of rain amid 145 MPH winds. Then the eye of the hurricane reached eastern Cuba with similar ferocity as Cubans hunkered down.

       This Wikitravel map shows the five targeted Cuban provinces in eastern Cuba {shaded in Blue} that felt the brunt of Hurricane Matthew -- Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Holguin, Granma and Las Tunas.

       Hurricane Matthew in the last few hours has left death and destruction in its wake from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba. Historically Cuba and Haiti are the two most vulnerable islands in the Caribbean, from both natural and man-made hurricanes. Haiti, the region's poorest nation, is still trying to recover from the earthquake and cholera outbreak that devastated its western portion of Hispaniola island that it shares with the Dominican Republic. Richer nations who have failed to help the Haitians should be ashamed of themselves. When calamities like Hurricane Matthew hit, poverty-stricken Haitians have cut so many trees to use as fuel that floods and mudslides wipe out helpless towns and neighborhoods. The gross discrimination against Haitians by politicians in Miami and the U. S. Congress assail decent Haitians daily and unmercifully. An overlooked AP headline in my newspaper this week blared this headline: "U. S. WIDENS EFFORTS TO DEPORT HAITIANS." The first AP sentence said: "The U. S. Department of Homeland Security says it is widening efforts to deport Haitians, a response to thousands of immigrants from the Caribbean nation who overwhelmed California border crossings with Mexico in recent months." That gutless sentence contrasts sharply with the fact that Cubans, with far less reasons to emigrate to the United States, are lured by the U. S. government to reach that Mexican border and then the moment their front toe touches U. S. soil they are home-free with extremely discriminatory incentives that instantaneously include -- for Cubans and Cubans only -- financial, residence and citizenship rewards. Americans are supposed to be too stupid, too unpatriotic, and too intimidated to cringe at such extreme discriminatory practices by a government that routinely criticizes other governments for far less discriminatory practices. Of course, the difference between Haitian and Cuban immigrants is this: Unlike Cuba, Haiti never had a U.S.-and-Mafia-backed dictatorship that was overthrown by a popular revolution and simply fled to U. S. soil.

      Standing at the U. S border and quickly waving Cubans into the United States with no questions asked, while just as quickly blocking entry for more deserving, poverty-stricken Haitians and routinely deporting them strikes democracy-lovers as being unfair. It shames the U. S. far more than it demeans Haitians.

      Even the politicians in Miami and Washington that dictate America's Cuban-Haitian laws admit that the U. S. doesn't really need a continuous influx of Cubans lured from the island to hurt Cuba. But the laws greasing that migration WHILE IGNORING THE PLIGHT OF HAITIANS {and even U. S. security} will eternally be lushly funded with tax dollars as a means to hurt Cuba -- you know, AT LEAST UNTIL REVENGEFUL MIAMIANS CAN RE-CAPTURE CUBA AND RE-STORE IT TO ITS BATISTIANO GLORY DAYS OF THE 1950S.  

MEANWHILE: 

   A Houston Chronicle photo shows Haitians confronting Hurricane Matthew.

    This uk.news photo shows Cubans confronting Hurricane Matthew.

      Storms, natural and man-made, have always threatened Cuba as this iconic image attests. This photo was taken in 1963 as Hurricane Flora approached Cuba. Fidel Castro is shown getting a meteorological update. He had spent the previous 18 hours on Cuban television and radio warning the Cuban people about the storm. When he was told above where the brunt of the storm would likely strike, Fidel, as he was prone to do, whisked away from Havana to that location, to wait out the storm with everyday Cubans. In 1963 Hurricane Flora killed 1,200 Cubans. In the decades since, top U. S. and international meteorologists have lavishly praised Cuba for its emphasis on hurricane preparations.

        This photo is courtesy of www.bradenton.com. It shows a Haitian girl yesterday in the town of Tabarre hoping to survive her latest storm, Hurricane Matthew. Haitians like her deserve help and comfort.

        Cubans and Haitians fortunate enough to survive Hurricane Matthew will then have to get back to worrying about Hurricane Miami and Hurricane Washington. Somehow, the longer that Cold War outrage persists, the more unfair it seems...and the more it demeans both the United States and democracy.

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