Miami Old Guard Still Rules

Beyond Fidel's Lifetime!!
{Updated: Tuesday, August 29th, 2017}

     The photo above of the University of Havana is courtesy of Wikipedia. It is used to illustrate the best, fairest and most insightful article this month of August-2017 regarding the tumultuous and everlasting U.S.-Cuban relations. The August 28th article was written by Elizabeth Redden and is entitled: "A U. S. University Cuts Itself Off From Cuba." That university, not surprisingly, is the University of Miami. The article pointed out that many other universities have engaged with Cuba since President Barack Obama in 2014 opened doors that had long been locked shut by hard-line Cuban exiles who fled the January-1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution to regroup in nearby Miami in the section now known, all these decades later, as Little Havana. In 2017 many of the most prominent buildings and institutions at the University of Miami are, of course, named for the most vehement counter-revolutionary anti-Castro zealots such as Jorge Mas Canosa, Manual Artime, etc. Elizabeth Redden's Aug. 28th article about the University of Miami "cutting itself off from Cuba" began with these words: "After meeting with hard-line, anti-Castro leaders, the University of Miami says it won't enter into institutional agreements with Cuba. But what do faculty members think?" Of course, if you are a Cuban-American in Miami or a non-hard-line professor at the University of Miami or anywhere else, all polls show that you most likely favor normal relations with Cuba that would involve sane and decent engagements with the island. The fact that such sanity and decency has not prevailed in the United States for the past half-century reflects one basic fact that, unfortunately, intimidated Americans are not supposed to be brave enough to admit, namely: For a half-century America's Cuban policy has been constructed by hard-line Cuban extremists to benefit hard-line Cuban extremists politically and economically.

Respected journalist Elizabeth Redden.

      The insightful Elizabeth Redden article Aug. 28th about the University of Miami "cutting off ties to Cuba" {WOW!! What a surprise} highlighted the sane and decent reactions of non-hardliners and unbiased Cuban experts -- such as Lisandro Perez, a renowned authority on Cuba. Ms. Redden said Mr. Perez "expressed bafflement" about the University of Miami statement. He said, "I don't understand the concept. It's not just that I disagree with it: I don't understand the concept of a university research center that focuses on Cuba and does not have contact with Cuba."

       In other words, Mr. Perez doesn't understand "the concept" of the University of Miami because it defies every logic except the solitary one that, after all these decades, still sharply benefits the ultra-powerful minority of elderly counter-revolutionaries in Miami. Everyone else pays for it, especially U. S. taxpayers, U. S. democracy lovers, and millions of innocent Cubans on the island.

      Cuba's revolutionary icon Fidel Castro died at age 90 on November 25th, 2016. His brother Raul, now very tired at age 86, will step down as Cuba's President in a few months -- no later than February, 2018 -- with a non-Castro set to replace him.

      History will always link Fidel Castro with the all-time most infamous Cuban-American terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. Posada is now 89-years-old and today is still a heralded citizen of Miami. He was born on February 15, 1928 in Cienfuegos, Cuba. Both history and the Guinness Book of World Records register the fact that Fidel Castro survived by far the most assassination attempts made against any person. Posada proudly was involved in some of them but history also records that he was successful in many famed terrorist attacks apart from individual assassinations.

       In January of 1959 after the Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship, many of the most vehement anti-Castro Cubans were sent by the U. S. government to Fort Benning in Georgia to train for the recapture of the island. Fort Benning graduates included what became arguably the three most famous anti-Castro Cubans -- Jorge Mas Canosa, Felix Rodriguez, and Luis Posada Carriles. The Bay of Pigs attackers in April of 1961 were trained at Fort Benning and in U.S.-friendly dictatorships such as Somoza's Nicaragua. As the photo here indicates, Posada graduated from Fort Benning as a 2nd Lt. but after the Bay of Pigs attack he stayed on the U. S. payroll as an anti-Castro zealot...while fervent anti-Castro Cubans like Jorge Mas Canosa, Felix Rodriguez, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, etc., aligned themselves with the Bush dynasty as their tickets to fame.

      By his own admissions, Luis Posada Carrilies was tied to many attempts to kill Castro but also to numerous anti-Cuban terrorist acts such as hotel and airplane bombings. He will forever be tied -- as the graphic above indicates -- to the Oct. 6-1976 terrorist bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455 in which all 72 on board died.

     As this de-classified document documents, the U. S. government -- Kissinger, etc. -- was well aware of Posada's involvement in the bombing of Cubana Flight 455.

     The top international news organizations, such as the London-based BBC as indicated above, have always had the courage and integrity to tie Posada to the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 and to the fact that he was "a CIA agent", which meant that U. S. taxpayers paid for his deeds. The U. S. media doesn't have that courage.

      The photo above shows a sister and a mother who had just been told that Cubana Flight 455 had crashed into the ocean with no survivors. Yes, Cuban victims cry too.

Cubans still mourn Cubana 455 victims.

     Memorials like this in Cuba and the Caribbean honor the victims of Cubana Flight 455 and remind the world that Posada is still a heralded citizen of Miami, Florida.

         For attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000, Posada and three other Cubans were sentenced to lengthy Panama prison terms. But Posada had powerful friends from Miami who happened to be in the United States Congress, including Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers Lincoln and Mario whose father Rafael had been a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship.

      The Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has been in the United States Congress from Miami since 1989 when Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager as a prelude to his becoming the two-term Governor of Florida. In a famous article in the Miami Herald by top columnist Jim DeFede, Ros-Lehtinen was pinpointed as the prime force that freed Posada from the Panamanian prison. DeFede's article famously stated that terrorism against innocent Cubans was the same as terrorism against innocent Brits, Americans, etc. He asked Ros-Lehtinen if she would comment about the article in which he excoriated her for freeing Posada, but she refused. However, she eagerly uses the U. S. media, as indicated above, to excoriate Cuba at every opportunity.

      With the exception of the Jim DeFede article in the Miami Herald, seldom has the mainstream United States media had the courage to report fairly about Posada or about the Miami and Washington politicians who support him. But the top international media, such as the London-based The Guardian, are, of course, not so restrained.

      And so, as he nears his 90th birthday in February in Miami, Posada's famed antagonist Fidel Castro died of natural causes in Havana at age 90 on Nov. 25-2016. But the Posada-Castro nexus still defines U.S.-Cuban relations from 1959 till today.

And the nexus shames the U. S. and democracy.

     As a free and heralded citizen of Miami to this day, Luis Posada Carriles is shown above leading an anti-Obama demonstration in Miami because President Barack Obama had made some peaceful and decent gestures toward the Cuban people.

And by the way:

    This Reuters photo was taken by Rodi Said on August 26, 2017. It shows one of the most important military Commanders in the world right now. Her name is Nowruy Ahmed. She is shown studying war plans in her headquarters in Raqqa, Syria. Her all-female unit of the Kurdish Peoples' Army is a key force in the ongoing battle to take the vital city of Raqqa from the Islamic State. Her brigade is supported by U. S. airstrikes. General Ahmed told Reuters, "We cannot determine the time period in which the Battle of Raqqa will end precisely because war has its conditions. But...according to our plans the battle will not take longer than two months from now."

     General Ahmed's all-female Kurdish brigade was already a legendary fighting force long before it entered Raqqa. This Reuters photo was also taken by Rodi Said.

*&***********************&*