Cuba's Next Leader

An Anti-Imperialist Hardliner!
{Updated: Wednesday, October 11th, 2017}

      The best and surely the sanest article this week on the U.S.-Cuban conundrum was written by Mark Feierstein. It appeared on October 10-2017 in The Hill, the top Washington-based political website/magazine. The article is entitled: "America Should Strengthen, Not Abandon, Relationship With Cuba." During the Obama presidency, Mark Feierstein was the Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on the National Security Council. Mr. Feierstein certainly realizes that America's decades-old, Batistiano-ruled Cuban policy not only shames America's international reputation but also constitutes a major threat to America's security. Working sanely with Cuba, as Obama did, means cooperation on such things as drug and human trafficking utilizing Caribbean waters and islands as well as vital cooperation on environmental issues affecting the region. Mark Feierstein has the background to understand all that, and he also has the guts to express it. The problem is...there are simply not enough Americans in this generation with his insight, intelligence, or concern for America. That has left America's reputation and security door wide open, enabling a handful of vicious Batistiano-types in Miami and in Congress to dictate America's Cuban policy much like Cuba was roiled by the Batista-Mafia dictatorship back in the 1950s. The Mark Feierstein article updates the stupidity, cowardice, and lack of patriotism that has permeated the U. S. democracy since 1959, the year Batistiano leaders reestablished their rule on U. S. soil -- PERMANENTLY, it seems. 

       For the first time since 1959, the next leader of Cuba will not be a Castro. Fidel Castro died at age 90 on November 25th, 2016, and the tired 86-year-old Raul Castro will step down as Cuba's President in February of 2018. His successor will be Miguel Diaz-Canel who was born 57 years ago in Villa Clara, Cuba. The photo shown here taken by Juvenal Balan shows Diaz-Canel on Sunday, October 9th, 2017, making a major speech in Santa Clara, Cuba, honoring revolutionary icon Che Guevara. Raul Castro was in the audience but Diaz-Canel made the major speech, which is already his role. Much of the world awaited what Diaz-Canel would say Sunday...and he said a lot. His enemy in Miami, the Miami Herald, focused on his comments about the so-called "sonic wave" attacks in Havana that have supposedly injured about two dozen Americans connected to the U. S. Embassy. Diaz-Canel believes Cubans in Miami or on the island who oppose normal relations with the U. S. are behind the attacks and he believes much of the information provided to the press in the United States is fabricated to hurt Cuba and thereby create excuses for President Trump to greatly weaken the embassies in Havana and Washington but also to "warn" tourists not to visit Cuba. Of course, Cuba depends mightily on tourism. Diaz-Canel equates the sonic-wave attacks to documented examples of Cuban hotels being bombed by famed Miami terrorists who openly explained it was to discourage tourism to Cuba. The Miami Herald October 9th quoted Diaz-Canel as saying in this insightful speech: "Some spokespeople and the media lend themselves to propagating unbelievable tall tales, without any evidence, with the perverse purpose of discrediting the impeccable performance of our country, universally considered a safe destination for foreign visitors, including Americans." But the Oct. 9th Miami Herald article significantly pointed out that, when it comes to the U. S., Diaz-Canel is more of a hardliner than Raul Castro, who worked closely with the Obama administration to normalize relations between the two countries. The Miami Herald stated: "Above all, Diaz-Canel hinted that he does not support the rapprochement with the United States." And the Herald, this time, got that right!!

      In preparation for his impending role as Cuba's next leader, Miguel Diaz-Canel has traveled quite extensively to meet with world leaders. In the photo above he was in Brussels, Belgium, meeting Federica Mogherini, the top official with the EU.

     As the Miami Herald opined, Miguel Diaz-Canel, the next Cuban leader, is less trustful of the United States than current Cuban President Raul Castro is. In that Sunday speech, Diaz-Canel said, "You CAN NOT TRUST IMPERIALISM, not even a little bit, not at all." Unlike Raul Castro, who was very willing to negotiate friendly terms with President Obama, Diaz-Canel wants to avoid the United States as much as possible. Shown above with his wife, Diaz-Canel wants to use the time avoiding the U. S. "to be devoted to our many friends," including Canada but also African, Asian and European nations. Interestingly, Diaz-Canel is supported by older hard-line Cubans who don't want friendly relations with the United States and by the all-important young-adult generation of restless Cubans who do want friendly ties to America.

      Among Americans in Miami, Collin Laverty knows the most about U.S.-Cuban relations. He is President of Cuba Education Travel and thus has close working relationships with both governments, including intricate legalese details. He adamantly opposes punitive U. S. actions against Cuba such as using the sonic-wave mystery as an excuse to warn travelers against visiting Cuba, like the warnings that arose from the Havana hotel bombings by Miami terrorists. Laverty says it is well known that "Cuba is one of the safest places in the whole world for visitors."

      The Collin Laverty photo above was used in his explanation about Cuba being one of the world's safest countries. Laverty, like Miguel Diaz-Canel, believes the sonic-wave attacks are being perpetrated by people -- in Miami or in Cuba -- who want to discourage the island's vital tourism industry, which Cuba wants to protect. Laverty's photo above points out that the young lady visiting Cuba feels very safe.

      As expressed by this letter, Collin Laverty has gone into great detail about the sonic-wave attacks being used to hurt Cuban tourism, the last thing Cuba would want to hurt. To solve the mystery, Cuba has begged top U.S. CIA and Canadian Rocky Mounted investigators to come to Cuba and "uncover the culprits." In the above letter, four paragraphs from the bottom, Laverty writes, "Moreover, pulling out of Cuba will set a terrible precedent for the U. S. presence around the world. If there are targeted attacks, the culprits could use the same technology and techniques elsewhere."

      While anti-Cuban counter-revolutionaries in the U. S. are using the sonic-wave mystery to pound Cuba anew, even Bush dynasty stalwarts like Michael Palmly, President Bush's head of the U. S. Interests Section in Cuba from 2005 to 2008, says Cuba itself would never do such things but that U. S. or Cuban operatives trying to drive a deeper wedge between the two nations would. Palmly says Cuba is in a transition period "searching for the soul of the Revolution." While not a friend of Cuba, Palmly is far more honest and decent than the counter-revolutionaries.

       Americans...HEAVENS FORBID!!...are not supposed to have the slightest idea what the photo-montage depicted above means. But it means quite a lot to the understanding of U.S.-Cuban relations, including perhaps the current sonic-wave attacks, so permit me to explain it. On the left is Fabio de Celmo. In the center is his father Guistino de Celmo. And on the right is Luis Posada Carriles, the all-time most infamous CIA-connected Cuban terrorist who today is still a very honored citizen of Miami, Florida. Fabio, a 32-year-old Italian, was killed in a hotel bombing in 1997 during which smuggled plastic explosives were used to bomb many hotels in Havana including the Nacional de Cuba, Capri, Melia Cohiba, Copacabana, etc. After the murder of his son, Guistino moved permanently from Italy to Havana. Posada has bragged for decades about such terrorist attacks on Cuba and he plainly explained that the hotel bombings were to discourage tourism to Cuba. When notable author Ann Louise Bardach, in an article for the New York Times, asked Posada about Fabio's death, Posada called it "collateral damage." But of course, that's not what Guistino and the rest of the non-U.S. world call such things.

And by the way:

     Shown at the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica, Wes Edens is an American billionaire and Chairman of New Fortress Energy. He is investing heavily in Jamaica and his company will supply massive amounts of liquefied natural gas to the Caribbean island. He told the Jamaica Observer, "I give Jamaica an A. I absolutely do with pride. Our experience in Jamaica is among the top we've had anywhere in terms of working with a government." The Jamaican investments by Wes Edens' company also include a large truck-loading facility on Montego Bay on the island's northwest tip.

      As you can see above, Jamaica is due south of southeastern Cuba. Of course, Cuba is the only Caribbean nation that overthrew a U.S.-backed dictatorship that quickly resettled in the U. S. in 1959, resulting in, among other things, a U. S. embargo against Cuba since 1962. The embargo by the nearby world superpower even penalizes some other nations that might want to do business with Cuba. Much of the rest of the Caribbean is composed of island nations that are territories of rich, imperialist-minded nations such as the US, the UK, France and the Netherlands. But Cuba has been sovereign since 1959. So, billionaires like Wes Edins can invest billions in nations like Jamaica but the U. S. would turn warlike if Cuba received such treatment under the 1962 U. S. premise that if the Cubans on the island are starved and deprived, they might rise up and overthrow their government. But countries like Jamaica only need to worry about natural hurricanes, not U.S.-made hurricanes.

And then there is this:

      International headlines this week are telling the world that B-1B Lancers, America's incomparable bomber, are flying over the Korean Peninsula to remind North Korea what its bellicose nuclear threats might mean, which is annihilation.

      A single B-1B Lancer can drop dozens of conventional bombs with laser-guided pinpoint accuracy {as above} OR deliver nuclear bombs or missiles against any selected target. Not even nuclear-superpower Russia can match the B-1B Lancer.

 *&***********************&*