U.S. Media Coverage of Cuba

Obscures Even More Important Priorities
Wednesday, December 24th, 2014

      This beautiful, courageous lady traveled to America last week. She is a poignant reminder that it's about time, for the first time since 1959, that the U. S. government should cease having much of its oxygen, treasury, and reputation sucked away by a Cuban policy designed to benefit a few extremists and harm everyone else. This lady's name is Vian Dakhil. Her visit to America this December is extremely important but that point will mostly be lost as the largely incompetent U. S. media and the easily distracted U. S. government concentrate on other less important tangents, such as genuflecting to a few Cuban-Americans obsessed with maintaining a decades-old, failed, cruel Cuban policy. Permit me to explain why this lady, Vian Dakhil, is more important, at this point in time, than Cuba or a myriad of other more publicized issues.

       Vian Dakhil is a member of the Yazidis, a religious sect in Iraq. She is a member of the Iraqi parliament, the only Yazidi politician. The BBC, CNN, Reuters, and most other international news organizations featured the above video clip in which Vian Dakhil, with gripping emotion, beseeched the majority Iraqi parliament to do something to help her Yazidi people who were being wiped out by powerful terrorists.

      When what remained of the Yazidis sought refuge on a mountaintop, the forces bent on genocide continued to target them unmercifully. Vian Dakhil went to help her people and got severely wounded when a helicopter crashed after an attack that had killed most of those around her. From her hospital bed she again told the world that the terrorists had killed 500 males, men and boys, from her village and kidnapped the surviving women and girls to use them as sex slaves, girls as young as five.

        This photo shows some of the "lucky" Yazidis, lucky because at least they are alive. Vian Dakhil, out of the hospital but limping badly with a crutch, wanted to stay and comfort these surviving Yazidis. But she left them behind to come to the United States this week to beg the U. S. government to help her people.

       Vian Dakhil believes that little Yazidi girls, like this one, deserve the right to live, the right not to be raped or starved, the right not to be shot by masked terrorists, and even the right to have a chance at a good life. Through the ages, especially now, societies should be judged by how they treat the most innocent, the most precious, and the most vulnerable among us -- like this little Yazidi angel who is shown praying for help. A world that does not help her is a world that, perhaps, is beyond being saved.

        And that's why Vian Dakhil, injured and hobbled, is in America this week to beg the United States to help the Yazidis and to help the little Yazidis girls that were being raped even as she was speaking to Samantha Power, an American who cared. Unfortunately, President Obama is on vacation in Hawaii...the U. S. Congress primarily caters mostly to special interests such as a few Cuban-Americans determined to maintain a failed Cuban policy that benefits only them...and the U. S. media primarily devotes its time and resources to easy, well-greased "news." All too often, more important and more urgent priorities get lost in the special interest malaise fostered by rich, powerful, and very safe politicians. Vian Dakhil's cause is more important and urgent than all those things. She and and her cause should be addressed in America, even at the expense of pompous politicians ranting about their crazed, self-serving obsessions.

       This photo shows Vian Dakhil pleading her case this week at a session hosted by Samantha Power, America's very capable and concerned UN ambassador. That is Ms. Dakhil on the left and Ms. Power on the right. The photo is courtesy of Ms. Power's Twitter page. There should be many more Americans, along with Ms. Power, direly concerned about Vian Dakhil's message, which deserves more media coverage than the Cuban miasma or anything else. A photo can speak a thousand words, or more. With that in mind, please revisit the photo above of the little Yazidi girl praying for help, a prayer that should not go unanswered.

***************

           In the New Year, 2015, America's very brave, very decent, and very harassed President, Barack Obama, plans to do all he can to normalize relations with Cuba. It is, beyond question, a brilliant, brave and long overdue idea. However, three cancerous elements that have embedded themselves within the bowels of the U. S. democracy will likely blunt most, but not all, of President Obama's decent and grandiose plans related to the nearby island. Those three elements are: {1} A few extremists from two generations of self-serving exiles from the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship way back in 1959; instead of just having influence in creating Cuban policy in a democracy, they have insisted on solely creating and carrying out that policy to suit their desires -- which entail revenge as well as massive economic and political advantages; {2} an intimidated or incompetent media that is unable or unwilling to provide the American people with what they need to know in order to sanely judge, with veracity and decency, the unending U.S.-Cuban conundrum; and {3} a 535-member U. S. Congress that has evolved into an assembly in which a handful of extremists outside Congress with money to pay lobbyists or money to enlarge PACs can easily purchase votes; or within Congress where an extreme member can readily say to another, "You support my Cuban policy and I'll support your Bridge to Nowhere." That's how, since the 1980s, the Miami-based Radio-TV Marti piggy-bank has been lushly funded by unwitting U. S. taxpayers. That's how, since the George W. Bush administration, millions of USAID tax dollars routinely go to hired contractors to devise weird and sometimes dangerously stupid  schemes to fund and foment uprisings or anti-government demonstrations in Cuba. And that's how the U. S. Congress passes laws such as the Torricelli Bill and the Helms-Burton Act that benefit a handful of Cuban exiles and their sycophants but harm everyone else in Cuba, America, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the world. Along comes a decent U. S., twice-elected, President, Mr. Obama, who has and will continue to discover that a few rich and powerful Cuban-Americans can over-rule him and world opinion when it comes to prolonging a nearby island as a piggy-bank and playpen for the Batista-Mafia cabal in the 1950s and the Batistiano-Mafiosi crowd today. President Obama, before he took off on a Christmas vacation in Hawaii, announced sweeping plans to normalize relations with Cuba. That was real pretty. The aftermath will be real ugly. Both history and common sense, unfortunately, tell us that is so.

            President John Kennedy, in the second week of November in 1963, had informed his top aides -- including Pierre Salinger and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. -- that his "top priority" upon his return from Dallas would be "to normalize relations with Cuba." From President Kennedy in November of 1963 till President Obama in December of 2014, no President of the United States has been able to extricate America and its democracy from the iron grip of a Cuban policy that extreme right-wingers, such as the Dulles brothers in the outgoing Eisenhower administration, turned over to the incoming President Kennedy in 1960. For the first two years of his presidency, President Kennedy and his brother Robert dutifully carried out the Cuban policy they had inherited, including the ill-fated Bay of Pigs attack in 1961 that was intended to recapture Cuba and a series of CIA-Mafia-Cuban exile attempts to kill Fidel Castro. But by his his third year in office -- 1963 -- the young, handsome, charismatic and very popular President Kennedy felt he was powerful enough to normalize relations with Cuba and then easily win a re-election as President in 1964. He was wrong in November of 1963. And so, I'm afraid, is President Obama in December of 2014. Back in 1963 there were simply too many powerful entities benefiting from a foreign domination of Cuba. On the eve of 2015, that is still true. Democracy? Democracy has inexplicably been allowed to slip through the crevasse. 

       On Dec. 17-2014, President Obama told America, Cuba, and the world about his plans to normalize relations with Cuba. He even hinted that he might visit Cuba, a place most Americans have, conveniently for the Batistianos, been unable to visit for decades. And President Obama, among other audacious plans, said he would open a U. S. embassy in Havana and Cuba would open an embassy in Washington.

        Of course, within minutes of President Obama announcing his plans regarding Cuba, the three vicious Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Senate -- as well as the usual contingent of Cuban-American politicians, lobbyists, and propagandists -- rushed before every network television camera they could find to berate and belittle President Obama's grandiose plans to normalize relations with Cuba. Senators Marco Rubio, Robert Menendez, and Ted Cruz -- left to right above -- are extremely adept at using their congressional powers to shut down the government, block legislation that doesn't correspond to their one-trick-pony agendas, and cut off any government funds that might be needed to carry out logical programs but make sure the government keeps funding piggy-bank anti-Castro schemes such as Miami's lucrative but otherwise senseless Radio-TV Marti boondoggle or USAID's endless financial assistance to Cuban dissidents. Yet, the Rubio-Menendez-Cruz triangle is not to be underestimated. Cruz, the ultimate right-wing extremist via the unusual Cuba-Canada-Texas pipeline to Congress, is extremely smart and vicious. Rubio, via the usual Miami pipeline to Congress, is the incoming Chairman of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Menendez, via the usual Union City-to-Congress pipeline, is Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. With Congress vulnerable to being usurped by rich and powerful extremists, and with Cruz's shut-down expertise, and with the omnipotent Chairmanships in the U. S. Senate bequeathed to Rubio and Menendez, these three Senators are more powerful than one man in the White House whose Executive Powers were intended by the Founding Fathers to provide a check-and-balance against Congressional extremism. Rubio-Menendez-Cruz were quick to remind the world that, yes, the President can create an embassy in Havana but they can prevent any funding for it; and, yes, the President can appoint an ambassador to Cuba but they can block any such appointment in Congress. Rubio-Menendez-Cruz represent today what America's Founding Fathers tried their best to prevent when they couched their halcyon democracy with as many checks-and-balances as they could muster. The assaults against President Obama will continue unabated with the American people largely left out of the fray because of an incompetent and intimidated U. S. media that will favor the Rubio-Menendez-Cruz tribunal. For example, after dropping the hint that he might visit Cuba, President Obama capitulated soon thereafter with the comment that...well, uh, that may have been a bit hasty. Undoubtedly, in the days to come, other aspects of his plans will be tempered or shelved. But at least Mr. Obama's plans regarding Cuba remind us of a U. S. democracy that once was an enterprise in which the will of the majority was as persuasive as the power of money. But that was back in the good ole days, which remind me of some pertinent and historic black-and-white photos from our past.

      Only one sitting U. S. president has ever visited the island of Cuba although even America's first three presidents -- Washington, Adams, and Jefferson -- famously cast covetous eyes on the island back in the 1700s. On January 16, 1928, America's sitting President, Calvin Coolidge, took the U.S.S. battleship Texas from Key West, Florida to Cuba. The photo above shows President Coolidge, on the left with his wife, standing next to Cuban President Gerardo Machado and his wife. On Cuban soil President Coolidge's prepared speech began with these exact words: "Thirty years ago Cuba ranked as a foreign possession torn by revolution and devastation by hostile forces. Such governments as existed relied on military force. Today Cuba is her own sovereign. Her people are independent, free, and prosperous, peaceful, and enjoying the advantages of self-government." Of course, those words reflect the misinformation Americans have been saturated with since 1898, a key year that President Coolidge reference with his first three words -- "Thirty years ago." Thirty years before President Coolidge visited Cuba, the U. S. had taken over dominance of the island with its easy victory in the Spanish-American war over Spain, the fading imperialist power that had controlled Cuba -- and killed Cuba's greatest patriots such as Antonio Macea and Jose Marti -- prior to losing control of the island to the United States. President Coolidge mocked Spanish "military force" that had ruled Cuba prior to America's takeover. Of course, he didn't mention the U. S. Marines the U. S. sent to Cuba after the Spanish-America War to replace the Spanish soldiers. Then the U. S. by 1903 had secured the plus Guantanamo Bay "in perpetuity" from Cuba and, of course, the U. S. dictated who emerged as President of Cuba, such as President Machado who is hosting President Coolidge in the above photo. The last President of Cuba that the U. S. dictated was the Mafia-aligned Cuban Sergeant named Batista!

       This graphic montage accurately depicts what Americans vaguely know and don't know about the Batista dictatorship in Cuba that spawned the Cuban Revolution, which spoon-fed Americans also don't know much about. As depicted above, the Batista dictatorship was a brutal, thieving Mafia-run piggy-bank and playpen for the dictatorship's cronies, which included a small but powerful den of thieves. In the upper-left above is the #1 Italian Mafia kingpin Lucky Luciano. In the lower-center above is the #1 Jewish Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky. In the upper-right above is the #1 Cuban Mafia kingpin Fulgencio Batista. 

       Beginning in the 1950s, after the U. S. had emerged from World War II as the richest and strongest nation in history, the U. S. democracy, correctly, was recognized as the greatest form of government the world had known. But the man above, Fulgencio Batista, reflects the fact that the U. S. democracy was/is neither impregnable nor infallible. Supporting and empowering vile dictators in helpless countries so rich Americans could partake in the rape and robbery of those nations' resources was not and is not what democracy and/or America should be all about. Yes, beginning in the 1950s the U. S., as the power of greedy right-wingers emerged in Washington, began to install and/or support vile dictators in Cuba, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, the Congo, Nicaragua, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and other unfortunate countries. But the Batista dictatorship in Cuba stands out in the pantheon of history for these two reasons: {1} Batista was the first U.S.-backed dictator to be overthrown by a popular revolution, and {2} the U. S. immediately allowed the fleeing leaders of the Batista dictatorship to resume the dictatorship, more powerful than ever, on U. S. soil. In the 55 years since those two seminal events, a lot of innocent blood and huge swaths of the U. S. treasure have tried to recapture Cuba -- a process that, incredibly, has been unsuccessful except for enriching and empowering a few Cuban exiles, both the generation that fled Cuba and especially their U.S.-born offspring. Also incredibly, those few enriched and empowered Cuban exiles to this day dictate America's Cuban policy, a fact that now President Obama is trying mightily to confront. That situation is propelled by an endless series of lies and distortions regarding Cuba, such as the myth that Batista spread the island's wealth around to everyday Cubans and not just his Mafia and American supporters. Repetitive lies about pre-Castro Cuba have been used since 1959 in the U. S. to justify not only such things as the embargo but such things as the 1976 terrorist bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455, which killed all 73 innocents on board plus the five crew members. The perpetrators wildly hailed the tragedy in the Miami media as being "THE BIGGEST BLOW YET AGAINST CASTRO!" It was and remains, of course, a huge blow against the U. S. and democracy. That same year Emilio Milian, the top Cuban-American newsman in Miami, was car-bombed for denouncing such terrorism against innocent Cubans. Decades later the top columnist for the Miami Herald, Jim DeFede, wrote a scathing column excoriating Miami's contributions to the U. S. Congress -- Iliana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers -- for assisting the well-known primary Miami terrorist who lives to this day a free man in Miami.

Meanwhile.................

       ..................even to this day, people in Cuba, all across the Caribbean, and throughout Latin America are familiar with the faces of the victims of the Cubana Flight 455 bombing. Additionally, all of those countries are not pleased, and neither was the great journalist Jim DeFede, that the terrorist, well known to the FBI and the world and forever tied to the bombing of Cubana Flight 455, to this day has a safe, heralded harbor in Miami. After DeFede's famous column, who do you think was punished, Posada's enablers or DeFede?

      Incredibly! Luis Posada Carriles was the star attraction at an anti-Obama rally in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood last weekend! He was very talkative, telling journalists, "I felt sad, but I reacted and I saw the pictures. Cuba will not be a tourist haven. We must resist that with all that we can to the end." Posada, known as the most famous terrorist in Latin American history, has been the seminal anti-Castro Cuban exile since 1959. He is 86-year-old. He was born February 15, 1929 in Cienfuegos, Cuba. He has bragged about the terrorist bomb that downed Cubana Flight 455, but later recanted when Miami politicians and their sycophants were trying, successfully, to get Posada out of Venezuelan and Panamanian prisons. Posada also bragged about bombing Cuban hotels, including one that killed an Italian tourist, to persuade tourists not to visit Cuba. He has never recanted that claim but did say he regretted the collateral damage.

      After the overthrow of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba in January of 1959, many of the most zealous anti-Castro Cubans -- Posada, Jorge Mas Canosa, Felix Rodriguez, etc. -- were immediately sent to the infamous Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. They graduated as 2nd Lieutenants. Many, including Luis Posada Carriles, worked with the CIA in the Bay of Pigs attack in April of 1961 and many other nefarious Cuban enterprises. Posada is revered to this day in Miami for his terrorist acts against Cuba and for his assassination attempts against Fidel Castro. And, yes, incredibly, Luis Posada Carriles this weekend was the star of an anti-Obama demonstration in Miami, vowing yet again to continue the goals he has had since 1959 -- to finish off the Castros and to persuade tourists not to visit the island.

            This is the last photo ever taken of Fabio di Celmo. He was born on June 1, 1965 in Genoa, Italy. As a tourist in Cuba he died in the terrorist bomb that struck Havana's Copacabana Hotel on Sept. 4, 1997.

       After the death of his beloved son, Guistino di Celmo moved permanently to Havana. The montage above shows Fabio, Guistino, and Posada. This trio with be linked forever in history, at least throughout Latin America and Italy. But one thing is for sure: No television journalist in the U. S. has the integrity or courage to ask anti-Cuban zealots from Miami -- such as Marco Rubio, the Diaz-Balarts, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen -- how they reconcile Posada in Miami, the downing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455, the murder of Fabio di Celmo, etc.? But for sure Rubio, the Diaz-Balarts, Ros-Lehtinen, etc., can expect softball questions and no rebuttals in their almost daily rants on national television in the weak U. S. media.

This is the Copacabana Hotel in Havana right after Fabio di Celmo was killed. 

            This photo reflects the abject poverty in Batista's Cuba while the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and rich Americans were verily robbing the island blind. Since 1959 in the U. S., there have been a lot of words about how mean Castro is, always prefaced with the expressed or implied hint that, in Batista's Cuba, the Cuban people were wonderfully cared for. The news media that broadcasts such lies should do its job and ask Batista fans if the photo shown above was typical of Batista's Cuba or not. {The answer: It was}.

       This all-too-common photo from Batista's Cuba also reflected the plight of the majority Cuban peasants. Note that just in back of this home, yet another Mafia-run casino is going up, pushing them out into an even worse situation. Cuban women, like the one holding the infant in this photo, suffered the worst in Batista's Cuba and, as the caretakers for the children, that evolved into Batista's biggest mistake. Indeed, the only everyday women in Cuba that the Batista dictatorship cared about were the ones forced into prostitution to enhance the tourist trade that enriched the Mafia-run hotel-casinos. Yet, the vast disparity of wealth, health, and educational opportunities in Batista's Cuba did not inspire the revolution that chased him and his Mafia cohorts back to Florida. It was Batista's brutal murder of Cuban children.

       Brave and massive marches like this one, arranged and carried out by outraged Cuban mothers, inspired the revolution that became the first in history to overthrow a U.S.-backed dictatorship. The words "asesinators" and "hijos" and "madres Cubanas" refer to these Cuban mothers protesting the murders of their children by Batista's murder squads, assassinations designed to quell dissent. But the murders inspired the revolution, thanks to brave women like these who greatly impressed rebels like Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, Vilma Espin, Tete Puebla, and Fidel Castro. Also, it was female marches like this one that finally began to embarrass the United States, forcing it to reconsider backing Batista.

     In Cuba today, and in the history books, the well-chronicled {except in the U. S.} murders of children in Batista's Cuba are well documented. The one that resonates the most was that of little Willie Soler and his three classmates. Their mangled bodies were left in an abandoned warehouse specifically for the adults in that community to find and to heed. But Willie's mother and other mothers like her did not heed that warning. They took to the streets, starting a badly needed revolution. Today in Cuba a major hospital and other memorials are named for...little Willie Soler. Such edifices do not remind Americans of the Batista years but, for sure, they still remind Cubans on the island and citizens throughout Latin America.

          Celia Sanchez, the doctor's daughter, was the most important player in the Cuban Revolution that booted the Batistianos and the Mafiosi to South Florida and a few other safe havens. She was also the most important player in Revolutionary Cuba that laid down the parameters that have kept them out all these decades. The photo above shows what motivated Celia: her belief that little Cuban girls were the most brutalized people in Batista's Cuba. Because of Celia Sanchez, millions of little Cuban girls have had calmer, safer, healthier, and better educated lives. That means a lot. Celia Sanchez taught me a truth: A society can best be judged by how it treats its most precious and vulnerable people, its little girls.

Celia Sanchez: The quintessential protector of little Cuban girls.

        In addition to being inspired by the awesomely brave female marchers, the Cuban Revolution was fueled on the battlefields by many do-or-die female guerrilla fighters. Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, Vilma Espin, and Tete Puelba are the four most famous Cuban female guerrilla fighters, but there were many others. More than one historian has pointed out that, in order to win and to survive, Fidel Castro has had to out-smart a lot of U. S. presidents. Those historians often point to this fact: Early on and throughout his life, Fidel Castro recognized and took advantage of the outrage and determination of the female half of the Cuban population. Without that recognition and advantage, there is no possible way that Fidel Castro could have attained the age of 88 and no way the Revolution could have attained its age, 55...and counting!

          This photo, I believe, says as much about the Cuban Revolution as any photo ever taken. It shows female Cuban guerrilla fighters entering Havana after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in the first week of January, 1959. That's Tete Puebla on the left in this photo. As a teenager, she became a legendary guerrilla fighter in the early days of the toughest battles in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. She didn't stop fighting until the rebels won. In fact, she was disappointed that the top Batistianos and Mafiosi had fled Havana before her arrival. "We kicked their asses everywhere but Havana," she said, "and we would have liked to have had that chance in Havana. But they ran. Those bastards ran, swam, and flew to Florida!" As a teenager, Tete says her inspiration to join Celia Sanchez's rebel movement came when she witnessed the Masferrer Tigers, Batista's infamous enforcer solders, come to her village and burn relatives and friends alive. Even while she was still a teenager, articles emerged from the Sierra Maestra Mountains that Batista soldiers "never killed Tete because they were shocked when she ran straight at them, shooting and screaming! By the time they realized her unconventional tactics, it was too late...for them!" Study her face {she's on the left} in the above photo taken at the end of the war. Uh, yeah, I think she was disappointed.

But by the time this photo was taken, Rolando Masferrer had skedaddled to Florida. 

                                   

        This photo probably says as much about why Revolutionary Cuba still rules the island as any other photo you might see. Tete Puebla today is a General in the Cuban Army. She is a much beloved and stabilizing figure on the island. The little Cuban boy tying her bandanna in this photo obviously admires and appreciates General Puebla. Her legend began as a teenage guerrilla against Batista.

Since the 1950s, Fidel Castro has admired and appreciated Tete Puebla.

      I am not expecting that someday Americans will admire, appreciate, understand, and fawn over General Tete Puebla. But I am suggesting that -- in order to comprehend Cuba, the Cuban Revolution, and Revolutionary Cuba -- you need to know who she was back in the 1950s and who she is today. Yes, there is a reason that Tete Puebla became the greatest teenage female guerrilla fighter in history. And today there is also a reason that she, as a General in the Cuban army, stands ready to defend the island against any foreign incursion, and that includes any Cuban installed or propped up by a foreign power. "We owe everything to Cubans who stay on the island," she says. "We owe nothing except defiance to anyone who wants to harm them, including Cubans on the island paid by or answerable to foreign nations."

Of course......................

             ....................Cuba today reverts back to Celia Sanchez. The doctor's daughter from the little rural town of Media Luna is most responsible for shaping the Cuba that we know today. To not know her is to not know Cuba. And Americans are not supposed to know her because she is a lot harder to vilify than Fidel Castro. But she was by far the most important Cuban as a guerrilla fighter, recruiter of rebels and supplies, and as the definitive decision-maker during the Revolutionary War. After the triumph of the revolution, again with the only concurrence she needed...Fidel Castro's...she was the prime decision-maker in Revolutionary Cuba. From 1959 right up until today, the U. S. government is using considerable money and schemes to foment dissent on the island. Cuba's prime defense remains the block-by-block Committees for the Defense of the Revolution that Celia Sanchez concocted way back in 1959, the same year she laid down a rather prophetic proclamation: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." The powerful forces on U. S. soil that have tried and failed to regain control of Cuba since 1959 have yet to rip down that proclamation, made when Fidel was 33. He is still alive at age 88.

      Celia Sanchez died of lung cancer at age 59 on January 11, 1980; she had become a chain-smoker as a guerrilla fighter in the Sierra Maestra in 1953. In her prime she was only a 99-pounder. But her footprints in the Cuban sand today are still larger than all others, including Fidel Castro's. He understands that. Americans don't. That's why Fidel today has a better understanding than Americans about why both he and the revolution are still alive. The Bay of Pigs attack, multiple assassination attempts, the embargo, terrorism attacks such as the bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455, the Torricelli Bill, the Helms-Burton Act, and the plethora of anti-Castro/anti-democracy acts engineered by Cuban exiles, the CIA, and the U. S. Congress have contributed mightily to the longevity of both Fidel Castro and Revolutionary Cuba. Celia Sanchez was smart enough to comprehend all that. Cuba's enemies in Miami, Union City, and Washington appear not to be that smart. If that is not so, perhaps some self-proclaimed Cuban expert can explain why it is not so. Me?  I'm not an acclaimed or self-proclaimed Cuban expert but I have been all over Cuba tracking Celia Sanchez's footprints and I care enough about the U. S. democracy to have keenly studied her Cuba every day for the past quarter century. That's why I've determined that the 99-pound doctor's daughter was smarter, braver, and a better fighter than the combined might of Cuba's enemies. 

FYI: This was Celia Sanchez's favorite photo of her famous soul-mate.

And FYI: For unknown reasons, this is Fidel Castro's favorite photo of Celia Sanchez. That personal data is from Marta Rojas, the great Cuban author-journalist-historian-revolutionary who was an intimate of both.

       This photo, by the way, shows the three most important people high up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains during Cuba's Revolutionary War. That's Fidel Castro admiring a wad of $100 dollar bills recruited from New York and Miami by Celia Sanchez and Haydee Santamaria. Without the recruitment of rebels, money, and supplies by Celia, Haydee, and Frank Pais, there would have been no viable Cuban Revolution. The 23-year-old Frank was captured and gruesomely murdered on the streets of Santiago de Cuba. These three survived the war, and beyond. These two women achieved the un-achievable.

        The two incomparable female warriors -- Haydee Santamaria and Celia Sanchez -- led this guerrilla detail against Batista's soldiers in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra Mountains. Note their expressions.

           Guerrilla fighters Celia and Haydee had bedeviled, defeated, or kept at bay Batista soldiers for two crucial years before Fidel Castro got out of a Batista prison, returned from Mexico, and joined them in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. In this photo, that is Fidel checking out a rifle Celia and Haydee gave him.  

         This photo shows the three most important Cubans in Revolutionary Cuba after the triumph of the revolution. That's Fidel Castro in the middle flanked by his two favorite people -- Celia Sanchez on his right and Haydee Santamaria on his left. To this day Fidel believes Celia and Haydee were the two most important people in the Revolutionary War and Celia was "far and away" the most important person in shaping Revolutionary Cuba. Americans are not supposed to know that because the angelic Celia and the sweet Haydee are not easily vilified, not even by the anti-Castro, anti-revolutionary super propagandists.

       With all due respect to Jose Marti, the great Cuban poet who died on a Cuban battlefield fighting the Spanish, my two all-time favorite Cuban quotes are by Celia Sanchez. #1, of course, is: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives. #2, of course, is the one listed in the graphic above: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots." Celia, you might agree, knew her revolution well.

"Absolutely ridiculous"

Jimmy Carter; Wednesday, December 17, 2014.

      More than once the now 90-year-old Jimmy Carter has visited the now 88-year-old Fidel Castro in the Cuban's modest home in Havana. Mr. Carter's altruistic aims regarding Cuba are to improve the U. S. democracy and help democratize the island.  Speaking of quotations, the best one I heard in the saturation of coverage on the day that President Obama made his proposal to normalize relations with Cuba was the one listed above by Jimmy Carter. Marco Rubio and a whole parade of anti-Castro congressional right-wingers and lobbyists from Miami and Union City filled the airways all day with bitter denunciations of not only the Obama plan to normalize relations with Cuba but also denunciations and a lack of respect for the office of President and for Democracy. In one two-hour span watching cable "news," I heard Senator Rubio lead the expected barrage, ranting and raving about distortions he expected ignorant or intimidated Americans to not question. But, lo 'n behold!, Anderson Cooper on CNN interviewed a democracy-loving, brilliant, well-informed man with an unbiased view of Cuba. The man was Jimmy Carter, the former President who is now 90-years-old but still brave, still with an off-the-charts IQ, and still America's most productive and decent former President. After discussing and showing some of the Rubio rants...such as the claim that Cuba routinely cages people and routinely shoots out of the air innocent little American planes that are only trying to rescue Cubans stranded in the ocean...Anderson Cooper actually gave Mr. Carter a chance to respond. Mr. Carter, without hesitation, indeed responded with these exact words: "I heard Marco Rubio on television and what he said was absolutely ridiculous."

               "Absolutely ridiculous" extremist views can exploit weaknesses in the U. S. democracy, a situation exacerbated by increasingly amounts of political money and an increasingly ineffective news media. Even back in 1776 the Founding Fathers, merely judging  the advent of the printing press, knew the media -- pamphlets, newspapers -- needed to be vibrant and vital as a pillar of democracy. Jimmy Carter, at age 90, has lived long enough to witness a gigantic failure on the part of the U. S. media -- printed, electronic and digital -- in fulfilling the role the Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, envisioned for it.

            Yes, U.S.-Cuban relations are important, very important. But not as important as the message spotlighted at the top of this essay, the one that a Yazidi woman named Vian Dakhil brought to the United States last week. Her message puts US-Cuba relations in a proper perspective beneath hers. 

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Obama's Cuban Fallouts Fall Out

Both Logic & Volatile Distortions Prevail
Updated: Saturday, December 20th, 2014

       Dana Milbank is the top columnist at the Washington Post. A 46-year-old graduate of Yale, his erudite words are carried in more than 200 other newspapers across the nation. It is not surprising that Mr. Milbank's first column following the December 17th announcement that President Obama plans to normalize relations with Cuba was the most succinct and accurate summation of that remarkable day. He entitled that column: "Marco Rubio's Fury Over The Cuban Shift Shows Why Obama Made The Right Move." Like Jimmy Carter and many other democracy-loving Americans, Mr. Milbank was taken aback, not just by Rubio's usual distortions of the U.S.-Cuban conundrum, but by his abject disrespect for democracy and the office of President. Racing to get in front of every television camera in Washington on December 17th, Rubio assailed President Obama with adjectives unfit for consumption but Mr. Wilbank, quite correctly, was most resentful of this quotation from Rubio: "The President is willfully ignorant of the way the world truly works." That repulsive attack on America's two-term President and on the office he holds should offend every democracy lover in the Caribbean, Latin America, America, the world, and Little Havana in Miami. The majority of people in all of those spots on this planet, by the way, agree with Mr. Obama and that includes the Little Havana area of Miami that Mr. Rubio professes to represent in the hallowed halls of the U. S. Congress. In reality, Mr. Rubio represents Mr. Rubio...including his ongoing bid to become President of the United States in 2016. If such a catastrophe occurs in 2016 or later, it would be a disaster for the United States and for democracy. And that's why Dana Wilbank's column was 100% correct: Marco Rubio's torrid rants and distortions against President Obama and against the office of President only proved how right President Obama was and is as he tries to bring decency and sanity to a Cuban policy that has existed for going on six decades to benefit a handful of vicious Cuban Americans and their easily acquired sycophants while harming everyone else, a fact that reverberates around the world in every poll, including the yearly vote in the United Nations. Sure, as Mr. Milbank understands, Senator Rubio can preach his spiel to the right-wing choir and to the benefactors of a decades-old failed policy, but he would insult far less of his choir if he occasionally stuck to the facts, which he seems to consider irrelevant.

      Although he rides a one-trick pony named "Cuba," Marco Rubio is campaigning hard to become the President of the United States in 2016. But it appears he doesn't know much about Cuba although he was born in Miami. He made it all the way from Miami to the U. S. Senate with his official bio claiming his parents escaped the Castro tyranny in Cuba for the freedom of Miami. Then it was pointed out, officially, that his parents escaped the Batista tyranny in Cuba for the, uh, freedom of Miami. On December 17th, the day President Obama announced his plans to normalize relations with Cuba, by my count...and you may check me on this...the first three network television cameras a frantic Rubio came across found him ranting about all the harm the Castros are doing to Cuba's 13-million people on the island. Well, Mr. Rubio, neither now nor at any time in history has the island of Cuba had anything approaching 13 million people. I understand that you have never been to Cuba, except to the U.S.-occupied Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, but with the exorbitant amount of money you have raised, why not hire someone who knows Cuba, perhaps a Cuban in Miami, to write your campaign notes? Like all perpetrators and benefactors of the failed U. S. Cuban policy, Mr. Rubio constantly defends the embargo, which the whole world as well as most Cuban-Americans in Miami oppose. He uses this insulting refrain that shows zero respect for the 11 million Cubans on the island: "We have to keep, and keep strengthening, the embargo because any money that reaches the island instantly goes into the pockets of Fidel Castro or into his bulging Swiss bank accounts." Mr. Rubio, I and others have criticized Fidel Castro, but fair-minded people don't concoct huge lies that they expect intelligent people to embrace just because they have repeated it so often. For all his faults, Fidel Castro is not greedy, not like the fleeing Batistianos who left all those glittery mansions behind in Cuba and, into a second generation now, have thousands of glittery mansions in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and other south Florida areas. Mr. Castro was born rich; his daddy Angel owned 36,000 acres of Cuban land. Fidel, never interested in money, gave away his inherited wealth to those not born rich. He possibly could have personally taken over the top ten mansions in Cuba in 1959 but, instead, he put peasant families in them. One of the major articles in USA Today, America's top newspaper, on December 19, 2014 was entitled "Fidel Castro Sits Quietly Off-Stage As History Unfolds." The updated article pointed out that he is now 88-years-old and unwell. The article ended with this one-sentence paragraph: "He lives on the outskirts of Havana in a modest home." If, indeed, Mr. Rubio, you hire a Cuban to inform you about about Cuba, that person should show you such factual articles. Even so, assuming that most Americans are ignorant, I'm sure you would continue to rant about the necessity of punishing 11 million Cubans on the island to keep any wealth from filling the pockets or bank accounts of an old man who, even in his prime during his revolutionary days, famously had no interest in wealth.

     Jimmy Carter turned 90-years-old on October 1st. Many presidential scholars consider him to have had the highest IQ and the most decency of any American President. His IQ is intact, as evidenced by his brilliant 29th book. So, too, is his innate decency. Since he left the presidency in 1981, he has done more good in his post-presidency years than anyone else. In 1982 he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He is well versed on Cuba, which he has visited often, and he is an expert on U.S.-Cuban relations. While self-serving anti-Castro zealots dominated the television coverage of President Obama's announcement about normalizing relations with Cuba, several U. S. media outlets uncharacteristically had the decency to also include the views of unbiased Cuban experts such as Wayne S. Smith, Julia E. Sweig, Sarah Stephens {she heads The Center for Democracy in the Americas}, Peter Kornbluh {he heads the National Security Archives}, and...Jimmy Carter. CNN's Anderson Cooper referenced and showed some of Marco Rubio's rants and then asked Mr. Carter what he thought. The astute Mr. Carter instantly replied, "Absolutely ridiculous!"

  Barbara Lee was born in El Paso, Texas, 68 years ago. She now represents California and the United States of America in the U. S. Congress. She is an expert on Cuba. She has visited the island 21 times. She doesn't like the fact that U. S. students owe in excess of a trillion dollars on Student Loans. She admires Cuba for providing free eye-saving operations to millions of poor people throughout the region; and she admires Cuba for providing free 6-year medical scholarships to thousands of poor students throughout the region. On a trip to Cuba, she personally asked Fidel Castro if qualified ghetto students from the U. S. could be included. Since then, hundreds have been included and presently 100 more are in the program. When they leave, there are no student loans to pay back, only a promise to Cuba that they will return, at least for a time, to help patients in the ghettos from whence they came. Ms. Lee has often wondered why rich Cuban-American politicians don't care more about "poor Cubans on the island or, for that matter, poor Americans." Ms. Lee has led members of the Black Congressional Caucus to Cuba. When afforded a chance on December 17th after the pro-embargo rants by the wealthy Rubio, Menendez, Ros-Lehtinen, Diaz-Balart, Navarro, Cruz, etc., Ms. Lee and other members of the Black Congressional Caucus pointed out how the embargo for over five decades has benefited a few but harmed everyone else. "Health care and free education through college is routine and free in Cuba, and so are shelter and food, if needed," Ms. Lee said. "Why doesn't Castro pocket all that money instead, as the embargo supporters claim? Cuban scientists at their Finlay Institute have discovered a vaccine that prevents diabetic amputations and Americans are not supposed to know about the Finlay Institute because its Cuban! Cuba has much to share with America and can't do it because of an embargo that benefits certain people but hurts the masses, including diabetes patients, cholera patients! Fifty years! Repeating the same cruel policy decade after decade based on fallacies! Insane!" Barbara Lee, a Congresswoman who represents California and the United States of America. Yes, Barbara Lee knows secrets such as the Finlay Institute. She's been to Cuba 21 times. And she knows why the embargo supporters don't want Americans to visit the island; after all, they prefer telling Americans what to think. Barbara Lee thinks Americans should be able to think for themselves and research things themselves. "If Americans are not allowed to visit Cuba, maybe they should at least google 'Finlay Institute' and learn about such things. Or google 'Batista' and discover who fled the island with plane loads of money and who stayed on the island with the Cubans. Or, better yet, beg Congress to let Americans go to the island. Would that not be better than repetitive lies about something as important as Cuba?" 

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      In the 72 hours following President Obama's announced plans to normalize relations with Cuba, one of the many distortions from anti-Castro zealots and pundits -- those who've dominated U. S. perceptions of Cuba for decades -- was that Fidel Castro himself "had nothing" to do with the negotiations. The fact is, since the 1950s, Fidel Castro has had more to do with U.S.-Cuban relations than any other person -- in Cuba, in America or in the Vatican. Yes, he is now 88-years-old and unwell, facts indicated by the Getty Images photo above. But decades from now, long after he has died, Fidel Castro will still have massive influence on U.S.-Cuban relations, on democratic elections in Latin America, in Cuba, and within budding revolutionary developments across the region. Lying about or denying such aspects of Fidel Castro's well-chronicled life will merely add to the continuation of his legacy, just as lying about or denying facts during his lifetime have contributed to his influence...on both the regional and international stages. For example, in 1961 the CIA informed President Kennedy, on the eve of the Bay of Pigs attack, that Fidel Castro "will run to his getaway airplane once he hears the U. S. bombs falling on Cuba." Fidel was in Celia Sanchez's 11th Street apartment in Havana when he heard those bombs. He didn't race to his getaway airplane, which he has never had. He raced to the front lines at the Bay of Pigs, which Cuba calls Playa Giron. The Bay of Pigs stupidity on the part of the U. S. coupled with the Fidel-led results greatly enhanced his power and his longevity, just as most of the lies and distortions by his enemies have done over the last six decades. In the hours after the Obama announcement Wednesday, the Miami media suggested that, with no input from Fidel, he must surely be dead. Uh, almost but not quite. But you know what? The law of averages stipulate that, eventually, Miami and the CIA will get something about Fidel Castro right and then perhaps their distortions will no longer baffle the more enlightened American people.

       Mariela Castro is the very outspoken 53-year-old daughter of Raul Castro and Raul's even more rebellious wife, the late Vilma Espin. Yesterday -- Thursday -- CNN interviewed Mariela live from Havana. CNN reminded her that, even if Fidel, her uncle, was still alive, he had nothing to do with the negotiations that involved President Raul Castro, her father. Such stupidity amazes knowledgeable people on both sides of the Florida Straits, including Mariela in Havana. She told CNN that, uh, Fidel was still alive...that, uh, nothing major happens in Cuba without his input...and, uh, Fidel was presently writing his reactions that would appear shortly in his current forum, his Reflections columns. Such distortions related to Cuba...especially from the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack right up to President Obama's topical pronouncements...are meant to harm Cuba and to propagandize the American people. They do both of those things but they also delay and postpone the day when democracy, for the first time in history, eventually takes over the island. Yes, knowledgeable insiders -- including Mariela Castro -- are better sources of truth about Cuba than, unfortunately, the mainstream U. S. media that is either too uninformed or too intimidated to address true facts. And that abject failure by the U. S. media retards democracy's chances on the island. Yes, America, Fidel Castro is very old and unwell but he is still alive. And yes, America, after he dies Fidel Castro's legacy will still be alive to confront living Americans or Cubans who have designs on shaping Cuba to fit and conform to their desires. In other words, 25 years from now if the revolutionary government in Cuba is overturned, hopefully by democracy and not by a bloody coup, those victors will have to contend with the legacy of Fidel Castro. Mariela Castro understands that. Americans, including the CNN anchor who quizzed Mariela yesterday, do not understand that. Now and for decades to come the world will wonder and debate how Fidel Castro triumphed in Cuba and how his imprint dominated the island for so long against seemingly impossible odds. The answer, I believe, relies in a two-word description of his enemies: greedy and stupid. Of course, if anyone has two other words they think will better describe Fidel Castro's enemies, I will listen. After all, there are two sides to the Cuban conundrum.

       This is an updated photo of Rolando Sarraff Trujillo. As an agent for the Cuban Intelligence Service, he became a double-agent and the most important spy on Cuba for the United States. Mr. Sarraff informed the U. S. about Cuban spies in the U. S., including the famous and infamous Cuban Five sentenced to up to life terms fifteen years ago in a Miami courtroom. All five are now back in Cuba. The first two finished their sentences and the final three were traded this week for Alan Gross and for a second man that President Obama refused to name. But Mr. Sarraff is that second man, now freed. He was arrested by Cuba in 1995 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He served almost two decades of that time, till this week. Mr. Sarraff is 51-years-old, about the same age as each of the Cuban Five. Mr. Gross is 65. We wish them well.

Cubans learning of "warmer" relations with the U. S.

Hardliners in Miami are outraged!

College students in Havana cheer wildly!  {Roberto Morejon/AFP/Getty Images}

       U. S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro in one day -- December 17th -- accomplished more steps toward normalization of relations than all ten Presidents prior to Mr. Obama ever managed since 1959. The process began back on December 10th of 2013 when Mr. Obama and Mr. Castro shook hands at the Nelson Mandela Memorial ceremony. Raul Castro took advantage of the opportunity to tell Barack Obama, "We need to work on our differences for everyone's benefit." A brief but significant comment that led up to Wednesday's resounding developments.

Obama made a phone call to Raul Castro Wednesday.

Cuba then told Alan Gross he was going home.

      65-year-old Alan Gross was then released from a Cuban prison and is rejoining his beloved wife Judy in their Maryland home after five hard years for the Gross family.

Alan and Judy Gross together again in America.

{The above poster saturated Cuba for fifteen years}

       The last three of the Cuban Five, sentenced to up to life terms fifteen years ago in a Miami courtroom, were released to join the other two men that had recently completed their terms in American prisons. All five are national heroes now in Cuba.

      Less than four months after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Vice President Richard Nixon -- in April of 1959 -- made a face-to-face threat to Fidel Castro to overthrow the revolution, which Cuba considered a return of the Batistianos, the Mafia, and U. S. businessmen who had controlled Cuba. In 1961 the Bay of Pigs attack and in 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis exacerbated the animosity between the two neighbors, plus well chronicled assassination attempts against Fidel Castro.

       At age 53 and now in the second term of his two-terms as U. S. President, Mr. Obama is living up to his promise to do all he can to normalize relations with Cuba. He has executive authority to accomplish much but not all of that promise. This week he executed the swap of Alan Gross for three Cubans imprisoned in the U. S.; he can also satisfy world opinion by removing Cuba from the State Department's Sponsors of Terrorism list. He also believes the best way to foster American influence in Cuba is to remove the ban on Americans to travel to the island, and he will do all he can in that regard. However, the U. S. Congress is in bed with anti-Castro extremists such as Senators Bob Menendez, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio as well as Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart...and another extremist from Miami, Carlos Curbello, enters with the new Congress in the New Year. They are screaming to the high heavens to thwart whatever positives President Obama has in mind to normalize, as best he can, relations between the two countries. But at least, with his actions, President Barack Obama has done more than any other U. S. President to bring a degree of sanity and decency to U.S.-Cuban relations. He will, of course, be vilified for it by a second generation of Cuban-Americans who have demanded, successfully till now, to have almost total, self-serving control of America's Cuban affairs, a situation that the rest of the world has abhorred. For his brave efforts on behalf of America and Cuba, President Obama should be applauded even as the fallout will descend harshly upon him from revengeful, political, and economic benefactors of the U.S.-Cuban diaspora that has been intact since the 1950s.

     This latino.foxnews.com photo shows U. S. Senator Marco Rubio of Miami and U. S. Senator Bob Menendez of Union City. Mr. Rubio is becoming the Chairman of the Senate's Western Hemisphere Committee; Mr. Menendez is Chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee. Cuba is in the Western Hemisphere and is a foreign country. The vantage points from which these two Senators and their associates will assail Mr. Obama regarding the new normal will be relentless, vicious, and one-sided.

The entire Caribbean has friendly relations with its largest island -- Cuba!

As of today, so does the United States of America.........................

.......except for the Batistiano-dominated U. S. Congress!

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U.S. Targets Cuba's Friends

The Island Is Deemed Vulnerable
Updated: Wednesday, December 17th, 2014

       Silvio Rodriguez is Cuba's greatest musician, greatly admired by many of America's best known musical artists. Yesterday {December 16th} the 68-year-old Silvio told the United States to "go to hell." Andrea Rodriguez, at the Associated Press bureau in Havana, began her article this way: "One of Cuba's most famous musicians is telling the U. S. Agency for International Development to 'go to hell' for pulling his son and other island-based rappers without their knowledge into a scheme aimed at sparking a youth uprising against the Cuban government. Folk singer Silvio Rodriguez went onto his Segunda Cita blog to fill in his fellow Cubans with the details of the operation revealed by the Associated Press." That operation, revealed last week, is but the latest in an endless series of USAID schemes, lavishly funded by unwitting U. S. taxpayers, to undermine the Cuban government. The frequency and the amount of money each scheme costs stuns Silvio and he is surprised Americans put up with it because, inevitably, each scheme fails "about like the Bay of Pigs attack in 1961 did" and end up making Cuba look like the victim of "a foreign, callous bully."

     One of Silvio Rodriguez's greatest friends in the U. S. for decades was the legendary folk singer Pete Seeger who died in 2014 at age 94. In 2009 the U. S. refused to allow Silvio to come to the United States to help celebrate Pete Seeger's 90th birthday. The reason: A few Cuban-Americans who dictate America's Cuban policy don't like Silvio. That refusal of a visa for Silvio outraged many renowned American musicians; thus in 2010 Silvio was allowed to visit and perform in the United States of America, marking one of the few instances since 1959 that the American people have mustered the courage and patriotism to confront America's Cuban policy that primarily hurts innocent Cubans as well as America's image worldwide.

       USAID, the U. S. agency that Cuban legend Silvio Rodriguez this week told to "go to hell," has used tax dollars around the world to help people in need, greatly enhancing the image of the United States. However, much of the world fully recognizes Silvio Rodriguez's outburst this week and, moreover, agrees with it. Seemingly with no regard for totally innocent Cubans on the island or for putting many of their paid operators in jeopardy with clandestine anti-Cuban schemes, USAID apparently has an unlimted amount of tax dollars to whet the anti-Cuban appetites of a few Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress from Miami and Union City. Thus, Silvio Rodriguez is not the only innocent person to tell USAID to "go to hell." Judy Gross, the wife of the imprisoned Alan Gross, has both berated and sued the U. S. government for such self-inflicted wounds deeply embedded within America's Cuban policy, which most people consider an utter failure since 1959 but an unending slippery slope for democracy. For example, some of that abundant anti-Cuban USAID money could possibly aid worthwhile projects, both in the U. S. and overseas.  

         The BBC this week {Dec. 15th, 2014} used this photo to illustrate a major article entitled "Venezuelans March Against United States Sanctions" The sub-title said: "Arrogant Imperialist Yankees." It is the type of coverage that the London-based BBC has the courage and the integrity to report, unlike the U. S. media that wouldn't touch this demonstration in Caracas because it resulted from a new U. S. assault on Venezuela courtesy of self-serving anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress who feel totally free to assail any nation that is friendly to Cuba, without fear of being held accountable and without concern for how their anti-Cuban zealotry harms America's image around the world, particularly in Latin America.

            The BBC article this week used this photo of U. S. Senator Bob Menendez -- the anti-Castro zealot from Union City, New Jersey -- to emphasize that the latest U. S. sanctions against Venezuela were steered through the U. S. Senate by Mr. Menendez. International media such as the BBC will point out that the Cuban-American attacks on Cuba's friends are designed to bring the island to its knees, something Cuban exiles have been unable to accomplish since the overthrow of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba on January 1, 1959. That failure astounds many people around the world, like the BBC experts, because the Cuban exiles in the U. S. dictate America's Cuban policy and America, of course, is the richest and most powerful nation in world history...but not powerful enough to regain control of the coveted island.

       That BBC article this week also used this photo of the anti-U. S. march to emphasize that the majority of Venezuelans, especially the poorest among them, do not appreciate the U. S. punishing them because of their government's alliances with Cuba, which they believe Venezuela, not the U. S., should decide. As this photo indicates, Venezuelans remember back in 2002 when the Bush administration put two anti-Castro zealots in charge of "Latin American Affairs" and what followed quickly was a bloody coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Of course, the American media has yet to tell Venezuela's side of that story just as this month's Cuban-inspired U. S. Senate sanctions against Venezuela are sanitized, if mentioned at all, by the U. S. media. Therefore, for anything approaching balanced Cuban, Venezuelan, or Latin American coverage, the U. S. media is the place to avoid but the BBC is a good place to start. The Venezuelan lady wearing the red T-shirt in this AFP/BBC photo as well as the thousands of other Venezuelans with her have a right to be heard if they sincerely believe that the U. S. government should permit the majority of Americans, not just a few Cuban-American zealots, to make American policy regarding Cuba, Venezuela, and all of Latin America. Venezuelans, like Cubans on the island, believe they -- not a few revengeful Cuban-Americans -- should chart their nations' present and future courses. 

       President Nicolas Maduro flew to Cuba this past Saturday, December 13th, to attend the ALBA summit of ten regional nations. President Maduro was at Jose Marti Airport in Havana almost at the same time as President Evo Morales of Bolivia and President Danial Ortega of Nicaragua. Oil-rich Venezuela provides Cuba with badly needed oil while Cuba provides Venezuela thousands of doctors and other personnel. But President Maduro has massive problems at home, exacerbated by falling oil prices, one of the world's highest inflation rates, and what he terms "the accelerated efforts of Miami and Washington to overthrow and assassinate me." Yet, in Havana this week President Maduro {Cubadebate photo above} seemed more concerned about the imminent threat to Cuba. Defiantly, he instructed his Foreign Minister to sign 62 more financial and social accords with Cuba. He said, "Miami and Washington are spending more tax dollars, I'm told, to re-capture Cuba than to destroy me." He then kept shaking his head as he reeled off details of recent revelations of U. S. plots to undermine the Cuban government -- such as hiring young Latin Americans to go to the island and stimulate dissent; a weird but expensive Twitter program aimed at creating a Caribbean Spring uprising in Cuba; and hiring a popular rap band in Cuba {it has since relocated to Miami} to write and perform vicious anti-Castro lyrics. After being up-to-date on those recently unveiled clandestine efforts in Cuba, President Maduro said, "President Obama is not much better than President Bush when it comes to defending its principles of democracy in Latin America. Bush sponsored terrorism and used tax dollars to pay journalists to make-up and publish anti Cuban articles. Obama is not much better is wasting tax dollars on Cuba that actually create more support for Cuba. If these people were smart, considering their unlimited tax dollars, they would have killed Hugo Chavez in that Bush coup in 2002. This week we learn another Bush...what's his name, Jeb?...will likely be a third Bush president in 2016. May God help us!" While in Havana this week, President Maduro dwelled on Cuban problems and didn't discuss his problems back home in Venezuela, but they are mammoth and much of it is related to his country's dire friendship with Cuba.

       Bob Menendez is the anti-Castro/pro-Israel Cuban-American zealot entrenched in the U. S. Senate from Union City, New Jersey. In fact, Senator Menendez is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...and both Cuba and Venezuela are foreign countries, unfortunately. Just before President Maduro flew from Caracas to Havana this week, the United States Senate passed legislation that directs President Obama to levy harsh sanctions against Venezuelan government officials for their alleged actions against anti-government demonstrators. Of course, both Cuba and Venezuela gain much mileage by claiming that such anti-government demonstrations in Cuba and Venezuela are sponsored by the United States. Giving credence and resonance to such claims is the proven Bush administration involvement in the briefly successful 2002 coup in Venezuela, as well as the repeated revelations related to expensive, supposedly secretive efforts to undermine the Cuban government -- which recently have included the weird Twitter campaign, the even weirder hire of young Latin Americans to create dissension on the island, and the newly revealed weirdest-of-all campaign that paid popular Cuban rappers to denounce the Cuban government. Even before Senator Menendez became Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and before Miami's Ileana Ros-Lehtinen became Chairwoman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, the U. S. Congress has long been deeply embedded with the most extremists Cuban-Americans -- as indicated by the Torricelli and Helms-Burton bills that could not have possibly been more punitive if they had been written by Fidel Castro's biggest enemy, which most journalists believe happened after the Bush dynasty anointed Jorge Mas Canosa head of the Cuban exiles way back in the 1980s. But now 2014 is fading into 2015 and Mr. Menendez has inherited Mr. Canosa's anti-Castro mantle that continues to sap America's treasury and influence, especially in Latin America.   

        After the U. S. Senate passed the harsh sanctions against Venezuela this month, Senator Menendez said, "For too long, Venezuelans have faced state-sponsored violence at the hands of government security forces and watched their country's judiciary become a tool of political repression." Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro back in February of 2014 arrested his prime opponent, Leopoldo Lopez, a graduate of Harvard University and, according to Maduro, "a hit- man for Miami and Washington." In any case, Lopez -- a charismatic, rich, pro-American, and young Venezuelan with a brash and beautiful wife -- is now undergoing judicial procedures that would make any Reality Show or Soap Opera pale in comparison.

       This Alejandro Cegarra/AP photo was taken in Venezuela this week. It depicts what would make a tremendous Hollywood scene. It shows Lilian Tintori, the beautiful wife of the imprisoned Leopoldo Lopez. She is a television star and an anti-Maduro activist herself. This week -- Monday, Dec. 15th -- Lilian went to the prison where Leopoldo has been incarcerated for almost a year. She was refused permission to see him. But a shadowy figure, her husband Leopoldo several stories above her, raddled a cage, his prison cell, once he spotted her down below. The AP article related to this photo Monday said Leopoldo shouted down to her, "Hello, beautiful!" She screamed up at him, over and over, "I love you, darling! I love you, sweetheart!" I love you, darling...." WHAT A MOVIE...yet to be made because the ending remains in doubt.

        This is the very handsome, very rich, and very charismatic Leopoldo Lopez. He was born in Caracas on April 29, 1971. He graduated from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

       In 2012 Leopoldo Lopez ran a very heated campaign to become President of Venezuela, but lost a narrow decision to Nicolas Maduro, Cuba's dear friend. Lopez is America's dear friend. Polls in Venezuela show that Lopez is more popular than Maduro. But President Maduro vs. the imprisoned Lopez often comes down to rich Venezuelans and rich Americans supporting Lopez while poor Venezuelans support Maduro. The battles and conflicts often resonate in the streets but now also in a controversial courtroom.

        Leopoldo Lopez -- the rich American-educated Venezuelan politician -- married Lilian Tintori -- the beautiful Venezuela television star -- in 2007. She campaigned at his side and, after the bitter election, she demonstrated at his side...till his arrest in February. Since then, she has waged massive demonstrations to free him. Emotional and closely monitored, she was allowed in the courtroom this week and so, surprisingly, was Associated Press journalist Hannah Dreier. Ms. Dreier could only take notes because no videos or photos were allowed but she began her AP article with this sentence: "Locked up and denounced by Venezuela's government as a terrorist, Leopoldo Lopez may be out of sight, but he is not out of mind." In that courtroom Ms. Dreier said Mr. Lopez made an impassioned one-hour speech to the female judge, Susana Barreiros, whom he directly accused of being too young and too much "an assassin" for the government.

      This is Susana Barreiros, the Venezuelan judge that Leopoldo Lopez said was "too young" and too much of "an assassin" for President Maduro. She does look young to be a judge. But...an assassin?

        This AP/Ariana Cubillos photo shows Lilian Lintari, Leopoldo Lopez's wife, displaying a tattoo on her left wrist. The tattoo reads: "Venezuela." She says Leopoldo has a similar tattoo on his ankle. Many prognosticators believe that Lilian will soon be Venezuela's First Lady, but first she has to get Leopoldo out of prison. However it plays out, Lilian's love affair with Leopoldo will make for a great Hollywood movie, perhaps with Jennifer Lawrence playing Lilian. More importantly, the political denouement in Venezuela -- President Maduro vs. the imprisoned Leopoldo -- will have vast ramifications throughout Latin America but also in Cuba and the U. S. Congress. After all, Cuba and the U. S. Congress are direly involved in what happens in Venezuela. Most unbiased observers agree that Senator Menendez's U. S. Senate sanctions against Venezuela are meant to hurt Cuba with Venezuela merely being an unfortunate tool in the endless Cuban-American assaults against Cuba. Otherwise, it is unlikely the Cuban-Americans who dictate U.S. Cuban policy would so egregiously assail Venezuela with punitive sanctions against a struggling nation.

Yes, I think Jennifer Lawrence should play Lilian Lintari in the movie.

Who do you think should play Leopoldo and the young female judge?

Antonio Bandaras could play Nicolas Maduro, don't you think?

Senator Bob Menendez could play himself.
Remember, the movie would be a drama, not a comedy.

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