Fidel Hopes For Peace

But Expects Conflict
Updated: Monday, August 17th

      Fidel Castro turned 89-years-old last week -- on Thursday, August 13th. The next day, for the first time since January of 1961, the U. S. flag was raised at a new U. S. embassy in Havana. But Fidel -- the legendary revolutionary who had booted the U. S., the Mafia and the Batistiano dictatorship off the island in January of 1959 -- mostly celebrated his birthday this week. A small gathering attended his birthday party in his Havana home. Clockwise from the left in this photo are: Cilia Flores, the First Lady of Venezuela; Nicolas Maduro, the President of Venezuela; Dalia Soto del Valle, Fidel's very devoted wife since 1980; Evo Morales, the President of Bolivia; and David Choquehuanca, the Foreign Minister of Bolivia. This photo was taken by Alex Castro, one of Fidel's five sons with Dalia, and distributed by Estudios Revolution/cubadebate.cu. The state media last week devoted more time and space to Fidel's birthday than to the flag-raising at the U. S. embassy although state television carried the ceremony, including Secretary of State John Kerry's speech, live to the nation. Thursday, the day before John Kerry became the first U. S. Secretary of State to visit Cuba since 1945, Granma, Cuba's main newspaper, featured an essay in which Fidel claimed the U. S. needed to repay Cuba for what the embargo, in effect since 1962, has cost the island. More pointedly, at his birthday party, Fidel told Ms. Flores and Mr. Choquehuanca what he thinks the "end result" of the flag-raisings last month in Washington and this week in Havana "will portend." He said: "Obama and Kerry mean well. So do a lot of other good Americans. But the good Americans, the majority, have never made the decisions regarding Cuba, at least since 1898. The bad Americans, the ones who benefit from war and chaos, will prevail again. It took much work to get those flags raised in the capitals again. But it won't require much work at all to tear them down. America may have a democracy, but not when it comes to Cuba. A few exiles in Miami and a few counter-revolutionaries in Cuba control the U. S. Congress. Even if a Democrat administration replaces Obama, an incident even with Obama in office will leave Cuba with a surrender or fight alternative." Ms. Flores asked, "Which alternative will Cuba take?" He replied, "Fight, I think, but I don't know. I wonder too." 

Quotes above are recollections of Mr. Choquehuanca.

Meanwhile, three more of Alex Castro's photos on his father's 89th birthday:

      Flag raisings, like birthday parties, are celebratory and symbolic. But when it comes to a toxic mix involving the U. S., Cuba, and Fidel Castro, many more adjectives are needed to adequately describe history and current events. And, of course, anyone trying to predict the future is only guessing, and that includes the sage insider Fidel Castro. But he's probably right. U.S.-Cuban relations are more of a tinderbox now than they were prior to the flag-raisings. One key act by one dissident, quickly supported by Miami and the U. S. Congress, can instantly undo all that has been done. The type and degree of confrontations and fireworks that eventuality will spark is unknown but fairly predictable based on U.S.-Cuban history.

              A lot of people love Cuba. That is largely based, I believe, on the tenacity with which Cuba has always fought to attain sovereignty as opposed to foreign domination. Cuba had just waged two courageous Wars of Independence against imperialist Spain before the U. S. in 1898 recognized it could easily defeat Spain and fulfill its longtime wish -- control of Cuba, strategically located and the largest Caribbean island. The easy victory in the Spanish-American War also gained the U. S. control of Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam -- helping establish the U. S. as an imperialist power. But the prize in the Spanish-American War was and is Cuba. Yet the tenacious island has been more of a tar-baby than a possession for the U. S., except for the U. S. occupation of Cuba's Guantanamo Bay since 1903. An above normal thirst or passion for sovereignty made legends of Jose Marti and Antonio Maceo, two titans who died on Cuban soil fighting Spain prior to the Spanish-American War. But Cuba's all-time most famed titan, Fidel Castro, fought the U. S. on Cuban soil...and lived. Americans today honor Marti and Maceo because they died fighting imperialist Spain. Americans today revile Fidel Castro because he has lived fighting imperialist America. As with America's Revolutionary War against England, sovereignty is worth dying for...or living for. That's why people loved David vs. Goliath. And...that's why they love Cuba so much!

Jose Marti died in 1895 fighting Spain.

Antonio Maceo died in 1896 fighting Spain.

Fidel Castro, still a U. S. fighter at age 89.
And by the way...........

           ............I believe enhanced memories and knowledge of Anne Frank are more important than ever. Each day the news includes powerful men waging war and mayhem against helpless masses, particularly young women or girls. Anne was born June 12, 1929 in Germany just as Adolf Hitler and his Nazis were gaining power. She was four when Hitler took over in 1933. Her father Otto moved his family to the Netherlands because it had stayed neutral in World War I. By the time Anne entered her teens, the Nazis had conquered most of Europe, including Holland. Persecutions of Jews like Anne were commonplace. Her family hid in a secretive annex for two years till they were betrayed. In February of 1945 Anne watched her older sister Margo die at the infamous and hideous Bergen-Belsen prison. Then Anne died. She was 15. She had wanted to be a writer. She would have been world-class too. Her diary made that clear after its discovery and publication, conclusively proving her talent although she never knew her writings would become among the most famous in world history. The quotation above was included in her diary entry of July 15th, 1944. It is one of her most famous sentences, but just one of many. Over six million Jewish children and adults were murdered by the Nazis before the Russians and then the Americans began liberating the Nazi death camps. One of the last children murdered was Anne Frank.

 

         A modern-day Anne Frank, I think, is Malala Yousafzai. Malala turned 18 on July 12th. She was shot in the head and left to die in Pakistan because, although just a girl herself, she was a powerful and vocal advocate for the education of girls. Flown to England, she miraculously survived. Today at 18 -- from her base in Birmingham, England -- she is a brilliant writer and speaker, and the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Prize. Her foundation helps girls in Pakistan and elsewhere get educations. Malala was shot when she was about the same age that Anne Frank died. Anne, had she survived, also would have improved the world...and probably also won a Nobel Prize, for Peace or for Literature. Anyone who helps targeted girls like Anne and Malala survive and thrive also helps improve the world.

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U.S. Flag Raised In Cuba

On An Historic, Hopeful Day
Saturday, August 15th, 2015

          U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry is shown watching the U. S. flag being raised to celebrate the opening of the U. S. embassy in Havana for the first time since January of 1961. In an impassioned speech, Kerry called it "a truly historic moment. The U. S. and Cuba are no longer prisoners of history." Yet, the ceremony and what it represents will be {and already has been} a target for dissidents who have the capacity to dismantle the U. S. flag in Cuba and enhance the chasms that have hurt the two nations for decades. The dissidents Cuba most worries about are the ones they believe are constantly encouraged and funded by Cuban-Americans in Miami and in the U. S. Congress. Yet the U. S. flag made history Friday in Havana, Cuba.

John Kerry became the first U. S. Secretary of State to visit Cuba since 1945.

         Secretary Kerry's host in Havana Friday was his Cuban counterpart, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. Kerry hosted Rodriguez in Washington last month when the Cuban flag was raised at its new U. S. embassy for the first time since 1961. They first met at the Summit of the Americas in Panama City in April.

           The thawing of relations between the neighboring countries -- epitomized by the reopened embassies -- is being heralded around the region and the world, including the vast majority of Cubans on the island and a strong majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. But the small minority of extremists who have benefited from hostility between the two nations remain vocal -- in Miami and in the U. S. Congress -- and remain fully capable of turning back the clock to six more decades of status-quo insanity. Prime dissidents in Cuba were not invited in the flag-raising in Havana because Mr. Kerry capitulated to Cuba's contention that they are funded and encouraged by a foreign power, namely the U. S., and the expected confrontations with Cuba loyalists would likely disrupt the flag-raising ceremony. But Kerry later arranged to meet with several dissidents at a U. S. diplomat's home in Havana.

        No less an icon than Fidel Castro stole some of the thunder from John Kerry, Bruno Rodriguez, and the dissidents as the U. S. flag was raised at the U. S. embassy in Havana for the first time since 1961. The previous day -- on August 13th, Fidel's 89th birthday -- he penned an essay that dominated the Cuban media and, as usual, made headlines around the world today. He wrote: "The United States owes Cuba millions because of the half-century blockade. Cuba is owed compensation equivalent to damage which total many millions of dollars as our country has stated with irrefutable arguments and data in all of our speeches at the United Nations." In contrast, the U. S. maintains that Cuba owes millions to Cuban-Americans and U. S. businessmen for Fidel's confiscation of property shortly after the triumph of his revolution in January of 1959. His reply: "Let honest arbitrators decide that and we will respond, as we have done to some honest European claims. But unbiased arbitrators will mostly decide that the property I claimed for the Cuban people, including putting peasant families in mansions left behind by fleeing criminals, were ill-gotten gains from Mafia enterprises. The fact those enterprises and subsequent claims were supported by a superpower does not, or should not, override honesty regarding the claims."

         Here is one way Fidel Castro celebrated his 89th birthday Thursday, August 13th. The photo is courtesy EFE/Bolivian Information Agency. Fidel put on a baseball hat and took a ride in a van with two friends. That is Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on the left and Bolivian President Evo Morales in the middle. The photo was taken outside the La Laguna Hotel where Castro and Maduro picked up Morales. 

       While the U. S. media primarily claims that all Cubans on the island disapprove of Fidel Castro and yearn to be in Miami, such one-sided rhetoric conveniently ignores the fact that he would not have still been around to celebrate his 89th birthday yesterday if the U. S. media or the U. S. government had been just a bit more accurate, or fair, in judging him. For example, it is well known that the CIA -- leading up to the Bay of Pigs attack in April of 1961 -- assured President Kennedy that Fidel would run to his getaway airplane when he heard bombs falling on the military airfield on the edge of Havana; he heard those bombs but ran to the front-lines at the Bay of Pigs to successfully defend Revolutionary Cuba, displaying bravery and patriotism his enemies lacked. It is also well known that the CIA assured President Kennedy that, once the Cuban people knew that the mighty U. S. was attacking, the Cuban people would rise up against Fidel; none did, but 400,000 were ready, if needed, to fight a ground invasion at the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, such misconceptions about Fidel Castro have helped sustain his revolution in Cuba and will aid his legacy.

In Cuba there are Cubans who contrast Fidel Castro with Fulgencio Batista.

           In fact, there are some Americans who prefer Castro's Cuba to Batista's Cuba. This photo of Angye Fox is on her Linkedin page. She is a top Radio Talk Show host and a key businesswoman in Tampa, Florida. Angve was in Cuba a couple of months ago and she will be back in November. And, for sure, she was in Havana this week, along with her son and a host of friends, to witness the U. S. flag proudly flying over its Cuban embassy for the first time since 1961. Angye says she is "fired up" that, at long last, "at least a modicum of sanity" is being applied to U.S.-Cuban relations. For the most part, either because of financial concerns, coercion or political correctness, the U. S. media searches out dissidents and Cuban-exile extremists to broadcast their views about Cuba far and wide, discounting the views of Cubans like the lady above proudly holding the photo of Fidel Castro and Americans like...Angye Fox of Tampa, Florida.

          Alicia Barcena's views on Cuba are also purposely ignored by the U. S. media, but she reflects the views of most people in the Caribbean and Latin America when it comes to U.S.-Cuban relations. Ms. Barcena was born in Mexico 63 years ago. She has been Under-Secretary at the United Nations. She is now Executive Secretary at ECLAC -- The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. She, of course, applauds President Barack Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba but...she questions whether the U. S. democracy is now strong enough to allow majority opinion to have "at least a parity" with a few who benefit from U.S.-Cuban hostility. Her prime concern, as the economic chief for Latin America and the Caribbean, is how the U. S. embargo harms not only innocent Cubans but also "the innocent majority across the entire region." She says, "The blockade of Cuba is still a formidable and illegal obstacle."

         Alicia Barcena is the overseer of the economic survival and, hopefully, the prosperity of the Caribbean and Latin America. She is appalled that the regional superpower's economic embargo...she calls it a blockade...imposed on Cuba to appease two generations of a few revengeful Cubans harms all Caribbeans and Latin Americans whose economic well-being is her responsibility. She is also, undoubtedly, appalled that the U. S. media evades her side of a two-sided story while championing "the wrong side."

Yet.................

                .................if you are a Cuban on the island and you hold up your right hand and announce that you love the anti-Castro extremists in Miami and Union City, the U. S. media -- such as the Miami Herald, Huffington Post, etc., etc. -- will help make you an international anti-Castro journalistic SUPERSTAR!!

      Cuba, amazingly, allows its most famous anti-Castro zealot, Yoani Sanchez, to fly around the world on promotional and recruiting trips...and then return to Cuba to expand her international reach with enough resources to fund yet another expensive anti-Castro digital newspaper. Of course, Miami and the U. S. Congress -- the two primary and most lucrative anti-Castro havens -- are the prime stops on Yoani Sanchez's worldwide travels before she returns to Cuba. In the photo above, she is flanked in Washington by Cuban-American U. S. Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez, two men who have also plowed anti-Castroism for all its worth for a lot of years...and, unbelievably, it's still worth a lot of money and a lot of power. Of course, the U. S. media doesn't have the integrity or guts to ever ask Sanchez, Rubio, or Menendez: "It seems a bit paradoxical that Cuba allows Yoani to travel to Miami, Washington, and around the world on recruitment trips and then return richer and more powerful than ever to advance her anti-Castro agenda. Yet, a few Cuban-Americans in Miami and Congress insist that everyday Americans should not have the freedom to travel to nearby Cuba but they can travel anywhere else in the world they desire. Considering that the U. S. is not supposed to be a Banana Republic, even since 1959, how can that be justified? Mr. Rubio, would you answer that and then we will let Mr. Menendez express his opinion?" 

And riding very high back in Cuba.

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Fidel's Birthday Is Today

89 Years Old!!!

          Fidel Castro turns 89-years-old today. He was born on August 13th, 1926, in Biran, Cuba. His father Angel was a multi-millionaire rancher/land owner. Although his critics claim otherwise, every Castro insider -- including journalist Carlos Franqui, his one-time close ally and future enemy -- registers the fact that Fidel had no interest in money but fostered a genuine concern for poor people. Otherwise his critics, including many would-be assassins, have gotten some things right about him. 89? Wow!! That's a remarkable number for anybody. Especially him! Among his accomplishments is a notable listing in the Guinness Book of World Records for having survived the most assassination attempts. One famous British documentary -- "638 Ways To Kill Fidel Castro" -- induced the Guinness researchers to diligently study the old revolutionary's history and they, too, were startled at the documented numbers. Moreover, Fidel's would-be assassins were among the best in history -- the CIA, the Mafia, and a vast number of Cuban exiles such as the legendary Luis Posada Carriles, who is today one of the heralded citizens of Miami eagerly waiting to celebrate the death of Fidel Castro who, after all, is mortal. In fact, rich and powerful anti-Castro elements in Miami have rented out the football stadium at Florida International University to host one of their major "Fidel Is Dead" celebrations. It is also known that CNN and other U. S. television networks have already rented out space at the most famed restaurants in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood to make sure that they can give the world live coverage of the "Fidel Is Dead" delirium. One of the Wikipedia summaries about the myriad of assassination attempts against Fidel quote his own candid summation: "If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal." 

         In the entire history of the United States Senate, it could be substantially argued that Frank Church was the most decent and the most patriotic person to ever serve in that august body. He represented Idaho, America, and democracy in the Senate from 1957 till 1981. That's Mr. Church on the right in the above photo. On the left is Henry Kissinger, the "regime change" adviser to Richard Nixon and other right-wing Republican leaders. In this photo, Kissinger's dour mood is understandable. At long last he had met his match -- Senator Church. As a true American patriot, Senator Church was appalled when he learned about "Operation Mongoose," which was the code name for CIA assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, whose revolution in Cuba in 1959 had ousted the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Senator Church created a committee to investigate. He quickly confirmed 8 failed CIA attempts to kill Fidel Castro. One of them involved a young female beauty named Marita Lorenz who had been recruited by the CIA to bring poison pills into Fidel's hotel room in a cold cream jar. Marita, the CIA determined, was one of the young female starlets that flocked to Havana in 1959 to have sex with Fidel. The other seven attempts uncovered by Senator Church were similarly fanciful and unsuccessful. In 1975 Senator Church, ashamed by his data, chaired a "Senate Committee To Study Governmental Operations With Respect To Intelligence." Senator Church and his staff, in researching the "Operation Mongoose" attempts to murder Fidel Castro, also uncovered successful CIA-involved assassinations against people like Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader in the Congo; and Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected leader in Chile. Senator Church believed such assassinations, and the multiple but failed attempts to kill Fidel Castro, insulted democracy and the U. S. government. Because of Senator Church, today it is actually against the law for the U. S. government to be involved in the murder of leaders in other countries.

       Senator Frank Church had the decency and the guts, as shown in the photo above, to stringently point out to Henry Kissinger and others that the U. S. government should not be in the business of murdering foreign leaders in countries like Cuba, the Congo, and Chile where "rich Americans might have access to rake in fruit, oil, and other profits." Senator Church, who died in 1984, deserves the most credit for pointing out the undemocratic evils of such things as..."Operation Mongoose."

         This 1959 photo shows the aforementioned Marita Lorenz, the German girl who disembarked from a ship determined to connect with Fidel Castro, newly famed for his Cuban Revolution that shocked the world by overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Fidel was receptive to Marita. He circumvented his soul-mate Celia Sanchez and provided Marita a suite in the Hotel Hilton. She got pregnant. Blacked out one day, the baby was aborted. She flew to New York for treatment. The CIA contacted her. Books, newspapers, magazines, and documentaries have chronicled her versions of her affair with Fidel. She was one of many, including Hollywood starlets, but she is the only one known to have been solicited to kill Fidel. She tells all about it in the Discovery Channel documentary series "CIA Declassified: Marita and Fidel." Regarding the above photo, she said, "He was 33, with sparkling eyes. And that was it. I was lost in love." She says her pregnancy ended when she was dazed or blacked out. While in New York the CIA contacted her and told her Fidel had personally ordered the abortion. She says, "I didn't believe it but they did a good job of brainwashing me. They said, 'we want you to take him out.'" She said she went to Miami where famed anti-Castro/CIA operative Frank Sturgis gave her poison pills and instructed her to drop one in Fidel's drink. She went to Havana, back to the Hotel Hilton. She says she had the chance but ended up just stashing the pills in her cold cream jar...luckily, I guess, for Fidel Castro!!

Marita Lorenz, now 75, still relishes her association with Fidel Castro.

Marita Lorentz is glad she didn't use the CIA pills to poison Fidel.

Since 1960, she has often toasted Fidel while blasting the CIA and Frank Sturgis.

           This is a Frank Sturgis montage courtesy of Eugen/Wikipedia. He was typical of the many CIA operatives, Mafia thugs, and Cuban exiles famed as would-be Castro assassins. His real name was Angelo Fiorini; he attended Virginia Tech; he died in Miami at age 69 in 1993. Yes, he is known as Marita Lorenz's CIA handler. He was also one of the five convicted Watergate burglars in 1972, the scandal that ended President Richard Nixon's political career. But Sturgis...err, Fiorini...is even better known for his association with Lee Harvey Oswald and his alleged participation in the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. To say the least, Fidel Castro's fiercest enemies since the 1950s have been paid a lot of tax dollars over a lot of decades. That's possibly why, today Marita Lorenz toasts Fidel Castro and cringes over her infamous CIA involvement; and why, in 1963, President Kennedy famously screamed at his top aides, "If I could I would blow the CIA to smithereens!" Fidel Castro, turning 89 today, has out-lived, perhaps by out-smarting, most of his would-be assassins, but not all. The most famous, Mr. Carriles, is still a heralded citizen of Miami. The saga of Fidel Castro's long life, and then his long legacy, will always say even more about the United States than about Cuba. The U. S., after all, is the world's superpower and most famed democracy; Cuba, after all, is an island...the biggest in the Caribbean, but still an island.

The young Fidel Castro.

A slightly older Fidel Castro.

        This is Fidel Castro on the front-lines at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961. The CIA had famously assured President John Kennedy that Fidel would race to his getaway airplane the moment he heard bombs falling on Camp Colombia on the edge of Havana. Fidel was in Celia Sanchez'z 11th Street apartment when he heard those bombs falling. Unlike Batista, he didn't have a getaway airplane standing by. Instead, he raced to the south-central coast of the island where he guessed correctly the ground assault would take place at the Bay of Pigs near the colonial city of Trinidad. The CIA-inspired attack, like the CIA-inspired "Operation Mongoose" assassination attempts, merely served to enhance the Castro legend and the upcoming Castro legacy.

 Today -- August 13th, 2015 -- Fidel Castro celebrated his 89th birthday.
And by the way..........

        .........today, on his 89th birthday, Fidel Castro got word that his favorite American president, Jimmy Carter, had been diagnosed with cancer that has spread from his liver to other parts of his body. Mr. Carter was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. He was President from 1977 till 1981. He is considered by many to be the most decent human being ever to serve as President of the United States.

       This photo from 2002 shows Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter at a baseball game in Cuba. Before, during, and after his presidency, Jimmy Carter tried his best to end the U. S. embargo against Cuba. He did manage to create so-called "Interests Sections" in the two capitals. The U. S. embargo against Cuba began in 1962, the year after embassies in the two capitals were closed. But the now 89-year-old Fidel Castro and the now 90-year-old Jimmy Carter have lived long enough to see the Cuban flag raised at its new embassy in Washington, back on July 20, and to see the U. S. flag raised at its new embassy in Havana tomorrow -- Friday, August 14th. However, it is not likely that either man will live to see the end of the U. S. embargo against Cuba although polls show the entire world, including a strong majority of Cuban-Americans, strongly want it to end. The embargo has been kept in place for all these decades by two generations of powerful anti-Castro zealots in Miami colluding with the necessary number of right-wingers in the U. S. Congress. Jimmy Carter: "The U. S. democracy is too precious to endlessly allow a few benefactors to punish millions of people in a smaller country. The embargo's effect on the worldwide image of American is horrendous, and deservedly so." Fidel Castro: "Even when he tells me I am totally wrong, which he is never hesitant to do, I know Jimmy Carter to be the most honest and most honorable American I have known."

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More U.S.-Cuban History

With More To Come

         U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez, have made history recently. They will make some more Friday, August 14th, in Havana when Kerry will be on hand to officially raise the U. S. flag at its new Cuban Embassy. The last time the U. S. had an embassy in Cuba was 1961. On Friday John Kerry will be the first U. S. Secretary of State to visit Cuba since 1945. Kerry and Rodriguez had a long sit-down discussion in Panama City back in April. Last month, on July 20th, Rodriguez made his first trip to Washington for the raising of the Cuban flag at the island's new embassy in the U. S. capital.

        In both Panama City and in Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry has made it a point to tell Bruno Rodriguez, "Normalizing relations between two important neighboring countries is long overdue. The past half-century has maybe satisfied a few but greatly harmed the majority of Americans, Cubans, and Caribbeans."

       Jeffrey DeLaurentis is currently {since July 20th} the acting U. S. Ambassador at the new embassy in Havana. It is believed that President Obama will soon appoint him as the full-time Ambassador; it is his...if he wants it. He is well qualified as a Cuban expert that has represented Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Obama in delicate negotiations with Cuba. Recently he has represented the U. S. in delicate efforts to persuade Cuba to accept the deportations of known Cuban criminals in America. Mr. DeLaurentis twice has been the U. S. chief at the Interests Section in Havana...from 1991 till 1993 and again from 1999 till 2002. 

             Cuba would accept Jeffrey DeLaurentis as the official U. S. Ambassador in Havana. This EFE photo shows Mr. DeLaurentis chatting with America's Roberta Jacobson and Cuba's Josefina Vidal, the two women who conducted the four diplomatic sessions that led up to the historic opening of embassies.

          Michael Kozak is another veteran U. S. diplomat with highly respected Cuban credentials. He is on President Obama's short list of prospective Ambassadors to Cuba and he would be accepted by Cuba.

Mr. Kozak has advised all U. S. Presidents on Cuba since Reagon-Bush in the 1980s.

        Fulton Armstrong is John Kerry's pick to be the U. S. Ambassador to Cuba. An indication that Mr. Armstrong would be a good choice is the fact that the anti-Cuban lobbyists in Washington have already spent considerable time and money smearing Mr. Armstrong's Cuban credentials, which are strong.

        The U. S. Senate, of course, has to approve President Obama's appointment of the Ambassador to Cuba. Unfortunately, the U. S. Senate includes three Cuban-Americans -- Rubio, Menendez, and Cruz -- who will try to block every positive overture President Obama and Secretary Kerry will make regarding Cuba.

          Restoring diplomatic relations between the U. S. and Cuba will proceed over the course of the next seventeen months as Barack Obama closes out his two-term presidency. If he is succeeded by a Republican administration, restored relations will be destroyed forthwith in 2017. In the interim, Cuban hardliners in Miami, Union City, and the U. S. Congress are perfectly capable of defying national and international aspirations regarding U.S.-Cuban rapprochement, especially by encouraging and funding dissidents who are fully capable of squelching any peaceful diplomacy and replacing it with fiery conflicts.

          This Cuban woman all her life has been severely and unfairly punished on the nearby island by a U.S.-Cuban policy dictated by the remnants of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship that was overthrown by the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. The Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders didn't hang around Havana to fight but, instead, hastily vacated the island in their getaway boats, ships, and airplanes. Before the end of January in 1959 those leaders had regrouped and were in charge of nearby Miami, a major U. S. city from whence many of the Batistiano-Mafiosi had originated. Hiding behind the skirts of the U. S. government, those exiles -- especially in collusion with the Bush dynasty -- have, for two generations now, wreaked havoc on many innocent lives -- with military and terrorist acts as well as congressional laws. This Cuban woman and the majority of Cubans on the island have been so excited about President Obama's efforts to normalize relations they have not only been waving but, like this woman, actually wearing the U. S. flag.

          By the end of this week, the U. S. and Cuban flags will be flying in the respective capital cities of Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961. But for how long? Since the 1950s a small contingent of Cubans, Americans, Cuban-Americans and other benefactors such as the Bush dynasty -- one way or the other -- have nefariously dictated America's relations with Cuba. That has lasted through one whole generation and deep into another. Now the second generation -- as personified by Rubio, Cruz, the Diaz-Balart brothers, Ros-Lehtinen, and the self-serving Jeb Bush -- are unwilling to give up the revenge, economic, and political advantages that accrue to them from a hostile U.S.-Cuban relationship. Moreover, the American people, as custodians of their democracy, seem unable or unwilling to correct what has been, from a longevity and cruelty standpoint, the most serious blight on America's image worldwide.

         A whole generation of Americans and Cubans has already suffered mightily under an American Cuban policy designed to benefit a few self-serving miscreants at the expense of everyone else. This young Cuban boy wearing the U. S. flag and his generation of Cubans and Americans are destined to suffer too. 

Jeb Bush, Mel Martinez, and the Diaz-Balart brothers.

Still in charge of America's Cuban policy.
And...not enough Americans give a damn.

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