Obama Will Visit Cuba

Official Announcement Today

     As we have been saying for days, President Barack Obama has a strong desire to visit Cuba, the nearby island that he has treated more decently and more bravely than any other American, including U. S. presidents dating back to 1898 when the Spanish-American War was concocted to make Cuba a U. S. colony, not a Spanish one. Today -- Wednesday, February 18th -- the White House will bravely, triumphantly, and officially announce that President Obama plans to visit Cuba...next month!!

     Mr. Obama has twice been elected President of the United States and over seven years ago he entered the Oval Office, as had nine Presidents before him, marching to a Cuban policy dictated for over half-a-century by the ousted remnants of the brutal-thieving U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba. But President Obama, with uncompromising decency and bravery, has chosen not to march to the self-serving and vile dictates of the Batistianos and their easily acquired sycophants in the U. S. Congress.

       More than anyone else, Mr. Obama resented this image of America, a diabolical image shared by the rest of the world as indicated yearly by a vote in the United Nations, a 191-to-2 vote propagandized Americans are told to ignore. Mr. Obama's enemies, and sadly many decent but intimidated American citizens, have not been shamed or embarrassed by the definitive image vividly depicted above.

        President Obama has the guts and decency to admit that Cubans on the island, like these two ladies, are not America's enemies but they have been punished for over half-a-century by U.S.-based Batistianos and their Congressional acolytes. The cowardly justification has been that it hurts Fidel Castro. When vicious and well-protected anti-Castro terrorists cowardly blew up the child-laden Cubana Flight 455 civilian airplane, cowardly Americans were advised by the Miami media that it was the biggest blow yet against Castro. And to this day that is why Americans are not supposed to know or surely not comment on such atrocities or their aftermaths. But President Obama knows and has the guts to loudly comment.

        On Dec. 17-2014 President Obama, after behind-the-scenes discussions with decent people like Pope Francis and Cuba's Josefina Vidal, told the world of his plans to normalize relations with Cuba. He well knew that a handful of belligerent members of the U. S. Congress have long dictated America's Cuban policy to suit their revenge, economic, and political motives related to Cuba. And he knew Congress would forever maintain anti-Cuban and anti-democratic policies such as the Embargo, which has existed since 1962...or right after the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack failed to recapture Cuba. But, using his Executive Powers, President Obama has bravely and astutely sliced deeply into the Batistiano and Congressional stranglehold on Cuba. He removed Cuba from the Sponsors of Terrorism list that had enabled Miami courts to successfully sue unrepresented Cuba for whatever they wanted to accuse Cuba of. He opened embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961. He has greatly eased travel restrictions to Cuba that have made everyday Americans the only people in the world without the freedom to visit the island, a shameful and undemocratic law designed to make sure everyday Americans continue to not be able to make their own judgments about a Cuban policy opposed by America's friends around the world and by a majority of Cuban-Americans even in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. Yet, a handful of remnants from the Batista dictatorship have been allowed to make America look like a Batista-style Banana Republic, an abomination that President Obama has sliced into. Just this week he defied the embargo by authorizing an Alabama company to build much-needed tractors in Cuba using Cuban workers. And just this week President Obama has authorized U. S. airlines, barred for half-a-century from making commercial flights to Cuba, to make up to 110 daily commercial, not charter, flights to and from ten Cuban cities.

       While President Obama has been determined to visit Cuba for a long time, either as President in 2016 or as a citizen in 2017, the graphic and photo above affords him the chance to visit the island next month as President. The graphic headlines these words, translated to English: "PEACE TALKS IN HAVANA, CUBA. Shaking hands, with a smiling President Raul Castro looking on, are: Juan Manuel Santos, the President of Colombia, and Rodrigo Londono, the leader of FARC. No one ever expected such a handshake to take place, in Havana or anywhere else. For a half-century the Colombian government and FARC have been waging a bloody Civil War. It has cost 250,000 lives and an untold amount of injuries. It has also cost American taxpayers billions and billions of dollars. President Barack Obama, on his visit to Cuba next month, plans to witness in person the signing of a Declaration of Peace between Colombia and FARC, a Peace Treaty brokered by Cuba where the discussions have been hosted for many months at Cuba's expense. Americans, of course, are not supposed to give Cuba any credit, but well they should.

         Last week Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, visited the soon-to-be 90-year-old Fidel Castro. The Patriarch, a friend of the Cuban Revolution, had also visited Fidel in 1995, 2004, and 2008. But last week's visit was far more historic, easing a 1000-year-old schism that needed correcting.

       While Patriarch Kirill was in Havana last week, Pope Francis -- who had visited Fidel's home in 2015 -- flew back to Cuba to meet the Patriarch. As shown above, they signed a very, very historic Joint Declaration. Incredibly, it marked the first time in a thousand years that a Pope had met a Patriarch. Of course, Americans are not supposed to give Cuba any credit for that history-making and peace-loving gesture, but they should, even if they are frightened by the scary Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

      Not surprisingly, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have been all over the airways in the past 24 hours railing against President Obama's upcoming trip to Cuba. Their tirades began last night on CNN during a Town Hall hosted by Anderson Cooper. In a right-wing dominated Republican Party that has driven conservatives like me to seek more decent political havens, Cruz and Rubio, incredibly, are serious presidential contenders in this pivotal year of 2016. Cruz in Texas and Rubio in Miami got their political starts by being Bush dynasty and Tea Party darlings. Most significantly, both Cuban-Americans put gigantic "For Sale" signs on their chests and backs to propel them to the U. S. Senate. They immediately, as first-term Senators, showed disrespect for everything except their acute presidential ambitions. Even when key bills were coming up in the Senate, they were busy begging billionaires for money to fund their presidential bids. Now both Cruz and Rubio are awash with money from right-wing, Jewish, religious, and other billionaires -- enough money to purchase the White House for years to come. While there are many Cuban-Americans that should be in the U. S. Congress or the White House, Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Marco Rubio are not among them.

        Cruz and Rubio are not only unfit to be President, they would be dangerous. Not because they are the most bought-and-paid-for major candidates; and not because they have displayed gross disrespect for the Office of President and not just President Obama himself. Donald Trump is not the only one who has labeled both Cruz and Rubio liars and dishonest. Their lies have been so dishonest it is amazing they, or their handlers, believe the American people are so naive and stupid to believe them...but many Americans do believe them in a political milieu in which well-funded propaganda machines overwhelm the media. Thus, Rubio can lie about whether his parents escaped the tyranny of Batista or Castro for the freedom of Miami. And, thus, Cruz can incessantly claim, as he did with Anderson Cooper on CNN again last night, that his father fought for Castro in the revolution but that somehow he conveniently blames Castro for his father being tortured by Batista thugs because blaming Batista, I guess, wouldn't be accepted by the sufficiently propagandized American voters who live in a nation where the Cuban narrative is dictated by remnants of the long-ago Batista dictatorship in Cuba. Not surprisingly, in the heated Iowa caucus voting, two campaigns -- Cruz's and Rubio's -- embarked on shady practices, standards even lower than past very low political campaigns -- such as saturating that state with government-like sheets apparently designed to scare the voters into voting for them, and propagating such last-minute lies as claiming Ben Carson had dropped out of the race so be sure to vote for TED CRUZ!! While a Marco Rubio-Nikki Haley Republican ticket would be far more electable, a ticket headed by Ted Cruz would be far more dangerous. And while both Cruz and Rubio are totally bought-and-paid-for, Cruz is even more of a right-wing extremist and he is much smarter than Rubio. And therefore, Cruz is much more dangerous but Rubio is much more electable.

         Ken Silverstein is a respected investigative journalist with an easily scrutinized background from his many years working at Harper's Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, etc. He recently turned his investigative skills on Marco Rubio, resulting in a major article entitled: "MARCO RUBIO: Poor Little Rich Boy Runs Into Real Estate Trouble." His very first sentence was/is: "When it comes to sheer brazen corruption, chicanery and dishonesty there is one candidate who stands head and shoulders above everybody else and that is the right-wing Cuban-American and Tea Party darling Senator Marco Rubio." I remind you of that article with this caveat: Even superb investigative print journalists these days are easily smothered and overwhelmed by politicians who have millions and millions of dollars to pay high-priced publicists/lobbyists/propagandists and who have total access to television news networks who will readily accept lies and distortions because to challenge them might discourage the Talking Head politicians and pundits they need to fill their airtime and also save them from having to send real reporters out to actually cover important news.

        So, yes, in that milieu -- a pundit-crazed media and a money-crazed political system -- Marco Rubio can be elected President of the United States, which means he could probably name three new Supreme Court justices and, as Commander-in-Chief, exploit his views of Cuba and other bought-and-paid-for topics.

       Barack Obama, now in his 8th year as U. S. President, has had to battle a money-driven political system and a pundit-driven media to accomplish many things on behalf of democracy and the American people. While right-wing Republicans like Rubio, Cruz, and Jeb Bush assail Mr. Obama from all sides, and mostly behind his back, they are being opposed in the current presidential sweepstakes by a flawed but extremely astute politician named Hillary Clinton, who is smart enough to be campaigning on Obama's record of achievements. Fifty years from now, the highlight of Obama's legacy will likely be his brave overtures to Cuba. While sufficiently proselytized and completely propagandized Americans today cannot be expected to see through many fog-dazed lies, it does appear that a young generation of Americans -- based on the amazing presidential support even Bernie Sanders is receiving -- are verily desperate to restore sanity and decency to the greatest form of government, the U. S. democracy, ever devised by men and women. When Obama's brave and sane Cuban policy is supported by the entire world and even by almost all of the young Cuban-Americans in Miami's Little Havana area, it should be evident that America's democracy is in dire trouble when right-wing, highly financed Cuban-American thugs can vow to destroy Obama and his Cuban policy and still be considered legitimate presidential candidates to succeed him.

         Cuba, an island, says more about the United States, the world's most powerful nation, than it says about Cuba. One thing it says is...the American citizens in 1952 should have objected when right-wingers so soon after World War II aligned the United States with the Mafia to support the brutal and thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba. Another thing it says is...the American citizens in 1959 should have objected when the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship reconstituted itself on American soil from which, since the 1950s, it has dictated America's shameful Cuban policy. And yet another thing in 2016 it says is...Americans should object to putting Batistiano/Mafiosi-types in the White House as President of the United States. If it happens, we Americans in 2016 will be as shameless, as stupid, and as guilty as were the Americans who in 1952 insanely helped, for 8 more brutal years, the likes of Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano and Fulgencio Batista to rape and rob Cuba at will. In the above graphic, that's Mafia kingpin Lansky upfront flanked by Mafia kingpins Luciano and Batista, depicted when they were in charge of Cuba. It is interesting to note, I think, that in 2016 Lansky heirs are demanding that the U. S. government help them get financial restitution for things, like hotels, Lansky left behind in Cuba in 1959 when he fled back to his safe soil, American soil.

          Meyer Lansky, before he died of old age in Miami in 1983, famously said that the Mafia was "bigger than U. S. Steel." In being allowed to construct such a criminal enterprise in the United States and Cuba, it is interesting to note, I think, that Mr. Lansky didn't have to worry about the U. S. government but it seems he was very scared, for some reason, when the Cuban Revolution overthrew the Batista dictatorship.

        It is also interesting, I think, that fictional movies based on real life have been far, far more truthful in the U. S. about telling the truth about the remnants of Cuba's Batista dictatorship. Tony Montana, as famously depicted in the movie Scarface, is a prime example. Tony, you see, was a Batista remnant. The famed movie opens with live and real footage of Tony arriving in Miami via U. S. laws that, then and now, entice Cubans to leave the island and, once in the U. S., they are instantly legal residents, with benefits. Tony Montana, as played by the great Al Pacino, quickly became the richest and most vicious drug kingpin Miami ever saw...although, for sure, real life documentaries such as "Cocaine Cowboys" and great crime reporters such as Edna Buchanan of the Associated Press documented true Tony Montana-types that ruled Miami for decades, with Ms. Buchanan at one point in "Cocaine Cowboys" pointing back at Miami's impressive skyline and saying, "It was built with drug money."

Tony Montana and the "Scarface" Miami mansion.

Edna Buchanan, now 76, Miami's greatest crime journalist.

Marco Rubio, Miami's usually absent Senator.

Have a nice visit to Cuba, Mr. President.
And by the way:

       Calvin Coolidge in 1928 was the last U. S. President to visit Cuba. That is President Coolidge and his wife Grace on the left and Cuban President and General Gerado Machado and his wife Elvira on the right. The photo was taken on January 19th, 1928, at Machado's estate.

Jimmy Carter as ex-President visited Fidel Castro in 2002.

Jimmy Carter also visited an ill Fidel Castro in 2011.

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Obama's Cuban Brilliance

up, Up, and AWAY...to Cuba!!!!
{Updated: Wednesday, February 17th, 2016}

      Yesterday a bold and brilliant President Obama continued to drastically slice into America's Batistiano-directed and Congress-mandated Cuban policy that the entire democracy-loving world strongly opposes.

       For over half a century, to appease revengeful Cuban exiles and their sycophants in the U. S. Congress, everyday Americans have been the only people in the world deprived of the freedom to visit the nearby island of Cuba. No U. S. President since the 1950s has had the necessary combination of skill, decency, and guts to correct such anti-democratic atrocities. Until Obama! Yesterday he devised a plan to saturate Cuba with commercial airline flights to the island that have been barred for over a half century.

     This photo is courtesy of Reuters/Alexandre Meneghini. It was taken yesterday at the famed Hotel Nacional in Havana. On the right is Cuba's Minister of Transportation Adel Rodriguez. On the left is America's Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. Their handshake sealed an incredible, Obama-orchestra deal. It paves the way for up to 110 daily U. S. airline flights to and from Cuba. The agreement stipulates the flights can be "from any city in the U. S. to any city in Cuba." Ten Cuban cities have acceptable and approved international airports. That includes Havana and Santiago de Cuba, the two largest cities on each end of the island, as well as Cayo Coco, Cayo Largo, Cienfuegos, Holguin, Manzanillo, Matanzas, Camaguey, and Santa Clara. USA Today today says all of the major U. S. airlines are excited about the agreement and will file flight plans within the next fifteen days hoping to be operative by the fall. Mr. Rodriguez said: "Cuba and America are closest of neighbors. We should be closest of friends." Mr. Foxx said: "This is an historic day in the relationship between Cuba and the United States. For the first time in more than five decades the United States and Cuba will allow American airline service between our two countries."

         This photo is courtesy of Chip Somodeville/Getty Images. It shows an American Airlines charter flight unloading passengers at Jose Marti Airport in Havana. Prior to Obama, only charter flights have flown from the U. S. to Cuba and only specially approved people could be on them. Obama has already drastically increased...to 12...the reasons Americans can go to Cuba, but tourism is not one of the 12 because the Batistiano-directed U. S. Congress has the power to maintain the embargo, at least the self-serving evils that Mr. Obama can't correct with his own executive powers. American is the largest U. S. airline and, of course, it is excited about having the Obama-blessed freedom to bid on the commercial flights. The new agreement allows ten flights a day to each of ten Cuban airports but it is expected that Jose Marti Airport in Havana will get about 20 flights per day. With that anticipation, Cuba has been spending money to sharply upgrade its already busy airports. The agreement does not include Cuban airplanes flying to the U. S., but, in time, Obama-orchestrated trade agreements are designed to create mutual benefits that even anti-Cuban zealots in Miami and Congress might have trouble crushing, at least with democratic tactics.

      Obama's opening of the Cuban spigot has already created an influx of tourism to the island and Cuba is hustling to not only improve its airports but also it roads and hotels. This is the very appealing hotel in Cienfuegos, one of the ten Cuban cities that yesterday's agreement in Havana will affect with up to ten daily U. S. commercial flights. Cienfuegos is a very gorgeous city Americans might want to check out.

       This map shows that Cienfuegos is located in south-central Cuba, just northwest of the beautiful colonial coastal city of Trinidad. You probably already know the locations of Havana and Santiago de Cuba but in between them are cities such as Holguin, Camaguey, Santa Clara, and Matanzas that are also getting primed for those upcoming commercial flights from the U. S., thanks to an innovator named Obama.

      Cuba is the biggest island in the Caribbean in both size and population with 11.26 million people. The main island is surrounded by thousands of cays, some of which are so popular with tourists that there are nice hotels and international airports on them. That includes the two -- Cayo Coco and Cayo Largo -- that are among the ten airports mentioned in that significant U.S.-Cuban agreement yesterday. As you can see on this map, Cayo Largo is southwest of Cienfuegos and due east of the Cuban island of Isla de Juventud, which was called the Isle of Pines when Fidel Castro was there in a Batista prison. Cayo Coco, as you can see, is just off the north-central coast of the main island. Both Largo and Coco have absolutely great beaches. This map shows the 250 kilometer dimension; 250 kilometers equal 155 miles. Obama is trying to make it easy for you to visit Cuba. Don't say you are a "tourist" but study the 12 reasons Obama will permit you to go and then choose one. Next, await the commerical airplane flights that Obama has just approved.

This is a part of the newly refurbished Hotel Cayo Largo.

       The Associated Press this week {Feb. 15th} used the above photo to illustrate an article that defines, as of this moment in time, how President Barack Obama's ongoing overtures to Cuba might well go down in history as among the bravest and most intelligent acts ever devised by an American President -- rivaling Abe Lincoln's Civil War brilliance that saved the union and ended slavery and Franklin Roosevelt's creation of Social Security in the 1930s and his incredible efforts to get the U. S. into and through World War II to keep vile dictators in the German-Japanese-Italian axis from, perhaps, capturing the world. If that sounds like pro-Obama hyperbole, read the AP article before rendering that judgment. Lincoln was direly threatened by pro-slave elements in the U. S. and Roosevelt was direly threatened by anti-war zealots in the U. S. Congress and elsewhere. But unbiased contemporary journalists and future historians will, I think, agree that every American President since John Kennedy in the 1960s has been direly threatened by the vast Castro Cottage Industry in America and that President Obama has confronted that threat more bravely than any President since the 1960s. Having said that, let me explain the above AP photo. It shows a Cuban farmer on a very old tractor in Pinar del Rio province. Actually, he's very lucky because many Cuban farmers are still using oxen to work their land, one reason Cuba for decades has had to spend billions of dollars each year to purchase food instead of producing it. The U. S. embargo was engineered in 1962 and maintained every year since by Batistiano-exiles from the overthrown Batista dictatorship, along with easily acquired sycophants such as the Bush dynasty and entrenched right-wing members of the U. S. Congress such as Jesse Helms, Dan Burton and Robert Torricelli. {Perhaps you have heard of the Helms-Burton Act and the Torricelli Bill engineered by Miami-based anti-Castro zealots to recapture Cuba and secondarily to make selected Cuban-Americans very, very rich}. BUT THIS WEEK, as the above tractor indicates, PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS CONTINUED TO SLICE DRASTICALLY INTO ANTI-DEMOCRATIC ATROCITIES SUCH AS THE Helms-Burton and Torricelli LAWS.

        Meet Saul Berenthal {on the left} and Horace Clemmons. They own the small Kleber Tractor Factory in Alabama. This week President Obama, via an extremely brave and monumental Executive Decision, gave Saul and Horace permission to build a tractor factory in Cuba and make their superb little tractors available to Cuba's hard-pressed farmers. If you think it was not a brave and monumental decision, I invite you to read the vicious and powerful anti-Castro blog Capital Hill Cubans and study its reaction to Obama's belief that these little tractors that will be built in Cuba will help millions of Cubans as well as Americans. Saul is a Cuban-American who came to the U. S. at age 16 and got rich as an IBM executive, where he met his dear friend Horace. Saul, a brave Cuban-American, this week said: "These two countries for 60 years have been in the worst of terms. Anything I can do to bring the two countries and the two people together is tremendously satisfying." Reread that statement, if you will. Most Cuban-Americans feel that way. However, for 60 years when it comes to Cuba, only anti-Castro zealots and their self-serving right-wing sycophants have been permitted to set U. S. Cuban policy. That is, till President Obama came along. And then, lo 'n behold, Obama defies Congress by removing Cuba from the punitive Sponsors of Terrorism list, opening embassies in Havana and Washington, easing the anti-democratic travel barriers that denied everyday Americans the freedom to visit the nearby island, and...easing trade restrictions -- SUCH AS WITH U. S. TRACTORS!!

        The little but strong Kleber tractors that will now be made and sold in Cuba will do wonders for Cuban farmers, whom extremists in the U. S. have punished for years in the guise of hurting Castro. The tractors will sell for under $10,000 in Cuba and there are many rich Cuban-Americans who will readily finance them.

      The Telemundo TV network used this photo to illustrate how the Kleber tractors made and sold in Cuba will tremendously help Cuban farmers, many of whom in 2016 are still using oxen to till their land. These affordable tractors will be among the brave gifts that President Obama is giving to the Cuban people in stark defiance of America's Cuban policy that has been mandated since 1959 by a handful of Cuban exiles and a few Americans, including Jeb Bush and the still-viable Bush dynasty, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz.

       This is Saul Berenthal. The photo is courtesy of Voice of America's voa.news. Saul masterminded this week's decision by President Obama to allow Saul and his Alabama partner Horace Clemmons to build a factory in Cuba that will provide affordable and badly needed tractors to Cuban farmers. Saul is a multi-millionaire Cuban-American. Unlike many others, he has no desire to make money off the hardships of Cubans on the island. He wants to help them. And it is time, I believe, that Americans finally have the courage and insight to support the majority of Cuban-Americans like Saul, as opposed to capitulating to the dastardly, self-serving dictates of a handful of Cuban-Americans who have, for many decades now, eked out revenge against Fidel Castro while also...don't forget...eking out wealth and power for themselves at the expense of both the U. S. democracy and millions of innocent Cubans on the island. Like most Cuban-Americans, Saul Berenthal is a decent, democracy-loving man. President Obama supports people like Saul. Presidential wannabes like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz powerfully support rich and powerful anti-Castro zealots/lobbyists like Mauricio Claver-Carone of Capital Hill Cubans fame. You may check Claver-Carone's highly sophisticated and hugely financed blog and see what he says about Obama's tractor deal this week...but, then again, you may want to stay right here on Cubaninsider. I am the only person who has ever written a word on these Cubaninsider essays, over 500 in four years with about 150 deleted for being out-dated. The rest are left in place because, for example, "The U.S.-Cuba-Mafia Triangle: A Nexus From 1952 Till Today" got 52 hits today although it was posted back on Dec. 10-2015. According to Google and Alexa Rank, Cubaninsider gets far more hits each day than many viciously anti-Cuban blogs, including Capital Hill Cubans. I have never promoted this blog with ads or social media or anything else and never made a single penny off of it, and I never will. I doubt that the rich Claver-Carone can make the same statement.

But:

          I strongly support decent and brave Cuban-Americans like the Jewish Saul Berenthal as well as decent and brave Americans like President Obama who believe little tractors like this one, made and sold in Cuba, will do two important things: {1} Help the Cubans on the island; and {2} help soothe the images of America and democracy that have been so badly bruised for six decades by cruelly hurting innocent Cubans on the island. In 2016 Americans are still being told by rich and powerful lobbying outfits that continuing to deprive Cubans on the island is justified because it hurts the soon-to-be 90-year-old Fidel Castro who, unlike his prime enemies in the U. S., actually lives quite modestly in Havana although he was born very rich. Prior to this generation of genuflecting Americans, the previous generation in 1976 was effectively told via the Miami media that the terrorist bombing of the child-laden civilian Cuban airplane, Cubana Flight 455, was the "biggest blow yet against Castro!" Now along comes a decent and brave President, Mr. Obama, who believes that six decades of such genuflections are six decades too many. 

       A great and courageous U. S. President believes that normalizing relations with Cuba can correct six decades of an American policy that has teamed the U. S. and its democracy with the Mafia to support the vile Batista dictatorship in Cuba and then to support the transplanted Batistianos in the United States. 

       He may yet lose his battle to normalize relations with Cuba. If he does, it will be because the majority of Americans will have been too cowardly and too unpatriotic to support him and America's democracy.

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WOW, Cuba Is Still Standing!

As Post-Castro, Post-Obama Looms

         As revolutionary legend Fidel Castro quietly heads toward his 90th birthday on August 13th, the world monitors and analyzes his heath with each updated photo taken by his son Alex Castro and distributed internationally. The informative photos, also confirming to the world he's still alive, become available when world-renown celebrities visit the Castro home in Havana. This is the last such photo. It was taken Saturday, February 13th, 2016, on the occasion of Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill's 4-day visit to Cuba. In 2001 Fidel had authorized the building of a Russian Orthodox Church in Old Havana.

Patriarch Karill gifting Fidel Castro February 13th, 2016, in Havana.

         Pope Francis flew from Rome to Havana to make a truly historic meeting with Patriarch Kirill, the first time in a thousand years a pope had met with a Russian Orthodox Church leader. Yes, a thousand years!

         On Friday -- February 12th, 2016 -- in Havana, Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill signed a truly important agreement {above}. The agreement called on world leaders to prevent Christians in the Middle East from "being completely exterminated" and to help the millions of war-ravaged refugees in those regions.

       Last summer Pope Francis, a native of Argentina and the first Latin American pope, fulfilled "a long-time goal" by visiting Fidel in his Havana home. Pope Francis by then had played a gargantuan behind-the-scenes role in persuading U. S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro to begin the process of normalizing relations between the two countries. Both Presidents responded positively.

      President Obama, now in the 8th and final year of his two-term Presidency, hopes also to personally meet the soon-to-be 90-year-old Fidel Castro. If it doesn't happen as President, Mr. Obama will target 2017.

        Presidents Castro and Obama have carried through on this handshake in Panama that sealed their agreement to try to normalize relations. But the operative word remains try because the vast, lucrative and powerful Castro Cottage Industry in the U. S. will most likely blunt the realization of all magnanimous Cuban overtures. Yet, the Pope, Castro and Obama have already accomplished much despite the iron-grip the dysfunctional, Batistiano-loving U. S. Congress has on U.S.-Cuban relations, including its embargo that has existed in defiance of world opinion since 1962. For example, for the first time since 1961 the U. S. and Cuba have opened embassies in Washington and Havana, despite sharp opposition in Congress.

And guess what?

        Tomorrow -- Tuesday, February 16th, 2016 -- the U. S. and Cuba will sign an amazing agreement to expedite Obama-orchestrated travel and trade expansions between the two nations. It will replace just charter flights and permit a drastic number of daily commercial flights from the U. S. TO TEN CUBAN AIRPORTS. Matt Miller, head of American Airlines, said, "We're well positioned and look forward to the opportunity to begin scheduled service to Cuba." And so do numerous other American airline executives.

This AFP graphic denotes some of Obama's brave Cuban overtures.

          This AP photo shows U. S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and Cuba's Minister of Foreign Trade Rodrigo Malmierca in Havana in 2015. This meeting was such a ground-breaking success that this week -- February 17th & 18th, 2016 -- Mr. Malmierca will make his first trip to Washington to sign significant trade agreements between the two nations. Ms. Pritzker, a billionaire who showed abiding affection for the Cuban people when she visited the island, said, prior to her hosting Mr. Malmierca this week, "A prime desire of the Obama administration is to help and support the Cuban people." Ms. Pritzker is a true jewel.

    In the twilight of Fidel Castro's nine tumultuous decades on this earth, it is worth noting, I believe, that he has lived long enough to earn what the Guinness Book of World Records now officially recognizes as the person who has survived by far history's most assassination attempts...and long enough to view the ongoing attempts by his brother Raul and President Obama to normalize relations between the U. S. and Cuba. In addition to all that, he has a few other notable achievements, such as the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, as well as some notable failures. But through it all, he has steadfastly remained a sovereignty-loving Cuban in Cuba, not just a dissident hiding behind the skirts of the superpower United States. Perhaps that's why just in recent months, despite his age and his long recuperation from a drastic illness, a bevy of world leaders have visited him while others have been denied the privilege by his fawning wife, Dalia Soto del Valle, and their five sons. And now, in 2016 as President or in 2017 as former President, Barack Obama will likely ask Dalia for permission to visit Fidel in their Havana home, a proposed visit that the omnipotent Castro Cottage Industry in the U. S. is already weirdly exasperating about. 

But you know...

           ......Fidel Castro's long life has included amazing snapshots like this one. In 1996 he got a surprise visit from John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr., the handsome and beloved son of the President that had tried to assassinate Fidel in 1960 after inheriting from the Eisenhower administration the plans to recapture Cuba. This photo shows JFK Jr. introducing his friend and co-worker Inigo Thomas to Fidel. JFK Jr. made the trip to Havana to apologize for his father's "misguided and mis-informed Cuban ventures."

       In 1996 Fidel hosted JFK Jr. at dinner. This photo shows Fidel on the left sitting directly across from JFK Jr. as they talk. Fidel and millions of others were devastated in July of 1999 when JFK Jr., along with his wife and her sister, died in a plane crash.

        Because of what they inherited from the Eisenhower-Nixon administration in 1960, till 1963 the Kennedy brothers -- Attorney General Robert and President John -- tried mightily to kill Fidel Castro and, at the 1961 Bay of Pigs, they tried desperately to recapture Cuba. But the many failed assassination attempts and Fidel's gritty defense at the Bay of Pigs only served to add to his legend. But then...lo n' behold...by 1963 both Kennedy brothers were telling intimates -- JFK's Press Secretary Pierre Salinger and Robert's wife Ethel -- that their "biggest" regrets concerned their follow-up on the CIA's plans to kill Fidel and regain control of Cuba. JFK famously exploded one day with these words: "If I could, I would blow the CIA to smithereens!" Of course, he couldn't do that. But the Bay of Pigs debacle and other Cuban-related ventures made powerful enemies for both brothers, particularly from within the CIA and Cuban-exile communities as all historians know. Many of JFK's 1000 days in the White House were consumed by Cuban relations. He was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22-1963, preventing his reelection to a second presidential term. In 1968, as he was campaigning for President, Robert was also assassinated. As the above graphic indicates, the Kennedy legends are tightly intertwined with the Castro legend.

          The quotation above is the most famous one Fidel Castro ever made and, remember, in his prime he was famous for making 6-or-7-hour speeches without notes. This quotation was made on October 16, 1953. He was surrounded by Batista soldiers in a Batista courtroom. In a famed, brilliant and long soliloquy against Batista, Fidel concluded with the words, "Condemn me, it does not matter; history will absolve me." Then he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for leading the ill-fated attack against Batista's Moncada Army Barracks. The plan, of course, was to kill Fidel in prison just as many of the Moncada rebels had already been tortured and then murdered. But Fidel's high profile as the hope of the Cuban peasants, and his close monitoring by important people such as Herbert L. Matthews of the New York Times, kept Fidel alive until May of 1955 when he was released at the behest of the U. S., which was embarrassed by the publications of Batista's atrocities against Cuban women and children, resulting in well-publicized street marches. The freed Fidel well knew death squads would be on his trail. He moved from one safe house to another at the direction of the rebel leader he had never met, Celia Sanchez, and his lover Naty Revuelta. He left the island to recruit in Miami, New York City, and Mexico City before miraculously surviving a leaky old yacht, the Granma, and a shoreline ambush by Batista's tipped-off soldiers, but he managed to hook-up with Celia Sanchez's rebel unit in December-1957, and the world now knows what happened on Jan. 1-1959.

        And so, in his nine decades of life, Fidel Castro has seen a lot and he has done a lot. All of his closest associates, as well as his seminal American biographer Georgie Anne Geyer, are well aware that the saddest day of his long life was January 11, 1980. That was the day Celia Sanchez died of cancer at age 59. Through all his trials and tribulations, will history absolve him? Maybe, maybe not. But he knows Celia Sanchez absolved him. And, to Fidel Castro, that will always be what means the most to him.

      From January 1 till January 7, 1959, Fidel and Celia embarked on a dilatory trek from Cuba's eastern tip to take over the capital of Havana on the western tip. This photo was taken on January 4th, 1959, when they were in Cienfuegos, half-way there. Both were tired and drained as this photo clearly indicates. Fidel reacted to the crowd as the more anxious Celia tried to get back in their car. 

        In Revolutionary Cuba from 1959 till her death in 1980, and in the Cuban Revolution from 1953 till 1959, Celia Sanchez was the most important player. At least, insiders like Fidel Castro think so and other key insiders, like Marta Rojas, agree. However, in the U. S. since 1959 the vast Castro Cottage Industry has insisted that Fidel Castro was and is the most important player in the Cuban Revolution and in Revolutionary Cuba. Now, HOW in the world are those two appraisals so different? Or better yet, WHY are they so different? Could this possibly be the answer: The vilification of Fidel has been easy but vilifying Celia, the doctor's daughter, would be impossible.

Photo montage courtesy of: Sylvia Wylie Lindley via Richard Susskind.
Birds are beautiful.

This is a Trogon, Cuba's national bird.
The photo is courtesy of Laura Gooch.

This is a tiny Tody, found only in Cuba.
Photo is courtesy of Maureen Breakiron Evans.

      A pair of Cuban parrots. The photo is courtesy of Rich Wagner. As birders well know, Cuba is an absolute paradise for bird-watchers. The 2,800 square miles of the Zapata Peninsula, which includes the historic Bay of Pigs area near Trinidad, is a must visit for the world's most serious bird-watchers. And, yes, I have been there.

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