STILL Overthrowing Castro

With Unlimited Tax Dollars!!

       If you are an anti-Castro zealot in Miami, like Carmen Sesin, and also happen to be a free-lance broadcast journalist, the politically correct and extremely biased U. S. propaganda networks will make you very rich, very quick. Yesterday -- Sept. 13-2016 -- NBC-TV blared a massive report by Ms. Sesin entitled: "Conference Pushes for Cuba to Move Forward, Expand Internet Freedom." This was her introductory first paragraph: "Cuba must enter the 21st century: that is the message at the first Cuba Internet Freedom Conference held Monday and Tuesday in Miami by the U.S.-funded Office of Cuba Broadcasting {OCB}." 

     Carmen Sesin used NBC-TV and images like this to illustrate her latest Let's Overthrow Fidel Castro Tactic. Such tactics, of course, have been a daily occurrence -- at extreme expense to U. S. taxpayers -- since 1959, the year the Cuban Revolution booted the Batista-Mafia dictatorship off the island -- mostly to nearby Miami. The latest anti-Castro extravaganza in Miami, as Ms. Sesin pointed out, was organized and sponsored by The Office of Cuba Broadcast, also known as Radio-TV Marti. It operates from plush, state-of-the-art studios in Miami. Most informed, unbiased and un-intimidated observers consider it nothing more, nothing less than an anti-Castro propaganda machine. Moreover, it is also known as The Broadcast to Nowhere because Cuba easily blocks it and everyday Cubans, who have lived all their lives on the island with the now 90-year-old Castro, would pay little, if any, attention to it anyway. So why does it exist? It provides a financial pipeline from Washington to Miami. That's a start. Almost two decades ago, ABC-TV News famously broadcast a report entitled "Broadcast to Nowhere" about Cuba easily blocking the propaganda from Miami but also documenting that unwitting tax-payers were paying hundreds of millions of dollars to fund Radio-Marti. That was almost two decades ago. Now consider the additional hundreds of millions of tax dollars still flowing in that wide-open Washington-to-Miami pipeline for Radio-TV Marti. Is it really to send anti-Castro propaganda or is it just an excuse to send more money to anti-Castro zealots? 

       The latest anti-Castro extravaganza in Miami -- as reported yesterday by NBC News/Carmen Sesin -- was yet another tax-sapping enterprise conducted by the lavish Radio-TV Marti operation. Apparently taking a cue from the success social media had in the Arab Spring uprisings, the extreme Miami focus relating to expanding the social media in Cuba seems to be saying: "Hey, folks, LISTEN UP. For over half-a-century we've had the backing of the U. S. Treasury, the U. S. CIA, the U. S. Government, the U. S. Military, the U. S. Mafia AND the apathy of the American people AND GUESS WHAT? We still haven't been able since 1959 to overthrow one man on one nearby island. But Fidel is now 90-years-old and supposedly REAL SICK so if we can actually get our tax-funded propaganda machines on the island itself instead of just in Miami...HELL, we can overthrow Fidel within two or three weeks!! So that's why we're gathered here today. And thanks for coming."

      This scene -- earlier highlighted by NBC News & Carmen Sesin -- was in front of the iconic Versailles Restaurant in the heart of Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. It was a fierce demonstration against President Obama, denouncing his peaceful overtures to Cuba and calling America's decent two-term President a "COWARD" while one demonstrator, as you can see, waves a Cuban flag across the street.

        It makes me wonder if NBC or Carmen Sesin would ever give any coverage to, say, Hugo Cancio. Hugo is a prominent Cuban-American businessman in Miami. He frequently visits the island. He complains that the anti-Obama demonstrators, Miami's elected officials, Miami's elected representatives to the U. S. Congress, etc., "do not represent the majority of moderate Cuban-Americans like me." So why can't moderates like Hugo Cancio in Miami get elected or at least get covered by the mainstream media?   

       Americans unfamiliar with top, unbiased Cuban experts, like Julia Sweig, do not have a clue when it comes to answering or deciphering questions related to Cuba. That's because the Cuban narrative in the United States, beginning in 1952, has been dictated by Batista supporters in Washington and Miami.

       In her seminal book -- "CUBA: What Everyone Needs To Know" -- Julia Sweig did the best job of documenting how the most visceral anti-Castro Cuban-Americans gained absolute control of America's Cuban policy. She explained that back in the 1980s the Reagan-Bush administration anointed Jorge Mas Canosa the leader of the Cubans-in-exile. And, quite significantly, she documented that Mas Canosa was advised to study AIPAC and then replicate it. AIPAC is the ultra-powerful Israeli lobby that politicians oppose only at their peril. Mas Canosa followed that sage advice and created CANF, the Cuban lobby. He then founded such lavishly funded enterprises as the aforementioned Radio-TV Marti and powerfully initiated or backed such incredibly powerful anti-Castro/pro-Cuban exile laws as Torricelli, Helms-Burton, the Cuban-Adjustment Act, Wet Foot/Dry Foot, etc., etc. etc. That's why to this day pipelines of tax dollars flow to Miami and to lavishly support a myriad of Cuban regime-change laws; why everyday Americans are the only people in the world without the freedom to go to Cuba; why Cubans are the only people in the world with discriminatory U. S. laws that provide them special financial, residence and citizenship privileges the second they touch U. S. soil, etc. The AIPAC-CANF nexus, as expertly documented in the above Julia Sweig book, explains all that, facts that American tax-payers and citizens apparently should not know.

Mas Canosa informing President Ronald Reagan. 

But the Mas Canosa nexus to the Bush dynasty was the key.

Mas Canosa {black suit} awaits his souvenir pen from Bush #1.

Mas Canosa also easily controlled Democratic Presidents.

President Clinton reluctantly signed Helms-Burton into law.
To this day, it codifies America's anti-Castro vengeance.

       Shortly after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, the most visceral anti-Castro zealots -- including Jorge Mas Canosa {above}, Luis Posada Carriles, Felix Rodriguez, etc. -- were sent to the then-secretive Army of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia to train -- at great expense to tax-payers and democracy -- for the recapture of Cuba. As noted above, it was at Fort Benning that Brigade 2506, which attacked Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961, was formed. From Fort Benning and the Bush nexus, Mas Canosa emerged as a billionaire and as easily the all-time most powerful Cuban-American.

        Fidel Castro is now 90-years-old. Neither he nor Revolutionary Cuba are likely to be overthrown...at least not in the next few weeks. That's amazing. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. In 1959 the lushly funded, and secretive, Army of the Americas at Fort Benning launched operations to quickly assassinate or overthrow Castro. When all that failed, the CIA, the U. S. Treasury, the U. S. military, and the Mafia all in concert tried to do the job. All that failed too. So did the embargo that began in 1962 and exists to this day, an embargo that surely would have long-ago doomed almost all much-larger nations. And perhaps most incredibly of all, an unending stream of anti-Castro laws easily enacted by the U. S. Congress without a whit of hindrance from the U. S. citizens {regardless of how undemocratic or discriminatory they are} have enriched and empowered a lot of Cuban-Americans but failed in supposedly their first objective -- which was and is to eliminate Fidel Castro. AMAZING. Yet, as mentioned at the top of this essay, down in Miami the rich and powerful anti-Castro zealots this week launched yet another "Let's overthrow Fidel" enterprise, one that soaks the already soaked U. S. tax-payers who appear either too stupid or too intimidated to object.

ALL OF WHICH REMINDS ME:

       Cuba's petite doctor's daughter, Celia Sanchez, deserves most of the credit for kicking the Batistianos off the island, all the way to Miami, AND for keeping them off for all these many decades. She even crafted the best quotation related to how she did it: "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, WHAT A WOMAN!!

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Cuba Plans to Survive

Here's How!!

MEO Australia in a major company in a great country Down Under. It is very anxious to do business in Cuba; and the island, looking to remain sovereign in a post-Castro future, is quite susceptible to such overtures. It is a fact that Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 has pugnaciously done many things right, otherwise it would still be an imperative pawn to a foreign power. But it has also made some major mistakes, which required extra degrees of pugnaciousness merely to survive. For example, in April of 1959 -- a mere three months after the triumph of the Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship -- the prime rebel decision-maker and guerrilla fighter, Celia Sanchez, personally took her upfront rebel hero, Fidel Castro, to the U. S. on a 12-day mission to reach friendly terms with the United States. Celia had been promised -- by both the State Department and the Society of Newspaper Editors -- that Fidel, also then wildly heralded as a hero in the U. S. -- could meet with President Eisenhower and agree on such things as a democratic election in Cuba that fall in which the U. S. could closely monitor to assure its accuracy. However, the right-wingers in the Eisenhower administration -- VP Nixon and the ultra-powerful Dulles brothers -- who in 1952 had tied the U. S. democracy to the Mafia in support of Batista -- turned the April-1959 promises to Celia into a blatant and long-lasting lie. Nixon met with Fidel Castro and boasted that the U. S. and the Batistianos would recapture Cuba within a matter of months "if not weeks." Celia, infuriated, went home and crafted the most important mantra in Revolutionary Cuba's history: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." In support of that doctrine, Celia and her idolater, Fidel, made mistakes. They placed too many, practically all, of their eggs in one big basket -- the Soviet Union's because at the time it was the only superpower remotely competitive with America. When the Soviet Union collapsed entering the 1990s, Cuba almost did the same. Then it placed most of its eggs, practically all of them, in oil-rich Venezuela's basket. But in 2016 Venezuela is about to collapse, at least the pro-Cuban part of it. Now, Cuba is trying to benefit from what it learned in dealing with both the Soviet Union and Venezuela. It's current dealings with MEO Australia points that out.

    

     Peter Strickland is the Chief Executive of MEO Australia. In a major article yesterday -- Sept. 12-2016 -- in The Sydney Morning Herald and carried internationally by UPI -- Mr. Strickland said he is selling certain assets of his company to be able to better concentrate on "Cuban opportunities." He said, "Doing so would not only secure an existing drilling opportunity for MEO shareholders, but enable MEO to focus its resources on its Cuban opportunities, especially Cuba's oil and gas industry." Mr. Strickland added, "Cuba is the company's highest priority and we are drilling a number of wells already in the so-called Black 9 region on Cuba's northern shore." He is aware that the U. S. embargo of Cuba "will not be totally erased by Obama and that affords non-American companies advantages with Cuba that we should not pass up." 

    On the graphic above depicted in yellow you can see MEO Australia's Block 9 as referenced by Peter Strickland on Cuba's northeastern coastal region. The gratuitous and fortuitous oil deal Cuba has had for years with Venezuela is now, to say the least, less dependable. Cuba produces and refines oil of its own and, in fact, sells some of the excess Venezuelan oil. Also, Sherritt International of Canada currently produces about 80,000 barrels of Cuban oil at operating expenses of only around $7 per barrel. MEO Australia and others now want to take advantage of the U. S. embargo as well as Cuba's desire to diversify its fragile economy with a bevy of foreign countries not restricted by the U. S. embargo.

      This photo was used by The Sydney Morning Herald to illustrate Cuba's pristine beauty and untapped promise since the 1950s. Many American moguls, though severely handicapped by the embargo, agree.

Photo courtesy: Michael Nagel/Bloomberg/Getty Images. 

       Hank Greenberg is a legendary U. S. billionaire and sagacious insurance mogul. Mr. Greenberg this week told Fortune, "Cuba is also very interesting. I've been there recently and I plan on doing business there." That comment...study the quote...indicates that Cuba might survive even a post-Castro, post-Obama world.

       The 91-year-old Hank Greenberg...he's been married to Corinne Zuckerman since 1950...told Fortune this week that he and other international billionaires will be flying to Buenos Aires next week. That's to presumably take advantage of Argentina's new U.S.-friendly President {Macri} that recently replaced the pro-Cuban President Cristina Fernandez who finished out her two elected terms and couldn't get her favorite to succeed her. Mr. Greenberg mentioned something that surprised me: "At one point, before World War II, Argentina had the 2nd largest economy in the world." He believes that, like the pro-U.S. Macri replacing the pro-Castro Fernandez in Argentina, the same thing will happen EVENTUALLY IN CUBA and much sooner in Venezuela, Brazil and even more staple Chile or even Nicaragua and Bolivia -- pro-U.S. leaders replacing pro-Castro leaders. Mr. Greenberg told Fortune that the collapse of President Maduro's staunchly pro-Castro government is imminent in Venezuela and that Cuba is preparing. He said, "Venezuela is about to happen soon. It's only a matter of time." He was asked about Cuba and he said, "Change will happen down there. It's only a matter of time." But remember, he also said, "Cuba is also very interesting. I've been there recently and I plan on doing business there." 

                              The 3 Castro brothers: Raul, Fidel and Ramon.

                         Ramon, the non-rebel, died earlier this year at age 91.

 Fidel is now 90 and Raul is now 85.

      As Hank Greenberg said this week, "Cuba is also very interesting. I've been there recently and I plan on doing business there. Change will happen down there. It's only a matter of time." The comment referenced the age of the two remaining Castro brothers, not an imminent coup. Predictions beyond mortality are a dime-a-dozen these days but post-Castro Cuba is a bit more dicey. The only substantial Cuban prediction, after all these decades, remains the one Celia Sanchez first laid down in 1959: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." She died of cancer in 1980; he still lives. Beyond him, who knows?

By the way:

Celia Sanchez: It was actually her Revolution.

It was thus appropriate in 1959 that she best defined it: 

"The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba

as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives."

Lina Ruz and her rich husband Angel Castro, Fidel's parents.

     This photo was taken on April 16, 1959. It shows the new rebel hero Fidel Castro at Clayton High School in Washington, D. C., but soon these students were told that there were words other than "hero" to best describe the bearded rebel form Cuba.

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A Batistiano America

Can't Happen, You Say?? 
Updated & reaffirmed: Monday, Sept. 12, 2016

       Last week -- Friday, Sept. 9th, 2016 -- this REUTERS/Enrique de la Osa photo depicted a major news conference taking place in Havana. That's Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. He made a powerful statement and took questions from the international media, such as Marc Frank of London-based REUTERS. The U. S. media doesn't cover such things because they would need permission from the tiny but dictatorial Batistiano contingent that dictates Cuban policy in both the U. S. Congress and the American media, on their way to hopefully soon capturing the White House to, it seems, gain full control of the U. S. government even before re-gaining full control of the Cuban government. But Rodriguez reminded everyone that Cuba, despite the positive results of President Obama's "historically kind gestures" toward the island, will never normalize relations with the United States as long as the embargo remains in place. Cuba only refers to it as a blockade. Rodriguez said, "The blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba in 1962 persists. The blockade is the main cause of the economic problems for everyday Cubans and continues as the primary obstacle to their development." Rodriguez said in recent months the embargo has cost Cuba "4.6 billion dollars" and he explained that is "highly significant" for an island that guarantees "totally free" educations, health, shelter and food for "all of its citizens." Rodriguez, while also praising President Obama's efforts to normalize relations, said, "President Obama still has broad executive latitude that he can use right up to his last minute in the White House, if he chooses to really help Cubans on the island and his own citizens." 

     U. S. experts who have the courage and integrity to confront the Batistiano-directed U. S. Cuban policy agree with the sentiments and statistics used by Bruno Rodriguez in Friday's news conference on the island of Cuba. When it comes to analyzing the impact of U. S. economic sanctions against Cuba, no American knows more than John Kavulich, head of the U.S.-Cuba Trade & Economic Council. He told REUTERS, "Over 100 U. S. businesses have visited Cuba since Obama's Dec.-2014 break-through announcement but they agree the continuation of the embargo prevents finalizing mutual deals."  

        And U. S. expert John Kavulich totally agrees with Bruno Rodriguez's assessment about what President Obama can do in his remaining days in office to help Cubans on the island and U. S. citizens escape the stifling injustices of the embargo. Mr. Kavulich told REUTERS, "Yes, there are approximately 12 regulatory changes that the Obama administration can implement that would have enormous impact upon opportunities for United States companies." Those are the precise words Friday from America's top authority on U.S.-Cuban trade possibilities. But Americans are supposed to ignore them because they don't comply with the vicious dictates of a handful of self-serving Cuban hardliners in Miami and the U. S. Congress.

Regarding Cuba, decent & unbiased U. S. experts don't count.

Regarding Cuba, decent & unbiased panels also don't count.

Regarding Cuba, what now counts as fairness in the United States is a handful of second generation Cuban-American anti-Castro zealots eating their fill of money-burgers lavishly provided by multi-billionaires who seem willing and able and eager to purchase the basic tenets of the U. S. democracy. Prior to this demeaning phenomenon, from 1776 till recently everyday citizens had the collective power of individual votes to sustain the greatest form of government ever crafted. But now, it seems, democracy lovers {or at least defenders of democracy} are sadly becoming a vanishing breed in the United States.

      In a great anathema wisp of time, 1952 to 1959, the U. S. democracy had gone from supporting the thieving, brutal Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba to even more inexplicably allowing the overthrown Batistiano-Mafiosi rule on the nearby island to resurrect itself on U. S. soil, mainly Miami, with inevitable roots that grew into an enigmatic, tar-baby effect on the entire U. S. government with its tentacles attached to the Bush dynasty first and then like a sticky monolith to the U. S. Congress. 

*Batistianos in Cuba were wrong.

 And Batistianos in America are wrong. 

    Next month, -- Oct. 26-2016 -- Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez will once again stand in the spotlight at the United Nations in New York. He will, once again, tell the nations of the world that "The United States economic blockade against Cuba, in place since 1962, is the longest and cruelest in history ever conducted by a powerful nation against a small, weak nation. I ask the nations of the world gathered in this august forum today to agree that this blockade constitutes genocide against the innocent people of Cuba." The United States, even President Obama's administration, like a cowering puppy-dog will also stand before the UN and defend the blockade, which the U. S. calls an embargo. Then the nations of the world will vote.

        Next month at the UN, once again the nations of the world will be asked to vote on whether they agree with Cuba or the U. S. regarding the U. S. blockade/embargo of Cuba. The predictable result will again favor Cuba in an incredibly overwhelming landslide: "Yes 191, No 2, with no abstentions." The U. S., the richest and strongest nation in the history of the world, lavishes economic and military favors on friendly or unfriendly but strategic nations but, incredibly, when it comes to purchasing or bullying support for its Cuban policy, only Israel -- by far the biggest recipient of U. S. economic and military aid -- votes to support America's Cuban policy. That 191-to-2 vote each October flashes around the world, elevating Cuba's prestige worldwide and deflating America's image. Yet, the U. S. media tries to ignore it and the American citizens are supposed to be too stupid or too unpatriotic to give a damn about the near-unanimity of world opinion on a topic that creeps back into the news day-after-day, decade-after-decade.

       So, that's where we are in America on September 12th, 2016 -- as Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Friday in Havana held this blistering news conference depicted by this REUTERS photo.

     And then next month -- once again -- Bruno Rodriguez will stand before this podium at the United Nations and deliver his usual impassioned speech explaining in detail why he thinks the U.S. blockade/embargo constitutes "genocide" against the Cuban people. And -- once again -- he expects the nations of the world to support that damning accusation by a vote of...191-to-2 with no abstentions. As a democracy-loving American, that vote each October embarrasses me. Meanwhile, as I ponder the appalling lack of democracy-loving Americans, that UN vote each October reaffirms my belief that Cuba says a lot more about the United States than it says about Cuba. And what it says is not pretty, not at all.

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Cuba: Uh, Yes, CUBA

Now & Always, CUBA!!

      My passions for the United States and democracy combined to make me passionate about a Caribbean island -- Cuba. That's because I sincerely believe that Cuba says far more about the United States than it says about Cuba. That's important, because Cuba is a poor island and the United States is the world's economic and military superpower. Cuba's significance on the world stage is far out of proportion to its size, population or wealth; that's because U. S. relations with Cuba...since the 1898 Spanish-American War and especially since the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the vile U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship, have done more than any other topic or thing to continuously demean the U. S. and democracy in the eyes of the world. The amazing thing to me revolves around the fact that two generations of Americans since the 1950s have had neither the guts nor the patriotism to rectify the democracy-debilitating aspects of U.S.-Cuban relations, which decent U. S. taxpayers have paid dearly for but which a mere handful of right-wing Americans, Cubans, and Mafiosi have effectively and self-servingly dictated all these decades.

        The endless decades of incessant arm wrestling-like tugs-of-war between poor little Cuba and the rich and ultra-powerful United States have famously included military clashes, a record-shattering number of assassination attempts against one still-living man, terrorist acts including the bombing of a child-laden Cuban civilian airplane, and a litany of United States laws designed officially in Congress to annihilate Cuba and to greatly enrich, entice and empower Cuban-Americans. Through it all, the mere survival of Revolutionary Cuba and its now 90-year-old architect Fidel Castro has resulted in a pugnaciousness that is admired worldwide, as reflected each October by a 191-to-2 pro-Cuba/anti-U.S. vote in the United Nations.

         A tiny country with one star on its red-white-&-blue flag holding off the world superpower that has 50 stars on its red-white-&-blue flag has fascinated the world and, ironically, created in its over-sized wake the dramatic waves of democratic elections beginning in the 1970s that honestly elected Fidel Castro-disciples as Presidents throughout Latin America, forever ending the preponderance of U.S.-backed right-wing dictators such as Batista in Cuba, Pinochet in Chile, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Videla in Argentina, Somoza in Nicaragua, etc. Ironic? Yes. True? Yes. And denying such basic facts is not being pro-American.

        Democracy-loving people trying to restore sane diplomatic relations with Cuba have easily been thwarted since 1898, and especially since 1959, by a handful of roguish people motivated mostly by greed but also by revenge. When a decent Cuban-American journalist in Miami, Emilio Milian, objected to such things as the terrorist bombing of a civilian airplane, he was car-bombed; when the top journalist at the Miami Herald, Jim DeFede, wrote a famous column excoriating Miami's representatives in the U. S. Congress for helping to make Miami a haven for well-known anti-Castro terrorists, he was fired. Since then, the mainstream U. S. media has contributed greatly to the American cowardice and ignorance that has complied with the extremist dictates of U.S.-Cuban Relations at the expense of America's image and of Democracy's veracity as the all-time greatest form of government. Greed and revenge are the winners.

        Only in the fast-fading final two years of Barack Obama's two-term, 8-year presidency has any of the last ten U. S. presidents had the courage and intelligence to try to create A New Era in U.S.-Cuba relations.

    Obama's impending legacy gets an "A" because of Cuba.

     Because of Obama, this white-haired Cuban gives a thumbs-up to the photographer while standing proudly on her balcony displaying side-by-side American and Cuban flags. For an entire lifetime, this Cuban has been hurt and deprived by a U. S. Cuban policy the American people have been told is necessary to hurt or overthrow the now 90-year-old Fidel Castro, presumably so the Batistiano-Mafiosi types can finally reclaim the island after hiding all these many decades behind the skirts of the American government.

        And yet, President Obama has bravely and astutely defied the right-wing congressional dictators and, for the first time in over half a century, executively executed some long-overdue New Cuban Policies.

     Just in the last few days, courtesy of Mr. Obama, U. S. commercial airplanes have been allowed to fly to Cuba for the first time in over half-a-century. It allows more Americans to personally judge Cuba even as anti-Castro stalwarts in Miami and in Congress huddle frantically to decide how they can end such sanity. 

    But still, even as we focus on the positives, the great Editorial Cartoonist Steve Sack reminds us that the newly opened Cuban embassy in Washington and the newly opened U. S. embassy in Havana are still at loggerheads before agreeing to finalize normal relations. As Steve Sack says, Cuba insists that the embargo end and that Guantanamo Bay, which the imperialist-minded United States stole in 1903, be returned. The U. S. counters by accusing Cuba of "human rights" violations and not addressing "property claims" such as the hotel that the Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky hastily left behind in the dark, wee hours of January 1, 1959.

       The Bush-era prison at Guantanamo Bay still drastically harms America's image and America's security because it is used as a major recruiting tool by America's greatest enemies around the world. Additionally, the prison year-after-year costs U. S. taxpayers countless millions of dollars that would be saved if the prisoners were held in readily available maximum security prisons on U. S. soil. And additionally, President Obama was twice elected President of the United States on the promise that he would close the prison at Guantanamo, and he has tried to do that to the best of his ability. But in the closing months of his presidency, about 60 prisoners remain in the still-open prison and recruiting tool on Cuban soil that Cuba rightfully wants returned. Because of an incompetent, intimidated or politically correct U. S. media, the right-wing minority that mandates such Cuban policies are never asked, "Do you care how much such Cuban policies harm America's image around the world and how much they harm the security of America?" 

   America's best friends around the world are ashamed of this image. 

Perhaps it's time Americans are too.

      President Obama has bravely tried to chart a new course in U.S.-Cuban relations as indicated by this WH.gov/Cuba-policy graphic. With more help from brave democracy-loving Americans, he could do much more -- such as finally ending the embargo of Cuba and returning Guantanamo Bay to its rightful owner.

       In the late 19th century, brave Cubans like Jose Marti and the Maceo brothers gave their lives fighting Spanish soldiers in two losing Wars for Independence. After the 1898 Spanish-American War, the U. S. replaced Spain as Cuba's imperialist ruler. In 1959 the Cuban Revolution shocked the world by overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Every day since then, it has shocked the world by holding off the U.S.-backed Batistiano-fueled efforts to reclaim the island. But somehow it has remained a sovereign country. And that's why maps like the one above look skewed to many democracy-loving people. If you look closely at this map on the southeastern tip of the island, you will see "Guantanamo Bay (USA)" and it is a designation that Cuba, and the world, opposes in these closing days of 2016 when the U. S. sanctimoniously criticizes Russia and China for claiming Crimea or disputed islands in the South China Sea, etc. In 1898 in Paris, no Cuban was on hand to voice an opinion about the treaty that ended the Spanish-American War, which ended Spain's rule of Cuba but put it in perpetuity in the hands of...the U. S.

       Unlike in Paris in 1898 when no Cuban could speak as the Spanish-American War was finalized, in 2016 Cuba should be permitted to speak about its own territory -- namely, the American occupation of Guantanamo Bay. And Josefina Vidal -- Cuba's brilliant diplomat on all matters related to the U. S. -- is the person today who, when afforded the chance, speaks -- in either Spanish or English -- the most eloquently and righteously about such things. No, Vidal...unlike a handful of Cuban-Americans in Congress...is not backed by a multi-trillion-dollar economy or by the world's strongest military. But she does have right on her side when it comes to things such as Guantanamo Bay, and that...should account for...something.  

Which reminds me of:

  Penelope Purdy!!

        In a famous editorial for the Denver Post, Penelope Purdy included what I believe remains to this day the most eloquent and righteous sentence ever written about America's Cuban policy. A brilliant Latin American expert, she spent a long time detailing how the United States installed or supported vile dictators like Batista, Pinochet, Mobutu, Trujillo, the Shah, Videla, Somoza, etc., etc. And then Ms. Purdy wrote: "For all these decades, America's Cuban policy has been conducted with the IQ of a salamander."  

       Every time I think of  Penelope Purdy's analogy that infuses a Salamander with America's Cuban policy, I agree with her insightful and informed premise. At the same time, I believe it also insults the intelligence of little guys like this one. I often ride my 4-wheeler into streams or mud-puddles and see a lot of little Salamanders. For centuries they have survived human encroachments and weather-related famines as well as a plethora of skilled predators such as snakes, hawks, raccoons, etc. So their IQs have to be rather formidable. The same could even be said, I reckon, of the self-serving rogues who dictate America's Cuban policy. However, I cannot say the same for the intelligence of the American people who have allowed America's Cuban policy to shame America and Democracy since the Spanish-American War in 1898, and especially since U. S. support of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in 1952 and particularly the Batistiano-Mafiosi support since 1959. Surely, as Penelope Purdy so eloquently suggested, this little Salamander would never agree with such an American Cuban policy. He's not a rogue and he obviously has a high IQ.

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