U.S.-Cuban Commonality

Hurricanes and Politics!!

       This REUTERS photo shows that President Obama, in the closing three months of his two-term presidency, is still trying to battle Miami hardliners and a belligerent Congress in his brave and sterling efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, the nearby island that has much in common with the United States -- including Hurricane Matthew that this week slammed ferociously into eastern Cuba and the eastern United States after devastating Haiti and much of the Caribbean. That's Jill Biden, the wife of U. S. Vice President Joe Biden, waving to well-wishers Thursday after arriving in Havana aboard Air Force Two. In the red dress on the right is Josefina Vidal, Cuba's Minister in charge of relations with the United States. Mrs. Biden was accompanied by U. S. officials specializing in educational, cultural and women's issues.

      On this week's visit to Cuba Jill Biden told Josefina Vidal, "Your country and mine are so close and our people have so much in common, even Hurricane Matthew. And there are so many people -- like me in the United States and you in Cuba -- who want so much for that closeness to not just be in physical distance but also in social, diplomatic, political and humanitarian endeavors." Vidal replied, "Your words are kind and appropriate. I am fully aware of the many Cubans and the many Americans who share your sentiments. I do."

       Generally speaking, it's neither healthy nor politically correct for the U. S. media to mention anything positive about Cuba but those restrictions don't apply to foreign journalists -- such as Sarah Marsh at the London-based REUTERS agency. Sarah's coverage of Hurricane Matthew's massive assault on eastern Cuba stressed the typically superb job the Cuban government did to protect its people and help them recover. She wrote: "Many people throughout Cuba's southeast praised the government's evacuation plans and shelters, where many remain. Authorities in convoys passed through to assess the damage. Hurricane Matthew reduced much of the Cuban town of Baracoa to rubble, whipping up giant waves that demolished cement buildings and winds that tore off roofs, but there is one thing it didn't do: take lives. Largely due to a rigorous evaluating scheme, Cuba managed to avoid the fate of neighboring Haiti, where nearly 900 deaths have been reported so far in the wake of the strongest hurricane to hit the Caribbean in nearly a decade." Ms. Marsh pointed out that the roads leading to the devastated and very historic city of Baracoa, including the La Farola highway, are "impassable" because of flooding or mudslides and a key bridge over the Toa River collapsed. The Cuban government has utilized soldiers, horses, tractors, and helicopters "to help victims" in areas where food crops, including tons of bananas, have been destroyed or severely damaged.

Sarah Marsh on Twitter wrote, "This is all that is left of this lady's home in Baracoa." 

      Sarah Marsh's Cuban coverage is fair and balanced. She is among the best for sensing the pulse of the Cuban people, especially those in the rural or remote areas. Her REUTERS articles and her Twitter page are informative and replete with photos that chronicle the joys, struggles, and rhythms of everyday Cubans.

      This Ramon Espinosa/AP photo shows a woman tearfully coming to grips with the total loss of her home in Baracoa, Cuba -- an island of wonderful people now dealing with the effects of Hurricane Matthew.

      Sarah Stephens at the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas writes the informative Cuba Central update on the CDA website each Friday. Cuba, while trying to deal with its own problems related to Hurricane Matthew, as always is the first to help Haiti. Sarah Stephens on Friday wrote: "In Haiti, Cuba is already present and pitching in. Members of the Cuban Medical Brigade, some 648 Cuban doctors and other professionals, remain on site. They...offer medical care and disease-prevention efforts in the aftermath of the storm." It is widely known, as referenced by Sarah Stephens, that Cuba has provided such help to Haiti since that poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere was hit by the murderous earthquake in 2010.

      If you Google "Cuban Doctors in Haiti" the first of many articles that comes up is entitled: "Cuba Medics in Haiti Put the World to Shame." You will discover the article is by the British media, the type article the United States media would not consider. The doctor above is Cuban and his patient is Haitian. The service is free-of-charge and ubiquitous, especially in the very poorest and most dangerous areas of Haiti. 

      This Cuban doctor is providing vital vaccination care for a Haitian child as the very appreciative mother watches. The photo is courtesy of canadahaitiaction.com and that non-U.S. source is free to report on the direly needed medical expertise that Cuba provides to Haitians -- with loving care and free of charge. 

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An Historic Anniversary

Unknown to Americans!!

It Doesn't Compute with Cuban Narrative!! 

       Exactly 40 years ago this week -- back on October 6, 1976 -- a DC-8 civilian airplane was blown out of the sky by a terrorist bomb, murdering all 73 innocent souls on board. This week marked the 40th anniversary of that historic event -- the first and only mid-air terrorist bombing of a civilian airliner in the Western Hemisphere. It was a Cuban airplane known forever to history as Cubana Flight 455. The 40th anniversary this week was marked in Cuba, the Caribbean, Latin America and elsewhere. Yet, as historic as Cubana Flight 455 is and as intertwined as it has always been with the United States featured as the major player, Americans to this day are not supposed to really know about it or, if they do, they and the U. S. media are supposed to keep their mouths shut about it. With rare exceptions, that mantra is meticulously adhered to...or else Americans might have trouble meekly capitulating to the Cuban narrative in the United States that, since 1959, has been primarily dictated by only the most visceral remnants of the long-ago overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Cubana Flight 455, you see, is and will remain a prime reason for the haunting veracity of this absolute truth: CUBA SAYS A LOT MORE ABOUT THE UNITED STATES THAN IT SAYS ABOUT CUBA.

      Of all the people on this planet, Peter Kornbluh knows more than anyone about Cubana Flight 455 and other U.S.-Cuban relations that the U. S. government, the mainstream U. S. media, and the most vehement Cuban exiles want to keep hidden for posterity from the American people. Luckily, Mr. Kornbluh is an extremely brave and brilliant investigative journalist with an impeccable reputation for honesty and clarity. He is also, as noted above, the Director of the U. S. National Security Archive in Washington where he heads the Cuba Documentation Project. From that prism and platform, Mr. Kornbluh has declassified a plethora of official U. S. documents that for years had covered up high-level culpability in such historic events as...Cubana Flight 455. That includes the documents and their supporting data that he regularly posts on the U. S. National Security Archive website, a truly informative source.

       This week, to mark the 40th anniversary of the terrorist bombing of Cubana Flight 455 on Oct. 6-1976, Peter Kornbluh posted an additional plethora of material on his National Security Archive. If you dial it up you will see the four glaring headlines that preamble his new documentations:

         ***"Bombing of Cuban Jetliner 40 years later."

         ***"Colgate Toothpaste Disguised Plastic Explosives in 1976 Terrorist Attack."

         ***"Confessions, Kissinger Reports, and Overview of Luis Posada Career Posted."

         ***"National Security Archive Calls on Obama Administration to Release Still-Secret Documents." 

       After those headlines, Mr. Kornbluh's first paragraph is:

                "On the 40th anniversary of the first and only mid-air bombing of a civilian airliner in the Western Hemisphere, the National Security Archive today called on the Obama administration to declassify all remaining intelligence records on Luis Posada Carriles to shed light on his activities, provide historical evidence for his victims, and make a gesture of declassified diplomacy towards Cuba. Toward that goal, the Archives today re-posted documents implicating Posada Carriles in that terrorist crime and identifying still-secret records to be declassified. Posada currently lives free in Miami. Declassified C.I.A. and F. B. I. files link Posada to the Cubana bombing."    

           As you can note, Peter Kornbluh -- as a democracy-loving American -- staunchly believes that the American government should not routinely use declassified documents to protect government-connected criminals even if it relates to high-level individuals and, yes, even if it relates to Cuban relations.

      This photo is courtesy of Adalberto Roque/Agence France Presse/Getty Images. It shows one of the many anniversary demonstrations honoring the memories of the 73 people killed aboard Cubana Flight 455 on Oct. 6, 1976.

     Ceremonies commemorating the 73 victims of Cubana Flight 455 routinely tie the tragedy to "Posada Carriles" and the "C. I. A." Material uncovered by Mr. Kornbluh and posted on the U. S. National Security Archive support those conclusions, which are no longer seriously denied. But backed by powerful Miami politicians and Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress, Posada remains a free citizen of Miami. As documented by Mr. Kornbluh, Posada -- the most famed and unabashed anti-Castro militant following the triumph of the revolution in 1959 -- for many years was on the U. S. government payroll, starting when he and many other anti-revolutionary zealots were quickly sent to Fort Benning in Georgia to prepare for recapturing the nearby island.

       The pain resulting from terrorist acts is unending for the families of victims. The sister and mother depicted above had been waiting at the airport in Havana for the return of Cubana Flight 455, which included 24 Cuban teenage athletes that were coming home with the Gold Medals they had won in the Central American Championships in Caracas, Venezuela. When this black-and-white photo was taken on Oct. 6-1976, this sister and mother had just been told that Cubana Flight 455 had crashed in the ocean with no survivors.

      This modern color photo was taken by Roberto Leon for NBC News. The mourning, mustachioed Cuban holding up the black-and-white photo of his family is Carlos Cremata. Carlos in the Cowboy outfit is shown standing between his mom and dad, a dad that was in the cockpit of Cubana Flight 455.

     This is one of the many declassified documents re-posted by Peter Kornbluh on the National Archives website, and he this week asked President Obama to declassify many other documents that he has pinpointed as still being hidden.  

        Posada Carriles was one of the most notable anti-Castro zealots quickly put on the U. S. government's payroll after the Cuban Revolution overthrew the Batista-Mafia dictatorship on January 1, 1959. The Brigade 2506 mentioned in the caption above was the unit that attacked Cuba in April of 1961, an infamous event that ended up solidifying revolutionary control of the island from that day till this day in 2016.

Posada was born 88-years-ago in Cienfuegos, Cuba.

Posada at an anti-Obama demonstration in Miami.

In some other cities there are anti-Posada demonstrations.

         In 1976 Emilio Milian was the most popular Cuban-American newsman in Miami. After he complained on the air about such terrorism "against decent, totally innocent Cubans" as highlighted by Cubana Flight 455, he was famously car-bombed. 

      Since 1989 when Jeb Bush was Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's Campaign Manager, a steady stream of Bush-connected Cuban-American anti-Castro zealots {but no moderates} have been elected from Miami to the U. S. Congress. It appears they believe they alone should dictate Cuban policy and also control the Cuban narrative in the U. S. although polls in Miami show that more Cuban-Americans favor President Obama's peaceful overtures to Cuba than the endless animosity preferred by these three members of Congress. On the left above is Mario Diaz-Balart who followed his Havana-born brother Lincoln to Congress from Miami. Rafael Diaz-Balart, their father, was a key minister in the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship. As at the news conference depicted above, the mainstream U. S. media can be used 24-hours-a-day to denounce anything related to Revolutionary Cuba but it would be rare indeed for the U. S. media to criticize anything related to the extremely vile Batista-Mafia dictatorship or to the vile actions of a few extremist Cuban-Americans.

        This iconic photo shows a Cubana DC-8 at the airport in Madrid, Spain in May of 1976. Yes, this is the exact airplane that soon became the ill-fated Cubana Flight 455 on October 6, 1976 -- eternally making it memorable. It is a significant part of U.S.-Cuban history. On this week's 40th anniversary of the terrorist bomb that blew it out of the sky into the ocean, Peter Kornbluh at the U. S. National Security Archives believes Americans have the right to know that history. Moreover, he believes Americans have the right to know the topicality that is associated with that history.

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Matthew Hit Cuba Hard

Destruction Enormous!!

     Cuba's easternmost city, Baracoa, has mostly been destroyed by Hurricane Matthew. This AP photo shows an elderly Cuban woman and a young boy walking through rubble in Baracoa.

      Photos courtesy of Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press reveal that some areas of the five most eastern Cuban provinces were devastated by Hurricane Matthew. The woman above is crying as she sits in the rubble of her home in Baracoa, the "picture-postcard tourist town" in Guantanamo Province. Baracoa has 85,000 residents and is one of Cuba's oldest settlements; it was visited in 1492 by Christopher Columbus.

Hurricane Matthew as it reached Baracoa, Cuba.

Rubble in Baracoa left behind by Hurricane Matthew.

       As you can see on this map, Baracoa is located on the eastern tip of Cuba northeast of Guantanamo. The historic Columbus visit to Baracoa occurred on October 27, 1492. According to his log, it was where the famed explorer noted that Cuba was "the most beautiful land these eyes have seen." Baracoa became the first capital of Cuba before losing that honor to the much larger cities of Santiago de Cuba and Havana. Still a strong tourist attraction on Cuba's picturesque southeastern coast, Baracoa will need much time and lots of help as its 85,000 residents cope with and try to recover from Matthew's very chilling effects. 

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Targeting Cuba and Haiti

Congress and Hurricanes Take Turns!!

A CNN Image of Hurricane Matthew.

An enormous calamity for eastern Cuba and western Haiti.

       This Dieu Nalio Chery/AP photo shows a Haitian woman trying to take her child to safety as Hurricane Matthew began to assault Port-au-Prince last night and early this morning. A few minutes later a major bridge on the edge of the city was washed away. Hurricane Matthew is the most powerful Atlantic and Caribbean tropical storm in over a decade. Parts of Haiti got 40 inches of rain amid 145 MPH winds. Then the eye of the hurricane reached eastern Cuba with similar ferocity as Cubans hunkered down.

       This Wikitravel map shows the five targeted Cuban provinces in eastern Cuba {shaded in Blue} that felt the brunt of Hurricane Matthew -- Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Holguin, Granma and Las Tunas.

       Hurricane Matthew in the last few hours has left death and destruction in its wake from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba. Historically Cuba and Haiti are the two most vulnerable islands in the Caribbean, from both natural and man-made hurricanes. Haiti, the region's poorest nation, is still trying to recover from the earthquake and cholera outbreak that devastated its western portion of Hispaniola island that it shares with the Dominican Republic. Richer nations who have failed to help the Haitians should be ashamed of themselves. When calamities like Hurricane Matthew hit, poverty-stricken Haitians have cut so many trees to use as fuel that floods and mudslides wipe out helpless towns and neighborhoods. The gross discrimination against Haitians by politicians in Miami and the U. S. Congress assail decent Haitians daily and unmercifully. An overlooked AP headline in my newspaper this week blared this headline: "U. S. WIDENS EFFORTS TO DEPORT HAITIANS." The first AP sentence said: "The U. S. Department of Homeland Security says it is widening efforts to deport Haitians, a response to thousands of immigrants from the Caribbean nation who overwhelmed California border crossings with Mexico in recent months." That gutless sentence contrasts sharply with the fact that Cubans, with far less reasons to emigrate to the United States, are lured by the U. S. government to reach that Mexican border and then the moment their front toe touches U. S. soil they are home-free with extremely discriminatory incentives that instantaneously include -- for Cubans and Cubans only -- financial, residence and citizenship rewards. Americans are supposed to be too stupid, too unpatriotic, and too intimidated to cringe at such extreme discriminatory practices by a government that routinely criticizes other governments for far less discriminatory practices. Of course, the difference between Haitian and Cuban immigrants is this: Unlike Cuba, Haiti never had a U.S.-and-Mafia-backed dictatorship that was overthrown by a popular revolution and simply fled to U. S. soil.

      Standing at the U. S border and quickly waving Cubans into the United States with no questions asked, while just as quickly blocking entry for more deserving, poverty-stricken Haitians and routinely deporting them strikes democracy-lovers as being unfair. It shames the U. S. far more than it demeans Haitians.

      Even the politicians in Miami and Washington that dictate America's Cuban-Haitian laws admit that the U. S. doesn't really need a continuous influx of Cubans lured from the island to hurt Cuba. But the laws greasing that migration WHILE IGNORING THE PLIGHT OF HAITIANS {and even U. S. security} will eternally be lushly funded with tax dollars as a means to hurt Cuba -- you know, AT LEAST UNTIL REVENGEFUL MIAMIANS CAN RE-CAPTURE CUBA AND RE-STORE IT TO ITS BATISTIANO GLORY DAYS OF THE 1950S.  

MEANWHILE: 

   A Houston Chronicle photo shows Haitians confronting Hurricane Matthew.

    This uk.news photo shows Cubans confronting Hurricane Matthew.

      Storms, natural and man-made, have always threatened Cuba as this iconic image attests. This photo was taken in 1963 as Hurricane Flora approached Cuba. Fidel Castro is shown getting a meteorological update. He had spent the previous 18 hours on Cuban television and radio warning the Cuban people about the storm. When he was told above where the brunt of the storm would likely strike, Fidel, as he was prone to do, whisked away from Havana to that location, to wait out the storm with everyday Cubans. In 1963 Hurricane Flora killed 1,200 Cubans. In the decades since, top U. S. and international meteorologists have lavishly praised Cuba for its emphasis on hurricane preparations.

        This photo is courtesy of www.bradenton.com. It shows a Haitian girl yesterday in the town of Tabarre hoping to survive her latest storm, Hurricane Matthew. Haitians like her deserve help and comfort.

        Cubans and Haitians fortunate enough to survive Hurricane Matthew will then have to get back to worrying about Hurricane Miami and Hurricane Washington. Somehow, the longer that Cold War outrage persists, the more unfair it seems...and the more it demeans both the United States and democracy.

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Hurricanes Matthew and Marco

Both Threaten Cuba!!

       This BBC graphic shows that the eastern tip of Cuba is right in the bulls-eye of the powerful Hurricane Matthew today -- Tuesday, October 4th, 2016. It also targets the plush, ultra-modern U. S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But American military planes have flown 700 family members of navy personnel to safety on U. S. soil and the remaining 5,500 Americans working and vacationing there are considered safe in modern buildings and, if needed, shelters. However, the Cubans on the eastern edge of the island are not so lucky although Cuba is renowned for its preparation ahead of such devastating hurricanes.

            Meanwhile, this AP/John Raoux photo is being used this week to herald the re-election of Marco Rubio to a second 6-year-old term in the U. S. Senate from Miami. That unfortunate event will officially occur next month. While Hurricane Matthew threatens only the eastern tip of Cuba today, Rubio threatens the entire island for as long as he can use a skewered, money-crazed, flawed democracy to conduct mostly unchallenged aspersions and cruelties on a vulnerable, much smaller nation. Rubio's reelection reflects anew that only revengeful, self-serving anti-Castro zealots can get elected to Congress from Florida, especially Miami. That's kinda strange considering that polls show that most Cuban-Americans even in Miami's Little Havana favor President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, not Rubio's archaic belligerence. But when it comes to Cuba it would be hard to point out a single instance in which a democratic principle has been applied to either Miami's or Washington's Cuban policy. Thus, Rubio's re-election will mark a sad continuation of an ageless topic, Cuba, that reminds democracy-lovers in the U. S. and around the world that the once-vaunted U. S. democracy is still not capable of correcting a policy that has done more harm to America's international image than any other single event or subject. That reminder will come yet again later this month in the United Nations with a resounding 191-to-2 vote. Unworthy benefactors like the re-elected Senator Rubio will bask in the Batista-like and Mafiosi-like pain inflicted year-after-year and decade-after-decade on both the U. S. democracy and millions of totally innocent Cubans...ALWAYS, of course, IN THE GUISE OF HURTING THE NOW 90-YEAR-OLD FIDEL CASTRO.

TRUTH BE KNOWN, Fidel Castro's long life has been greatly boosted by such things as the impending re-election of Marco Rubio to the United States Senate from Miami. MOREOVER, Fidel Castro's long legacy will be greatly boosted by the continuation of such things. Some self-ordained Cuban experts will deny that but that will be only in their lucrative roles as self-serving bullies, not as honest or unbiased analysts. 

Summary: 

This Reuters photo shows a street in 2008 after hurricane Ike hit Cuba.

Innocent people on this vulnerable island........

do not deserve to be attacked by Hurricane Matthew today

or by U. S. Senator Marco Rubio forever.

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Hurricane-prone Cuba

Perpetually Tested!!

        Throughout its history, the island of Cuba has always had to be cognizant of being targeted by devastating hurricanes -- both natural and man-made. Such is the case today -- Monday, October 3rd, 2016. Nearby Miami and the United States Congress are endlessly trying to desperately turn back President Obama's historic and peaceful overtures, always spending an inordinate amount of time and tax-dollars in attempts to bring about the demise or recapture of Cuba. But the more pressing vulnerability today is Hurricane Matthew that is targeting the eastern third of the island with what one forecast predicts will be "catastrophic effects." Over 700 U. S. family members have been removed from Congress's most-beloved spot on the island  -- the plush U. S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. Meanwhile a couple million Cubans, accustomed to such dangers, are braced for a dire threat that is expected to come early Tuesday.

     A world-class photographer, Gina Nero, spent a month traveling around Cuba chronicling images that depict and define everyday life on the island. Ms. Nero is a 26-year-old native of Australia now based in LA and NY. The initial batch of her ongoing project has been released by DailyMail.com with more photos to follow. The young Cuban baseball player above posed for Gina Nero before heading off to his game.

      This Gina Nero photo shows three Cuban ladies discussing their lives on the island, and maybe some gossip. Ms. Nero's fascination with Cuba will manifest itself with future photos, she promises. She said, "The daily lives of Cubans show me the heart and soul of a country so technologically isolated. I am not trying to tell the story of the U. S. embargo. I'm merely documenting a country rich in culture and wonderful people." 

Gina Nero captured the heart-and-soul of this Cuban home.

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