Where Inmates Run the Asylum!
{Or At Least 'Should Be' Inmates}
{Updated: Tuesday, September 19th, 2017}
{Updated: Tuesday, September 19th, 2017}
This week -- September 17, 2017 -- U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was on the Sunday morning Talk Shows indicating that the Trump administration is about to close the U. S. embassy in Havana. Actually, that would probably be good news for Cuba except for what everything else it would portend, such as clearing the path for all-out attempts to overwhelm Revolutionary Cuba, a process that has been ongoing since January-1959 when a Revolution chased the Batistianos-Mafiosi to Miami, Florida.
Earlier in the week Secretary Tillerson, long harassed, as above, by Miami's self-serving Marco Rubio, received a no-nonsense letter demanding that Tillerson's State Department come down hard on Cuba. Rubio, portrayed falsely in the U. S. media as Miami's Cuban-American choirboy, despite his unceremonious presidential wipe-out in 2016, still eyes both the White House and the dictation of Cuba it would give him. The aforementioned letter that pressured or threatened Tillerson was signed by Rubio and four other very gutless U. S. Senators he could easily intimidate. Selling out Cubans on the island so a handful of Cubans in Miami can get rich and powerful has become an American pastime...and it's as easy as falling off a log when neither the mainstream United States media nor scared or unpatriotic Americans give a damn.
Born 72 years ago in Gaffney, South Carolina, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson is today considered by many democracy-lovers to be America's best Defense Analyst and America's bravest expert in regards to a U. S. Cuban policy that he believes not only shames America but also threatens America's security by embarrassing America's best friends around the world while delighting America's international enemies. Thus, Colonel Wilkerson firmly believes that putting America's Cuban policy, since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, in the hands of the most revengeful and self-serving Cuban exiles -- starting with Jorge Mas Canosa and Luis Posado Carriles and continuing through generations to the likes of Marco Rubio and the Diaz-Balart brothers -- not only mocks both America and democracy worldwide but also in 2017 now threatens America's security. The Colonel, not self-serving zealots, is correct.
After serving 31 honorable years in the U. S. Army, Colonel Wilkerson was then Secretary of State Colin Powell's very honorable Chief of Staff from 2002 to 2005.
Today Col. Wilkerson is the highly respected Adjunct Professor of Government and Public Policy at the prestigious College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
This week the democracy-loving Lawrence Wilkerson penned a powerful article on the website of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas. Americans proselytized for over half-a-century by self-serving propaganda from revengeful remnants of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba, should study -- if by chance they care about their country or their democracy -- what Lawrence Wilkerson has to say. He wrote these cogent words this week:
"Simply stated, the reputation of America is as powerful a component of its standing in the world -- perhaps more so -- than its vast array of tanks, warplanes, and warships. For the billion people in the Western Hemisphere, and increasingly for the 6 billion others in the rest of the world, the U.S.'s Cuba policy is another nail in the coffin of the American empire. Of late, nations around the world have been hammering in such nails with alarming frequency and vehemence.
"From the now utterly nonsensical embargo on Cuba -- essentially an abuse of the use of sanctions bordering on an act of war -- to the unseemly and unconstitutional restrictions on travel to the island by U. S. citizens, U.S.-Cuba policy would be the laughing stock of the world if it were not so indicative of America's present policies -- and thus a serious matter indeed. What a worsening of this policy would do is add immeasurable weight to a now swiftly-coalescing world opinion that America is no long worthy of global leadership."
Those exact words above were written this week by a great, democracy-loving American, Lawrence Wilkerson, who also happens to be a top expert on U. S. security. The tragedy for America in 2017 is that the U. S. media will downplay those words by Mr. Wilkerson while providing 24-hour coverage to a handful of self-serving Cuban-American Counter Revolutionaries such as Marco Rubio. As a true American patroit, Mr. Wilkerson stressed that allowing a Rubio to dictate America's Cuban policy would be tragic for America and for Democracy. Mr. Wilkerson concluded: "Even the small step backward -- and most certainly more substantial ones -- are detrimental to U. S. national security." Yet, Americans for the most part will be forced to ignore the wisdom of a great American for the self-servicing hubris of a Marco Rubio.
Another decent, longtime Republican, David Beasley, agrees with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, of course. A former Governor of South Carolina, Mr. Beasley is now Executive Director of the UN World Food Progamme. He was in Cuba this past weekend surveying the disastrous impact of Hurricane Irma, and he brought $5.7 million with him. A Marco Rubio, as long as he can fatten his own bank account and build his political power, wants to stick his daggers deeper into Cuba even while Cubans on the island are suffering mightily from natural, not man-made, hurricanes.
The MEDICC this week used the above Reuters photo to solicit donations for hurricane-ravaged Cubans. The MEDICC is a benevolent U. S. medical group that sanely advocates decent U.S.-Cuban cooperation. The photo above shows Cubans in a shelter that also became flooded by Hurricane Irma. Such photos apparently bring great cheer to the insanely cruel band of Counter Revolutionary Cubans in the U. S. -- from the Bush-connected Canosa decades ago to the Bush-connected Rubio today. Meanwhile, decent U. S. groups like the MEDICC and the Center for Democracy in the Americas, and decent individuals like Lawrence Wilkerson and David Beasley, are deeply ashamed of a U. S. Cuban policy directed by very mean, vicious Counter Revolutionary Cubans with no input from the majority millions of extremely decent Cuban-Americans who strongly favor normal relations with the island of Cuba.
Decades ago the U. S. democracy was changed forever when the Bush dynasty ordained the most zealous Counter Revolutionary Cuban, Jorge Mas Canosa, the leader of the Cubans in Exile. Shortly, Canosa and now his son became Miami billionaires and Canosa was personally able to dictate America's Cuban laws in the U. S. Congress with even Democratic U. S. Presidents unable to buck him.
Mr. Jorge Mas Canosa then was the star player as Congressional laws designed to enrich and empower select Cuban exiles while also destroying the Cuban Revolution were laughingly signed into law by Republican Presidents, especially the Bushes. The photo above shows Canosa looking down admiringly at the souvenir pen President Bush had given him. after signing into law another atrocious Cuban bill. The lady receiving her pen from Bush is Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who has represented Miami and the Counter Revolutionaries in the U. S. Congress since 1989 when the self-serving Jeb Bush was her doting Campaign Manager.
Today Jeb Bush, the former two-term Governor of Florida and current presidential wannabe, still promotes Counter Revolutionary zealots like Miami's Marco Rubio although Marco double-crossed Jeb when both sought the 2016 Republican presidential nomination against Trump. But the Bush dynasty has been direly indebted to the Counter Revolutionary Cubans, not to Democracy and not to the majority of decent Cuban-Americans who want normal relations with Cuba.
The ultra-rich and powerful Counter Revolutionary Cubans -- in total control of the Republican Party for decades -- have even been able to persuade very reluctant Democratic Presidents, like Bill Clinton above, to sign their Congressional bills into laws. The lady in the red dress staring over Clinton's right shoulder as he signed Helms-Burton into law is, of course, Miami's Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Bush-ordained member of Congress since 1989. The large Cuban-American on the left above watching Clinton sign Helms-Burton is U. S. Senator Robert Menendez.
As it happens, last week in mid-September of 2017, Senator Robert Menendez was put on trail facing massive federal charges of corruption related to a Miami multi-millionaire and a convicted felon. But Rubio is more dangerous than Menendez.
The iconic photo above shows a scared President Clinton staring up at powerful Counter Revolutionary U. S. Senator Robert Menendez seconds after Helms-Burton became an indelible U. S. law, indelibly shaming America and democracy.
While there are 535 total members of the United States Congress, a mere handful of Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Congress like Menendez, Ros-Lehtinen, Diaz-Balart and Rubio never have any problem getting enough right-wing thugs -- like Jesse Helms and Dan Burton -- to do their Cuban bidding in the U. S. Congress.
Thus, propagandized Americans this week are supposed to cheer this photo, which shows Havana flooded and millions of Cubans all over the island in dire straits.
And thus, Americans are supposed to be too afraid or too unpatriotic to even react to the above image that the rest of the entire world has reacted to. The world views the U. S. Embargo of Cuba, imposed since 1962, to be the longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a strong nation against a weak nation. The current vote in the United Nations in strong opposition to the embargo is 191-to-0, the only topic in the world that could get such unanimity. As the image above represents a unanimous denunciation of the United States, Americans are not supposed to care.
Thus America is saddled with an Iron Curtain now known as The Ironic Curtain whereby a handful of Counter Revolutionary Cubans can easily thwart the desires of most Cuban Americans, most Americans, and almost the entire world.
And thus America's current Republican President Donald Trump is obligated to go to the Counter Revolutionary capital, Little Havana in Miami, to sign anti-Cuban Executive Orders and hurl the appropriate diatribes at the vulnerable island. Meanwhile, Americans are not supposed to question that the super-Counter Revolutionary family in Miami -- the Diaz-Balarts -- are always well represented at such salacious affairs. Gazing directly down over the cowered President Trump's right shoulder is U. S. Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart. His father Rafael was a key Minister in the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba and then the very rich Rafael created in South Florida the very first of the many anti-Castro paramilitary units. For generations, decade after decade and billionaire after billionaire, a few rich Cuban-Americans have profited at the expense of everyone else and America's international reputation.
With the Cuban remnants from the Batista dictatorship in eternal charge of the U. S. effort to regain control of Cuba, Americans to this day -- Sept.-2017 -- are not supposed to have the slightest idea what the above Associated Press photo and caption means. It shows and explains U. S. warplanes in South Florida in January of 1960 -- one year after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution -- being used by the CIA at the behest of the Counter Revolutionary Cubans to viciously and indiscriminately bomb nearby Revolutionary Cuba. Of course, there was no declaration of war in 1960 nor in 1961 with the CIA-directed Cuban-exile Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba. And of course, Americans were obliged to accept the record number of assassination attempts as well as deadly hotel and airplane bombings that the most infamous Cuban-American terrorists loudly bragged about in the Miami media.
When the decent Cuban-American newsman in Miami, Emilio Milian, complained about Counter Revolutionary Cubans committing unchecked and extremely vicious terrorist acts against innocent Cubans, Emilio himself was car-bombed in 1976.
Americans are not supposed to comprehend the photo-montage above. In October of 1971 15-year-old Nancy Pavon was asleep alongside her 13-year-old sister Angela in a coastal fishing cabin in Boca de Sama, Cuba. A huge speedboat with a machine-gun mounted on a tripod attacked the village, killing fishermen Ramon Siam and Lidia Rivaflecha while seriously wounding Nancy and Angela. Nancy's right foot was sliced off "as if by a machete." It was reported in South Florida that the occupants of the speed-boat radioed ahead to the Miami media so it would cover the celebration.
Over the decades since 1971, nerve damage has resulted in much pain and multiple operations on Nancy Pavon's leg. This photo shows the leg as it is today.
In speeches well understood in Cuba, the Caribbean, and Latin America, Nancy Pavon has said, "The Cuban government, as best it can, has cared for me and my handicap for all these years. I am indebted to the Revolution for that. But the American government and the American people not only never apologize but they blame us two teenage sisters that were on that fateful night asleep in our bed, harming no one."
Fast-forwarding to September of 2017, the latest U. S. Republican President, Donald Trump, is being successfully pressured by unchecked Counter Revolutionary Cubans to "come down hard" on Cuba. Of course, "coming down hard" on Cuba every day since January of 1959 hasn't returned control of Cuba to the Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Miami and in the United States Congress. But, for sure, it has accomplished one emphatic thing: It has smeared the reputation of America and Democracy for all the world to see and to contemplate while Americans are supposed to be too scared or too unpatriotic to see or to consider the unmitigated disaster.
In this day and age, I believe it is too much to ask of my fellow Americans that they care about what happened to decent, innocent Cubans such as Nancy Pavon, Emilio Milian, the two dozen teenage athletes aboard the terrorist-bombed Cubana Flight 455, or the Cubans now trying to survive Hurricane Irma as well as the many hurricanes to come. But I do believe it is not too much to ask even of this generation of Americans to show some respect for the U. S. democracy, which has been tarnished so severely by a decades-old Cuban policy that truly shames America.
After a brief respite bravely engineered by former President Obama, the mercurial and malleable President Trump is being pressured to turn America's Cuban policy back over to self-serving Counter Revolutionary miscreants led by Marco Rubio.
Putting the alleged Miami choirboy Marco Rubio in charge of America's Cuban policy would, I believe, equate to 1952 when right-wing thugs in the Eisenhower administration sicced the Mafia on Cuba so rich Americans like them could partake in the wholesale rape, robbery, and brutalizing of everyday Cubans on the island.
But siccing the Mafia on a supposedly helpless foreign nation was one thing. Siccing a similar atrocity on the U. S. in 2017 would be another thing altogether.
