But It's A RARITY In My USA!!!
{UPDATED: Friday, Sept. 6th, 2019}
{UPDATED: Friday, Sept. 6th, 2019}
A brilliant director, Olivier Assayas, and two superstar Latin American actors, Penelope Cruz and Edgar Ramirez, have combined to create an important movie -- "Wasp Network" -- that had a sensational debut this week at the Venice Film Festival. The award-winning director, Olivier Assayas, spent six months in Cuba crafting this masterpiece that reveals much more actual truth than the American people have ever been told about a crucial and everlasting episode that is deeply ingrained in the saga of U.S.-Cuban relations.
The "Wasp Network" is a stunning and important movie because it dared to actually tell the basic truths about the The Cuban Five, the Cubans who went to Miami in the 1990's to infiltrate terrorist Counter Revolutionary groups and report back to the island on such activities. This was after famed and unchecked Cuban terrorists connected to the CIA...most notably the infamous Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch...were known, by both Cuba and the United States, to have committed a plethora of vile terrorist acts against Cubans -- including vicious and deadly coastal assaults on fishing cabins, the bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455 that killed everyone on board, the car-bombing in Miami that silenced the brave Cuban-American newsman {Emilio Milian} who complained about such atrocities, etc., etc. etc. As you can see via the flyer above, this movie's SUPERSTAR ACTORS included Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez, and Gael Garcia Bernal.
Another actress with a major role in the "Wasp Network" is Ana de Amas, who has been a Superstar in Hollywood since she starred in 2017's "Blade Runner." Ana in 2020 will be in the next James Bond movie. She was born in Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba, and then studied at the National Theater School of Cuba.
The Cuban Five are now back in Cuba and hailed as national heroes. But their saga defines the massive change that the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 brought to the United States with the astounding defeat of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship that had roiled and fleeced the island at will from 1952 till 1959. The problem for Revolutionary Cuba...and for the United States, I believe...was that the Batistianos quickly resurfaced in nearby Miami with a new capital they still call Little Havana. A record number of assassinations as well as unrelenting terrorist acts coupled with such things as the April-1961 Bay of Pigs military attack and the 1962-till-today Economic Embargo failed to overthrow Cuba's revolutionary government although the rich and powerful Counter Revolutionaries in Little Havana had the unmitigated support of the Superpower U. S. government, including the unmatched U. S. Treasury. The Cuban Five, always in their homeland considered Cuban patriots of the highest order, were all captured and sentenced in Miami to prison terms that included life without parole. They were incarcerated in five separate federal prisons across the United States.
During the 14 years the Cuban Five remained imprisoned in the United States, the mainstream U. S. media...then as now...was simply too afraid of Little Havana to tell both sides of the two-sided story. But prolific and respected journalists-authors such as Wayne S. Smith, a former U. S. diplomat stationed in Havana, and Peter Kornbluh, the Cuban expert at the U. S. National Archives in Washington, had...and have...both the courage and the insight to tell the truth. And, as you can see in the above graphic, even the mainstream media giant, the Washington Post, summoned the courage to report that the Cuban Five were "Wrongly accused. Unjustly convicted." And the Washington Post stated that "Men who prevented terrorism do not belong in Prison." But for years the Cuban Five remained in U. S. federal prisons while self-admitted and renowned violent Little Havana terrorists such as Posada and Bosch, befriended by such self-serving sycophants as the Bush dynasty, would live out their lives as free men and celebrated heroes in Little Havana -- Miami, USA.
But at long-last, from January 20-2009 till January 20-2017 the United States had a Democratic President, Barack Obama, who had the guts to challenge Little Havana's firm grip on both the Republican Party and the U. S. Congress, and in a two-party system that constitutes much of the entire U. S. democracy. President Obama became the first U. S. president to visit Cuba since President Hoover in 1928 went to the island on a warship. But President Obama flew to Havana on Air Force One and, as shown above, famously told the Cuban people on state-wide radio and television: "Cuba does not need TO FEAR a threat from the United States." Of course, President Obama at the time did not anticipate that he would be succeeded by another Republican president in 2017, this time Donald Trump. But as President, the sane and decent Obama did heroic things like reopening the U. S. embassy in Havana for the first time since 1961...and like FREEING the Cuban Five so they could return to their families in Cuba as national heroes.
The new and sensational movie "Wasp Network" truthfully tells the basic story of the Cuban Five -- including who they were and are, why they were framed, why they should have been freed, etc.
Above is one of the many "Free the Cuban Five" posters with their names and faces. They are all now free and celebrated heroes in Cuba, thanks to President Obama. Take note of Rene Gonzalez on the right above. In the new movie "Wasp Network" the Superstar actor Edgar Ramirez plays Rene Gonzalez while the Superstar actress Penelope Cruz plays his wife. It is FOR SURE a gripping story expertly told and the movie starts with Rene Gonzalez supposedly stealing a plane and defecting to Miami. Watch this movie preview:
And here is another scintillating preview of the movie "Wasp Network" -- the story of the Cuban Five:
And this week on September 1-2019 at the Venice Film Festival the brilliant director of "Wasp Network" -- Olivier Assayas and his Superstar actors -- held a news conference about the superb movie. Watch the clip below from that news conference. Actress Penelope Cruz speaks in Spanish but director Olivier Assayas and actor Gael Garcia Bernal speak in English to describe the movie:
The "Wasp Network" is both a brilliant and important new movie because it is actually based on the truth about the Cuban Five, which is a highly significant part of U.S.-Cuban history and topicality. For the most part, since 1959 Little Havana extremists have dictated both the Cuban narrative in the United States as well as America's Cuban policies, and even vital federal courtroom decisions.
As you may have seen in the above previews, the named Jorge Mas Canosa was poignantly referenced in the movie "Wasp Network." By 1981 the Bush dynasty, namely Vice President and future President George H. W. Bush, had essentially anointed Mas Canosa as the Little Havana Cuban dictator on U. S. soil. As explained by the great Julia E. Sweig in her sensational book "CUBA: WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW," Mas Canosa was told to study AIPAC, the ultra-powerful Israeli lobbying arm in the U. S., and replicate it for his Cuban exiles. Mas Canosa did that and created the ultra-powerful CANF, which created a lot of millionaires in Miami and a lot of highly financed and unchecked hardship for Cubans on the island. Mas Canosa himself, of course, became the most powerful Miami Billionaire. Mas Canosa founded Radio-TV Marti, a laughable anti-Castro/pro-Batistiano propaganda operation that from the 1980's till this very day has sucked and is sucking a billion or so dollars from Washington to Miami. He also famously, according to Sweig and other renowned experts, hired extremely expensive lawyers and lobbyists to ram the infamous Helms-Burton Act through the U. S. Congress in 1996 and, to this day, Helms-Burton continues to create millionaires in Miami while also virtually committing genocide against totally innocent men, women, and children on the island. So, yes indeed, it was appropriate that the new movie "Wasp Network" mentioned Jorge Mas Canosa because, with the relentless support of the Bush dynasty, he played massive roles in U.S.-Cuban relations, including the Cuban Five saga.
Since 1959, as noted, Little Havana Counter Revolutionary Cuban extremists have primarily dictated both the Cuban narrative and Cuban-related laws in the United States. One of the most self-avowed Counter Revolutionary zealots has been 79-year-old Jose Basulto. He was born August 18, 1940, in Santiago de Cuba. As a Little Havana and CIA stalwart, Basulto has bragged about being back in Cuba to commit sabotage prior to the April-1961 Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba. When he heard bombs falling from U. S. planes to commence that attack, Basulto is said to have scrambled over the fence at the U. S. Guantanamo military base. {Yes, you may Google-search this or any of the foregoing or following information}. But the rich and flamboyant Basulto is most famous for founding Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based small airplane operation that supposedly rescued Cubans in the Florida Straits trying to reach U. S. soil. Fine & dandy, because such humanitarian work is badly needed. But in reality there was more to the Brothers exploits. In 1996 word reach Miami that President Clinton had decided TO NORMALIZE RELATIONS WITH CUBA!!! All of a sudden Brothers planes began flying over Cuban waters and Cuban territory, even dropping anti-Castro leaflets over Havana and scaring its citizens. Such tactics were bragged about on Miami radio stations, and further...they bragged that Cuba didn't have the courage or the ability to do anything about the overflights. Cuba then begged the U. S. State Department, and even the United Nations, to stop the overflights. To no avail. Cuba then warned it would be forced to protect its sovereignty. Then Basulto piloting the lead plane and followed by two others began flying toward Cuba or at least Cuban territorial waters. Cuba sent out two jets piloted by the Perez-Perez brothers and they shot down two of the Brothers planes, killing four people on board, but Basulto's plane returned safely to Miami. The resulting uproar over the two downed planes in which four people were killed then took over the Cuban narrative in the United States, scaring President Clinton who no longer entertained any thoughts of normalizing relations with Cuba. Lawsuits in Miami courts made more millionaires and Basulto himself was finally awarded $1.7 million in 2005. But most importantly, President Clinton in 1996 was forced to sign the infamous Helms-Burton Act into lucrative, for Miami, and punitive, for Cuba, legal U. S. law that exists to this very day in September of 2019.
With the Helms-Burton Act, after it was signed into law by what appeared to be a scared President Clinton in 1996, Little Havana and the USA "sought to asphyxiate the Cuban economy" once and for all, and that's true. But as with all Little Havana-inspired U. S. laws, I firmly believe the first priority is always to enrich selected Counter Revolutionaries. But do some Goggling and then judge for yourself. And, in the above photo, I believe President Clinton had reason to be scared. At the Helms-Burton signing ceremony, Clinton is glancing wearily up at the bespectacled and fiercely controversial Cuban-American Bob Menendez who remains to this day a fierce Counter Revolutionary U. S. Senator. And, just as ominously, the man second from the left peering down over Clinton's right shoulder is Lincoln Diaz-Balart whose father was a key Minister in Cuba's Batista's dictatorship and, after 1959, one of the richest and most powerful Counter Revolutionaries in South Florida, and in fact the man who founded the first anti-Castro paramilitary unit on U. S. soil, which he called The White Rose after a Jose Marti poem. It is generally assumed that Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Jorge Mas Canosa were the two prime architects of Helms-Burton and...uh...some other major U.S.-Cuban initiatives.
But all that brings us back around to the "Wasp Network," the movie that made a big splash when it was debuted at the famed Venice Film Festival this first week in September-2019. Amazingly, this brand-new movie tells some truths about the sensational Cuban Five episode that, typically and for the most part, has only had a Little Havana telling in the United States.
With international Hollywood Superstars Edgar Ramirez and Penelope Cruz heading an all-star cast, "Wasp Network" is a movie well worth seeing. After all, it revives some historical U.S.-Cuban facts that need scrutiny.
It is time, I believe, that Americans receive their Cuban news and perspectives from great and unchallenged fair-minded experts such as Peter Kornbluh, Tracey Eaton, Wayne S. Smith, and, of course, the incomparable Julia E. Sweig.
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For example, having studied Cuba day and night since the 1980's, and having traveled legally to Cuba, I am convinced that anyone who has not read and studied Julia E. Sweig's book "CUBA: WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW" knows VERY LITTLE about U.S.-Cuba relations since 1952 and ESPECIALLY since 1959.
I further believe it is an insult to the U. S. democracy, and democracy-lovers like me, that even the mainstream U. S. media allows renowned Cuban-American extremists to spew their uncontested venom, and not just via extreme right-wing "media" outlets such as Babalu, Townhall, Breitbart, etc.
Since 1959 Americans have been bombarded with notions that everything Revolutionary Cuba has done in 6+ decades is terrible and everything the USA Batistianos have done is Mother Teresa-like sweetness. And I sincerely believe that says much more about the superpower USA than it says about the island of Cuba.
