When You Visit Cuba

Normal Sights Will Fascinate
Saturday, August 8th,  2015

        This week -- on August 7th -- The International Business Times featured thirty-one magnificent photos by famed photo-journalist Alexandre Meneghini with captions written by David Sim. The photos chronicle the lives of everyday Cubans this year. The one above depicts two retirees -- 78-year-old Ernesto Arias and 81-year-old Cerola Suarez, sitting under a photo of Fidel Castro as they watched U. S. President Barack Obama announce his intentions to normalize relations with Cuba. This was at a retirement home in Havana.

           This Alexandre Meneghini photo shows two-year-old Alexo Carmono engaged in a staring contest with a white pony named Coco. The pony is one of five that the Perez family in Havana rents out for rides to children like Alexo. The other 29 outstanding Meneghini photographs on the International Business Times website Friday also captured snapshots of everyday people living their lives on the island of Cuba.

         When I was in Cuba I was blown away by the truly unique beauty of Vinales Valley. This week the London-based The Guardian included this Alamy photo of Vinales Valley among a series of Cuban scenes. The contrasting colors from the brown soil to the top of the astounding mountains are truly stunning.

The Guardian also featured this bucolic David Myers/Alamy scene in Vinales Valley.

If you visit Cuba, make sure you drive southwest out of Havana to Vinales Valley.

{My favorite Cuban city was Trinidad on the south-central coast}

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U. S. Ambassador To Cuba

A Suggestion, Mr. President

      DeWayne Wickham has been a top columnist at USA Today, America's largest newspaper, for the last thirty years, since 1985. In his Tuesday column this week he announced he is retiring from that ubiquitous, high-profile job. Now I believe President Barack Obama should appoint DeWayne Wickham as the first American Ambassador to Cuba since 1961.

       In addition to three decades as a highly respected columnist for USA Today, DeWayne Wickham has also been a commentator for CBS News and he currently teaches journalism at Morgan State in Baltimore.

        This Alan Diaz/AP photo was used to illustrate DeWayne Wickham's column in USA Today on April 20th. Marco Rubio, the freshman U. S. Senator from Miami and already a Presidential candidate, had just excoriated President Obama's Cuban overtures. Rubio wailed about Cuba's "bloody shirts," among other diatribes. DeWayne Wickham, not unexpectedly, was the only national journalist in the United States with the basic integrity and the sheer guts to take Rubio to task for falsely labeling Cuba and for self-servingly excoriating a good deed by the two-term President of the United States. Mr. Wickham devoted his April 20th column to challenging Rubio on the topic of Cuba, a challenge no other major U. S. journalist has the guts to do. He waved Rubio's "bloody shirt" back at him and he did so by asking Rubio "WHAT ABOUT LUIS POSADA CARRILES?" During a vitally important Presidential campaign, no other U. S. journalist is courageous enough to ask Rubio that question...or to ask Rubio's mentor, Jeb Bush, "WHAT ABOUT ORLANDO BOSCH?" When a Bush or a Rubio can use the U. S. media to demean a decent two-term President for his sane approach to Cuba while never having to answer questions about Carriles, Bosch, etc. in Miami, it is a reminder of how badly U. S. journalism needed the integrity and guts of Mr. Wickham.

       As this cogent White House photo illustrates, President Barack Obama listens to what DeWayne Wickham has to say. In fact, two years ago when President Obama made the final decision about trying to normalize relations with Cuba, he discussed his plans with a Cuban expert he trusted -- DeWayne Wickham. At the above session it is believed by Washington insiders that Mr. Obama asked Mr. Wickham, "DeWayne, is there anybody in Cuba other than the Castros who has power-making decisions and personal influence that I or my people can seriously talk to about normalizing relations with Cuba?" It is believed by Washington insiders that Mr. Wickham replied: "Yes, sir, Mr. President, there is such a person in Cuba. Her name is Josefina Vidal. Her title is lofty. She is Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs. But her decision-making and influence transcends that title. She is a patriotic Cuban. She is brilliant. She is fluent in English. She has lived in Washington at the Swiss Interests Section building. She has spoken about U.S.-Cuban relations at the Kennedy Library in Boston when Caroline Kennedy and some of America's top historians gave her a standing ovation. So...yes, sir, Mr. President. You can talk to Josefina Vidal. When I want to know Cuba's side of controversial issues, I fly to Havana and talk to her. She's smart. And she's honest."

           President Obama accepted DeWayne Wickham's candid suggestion regarding Josefina Vidal. At another White House session, that is President Obama flanked by DeWayne Wickham on his right and his top adviser Valerie Jarrett on his left. Mr. Wickham had again confirmed to the President that there was a Cuban, Josefina Vidal, that he and his people could talk to. The President then turned to Ms. Jarrett and solicited her opinion, which coincided with Mr. Wickham's. President Obama had his Cuban opening. For the next twenty months President Obama learned that DeWayne Wickham's suggestion regarding Josefina Vidal was valid and so he moved very boldly forward with his plans to normalize relations with Cuba.

       After President Obama accepted DeWayne Wickham's suggestion about Josefina Vidal, a suggestion that was seconded by Obama's top Latin American Minister, Roberta Jacobson, there were months of clandestine U.S.-Cuban meetings in Canada with even Pope Francis in Rome making vital telephonic suggestions. Then the world watched Vidal and Jacobson {above} hold news conferences to explain what had transpired during their four highly publicized diplomatic sessions -- two in Havana and two in Washington. These two talented diplomats astonishingly affected major changes in U. S.-Cuban relations that had been mired down in Cold War bellicosity for almost six decades. Alan Gross was freed from a Cuban prison; the Cuba 5 were freed from U. S. prisons; Cuba was removed from the U. S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list; Cuba was removed from another list that designated Cuba as a major trafficker in humans and drugs; more freedoms to travel to Cuba were relaxed; more commerce between the two neighboring nations became possible; and for the first time since 1961 they re-opened embassies in their capitals.

         None of the recent positive changes in U.S.-Cuban relations would have been possible if DeWayne Wickham had not convinced President Obama that, yes, there was in Cuba a non-Castro that he and Roberta Jacobson could talk to. Josefina Vidal lived up to the extremely high expectations of her.

    Fittingly, DeWayne Wickham's final column for USA Today this week  {August 4th} was entitled: "Witness To History For 30 Years." Also fittingly, Cuba burnished strongly in his mind. He said he prolonged his stay with the national newspaper because of the Obama presidency. He wrote: "It allowed me to push for, and chronicle, another seismic change in the political life of our nation: The normalization of relations with Cuba." Later in the column he wrote: "Afro Cubans...were the Castro government's most loyal supporters. As companies from across the world set up shop in Cuba, the U. S. embargo became a blockade against American businesses shut out of a marketplace of 11 million people. For years, I hammered away at the bad judgment that has kept this embargo in place while the United States expanded economic and political ties with communist China and Vietnam. The embargo against Cuba, I argued in my column and in meetings with White House officials, pandered to the rearguard of a Cold War that ended with the Soviet collapse." Cuba very appropriately dominated his last column.

      Mr. President, I believe DeWayne Wickham would make an excellent U. S. Ambassador to Cuba. He is your friend and Josefina Vidal's friend. In his April 20th USA Today rebuke of Senator Rubio's harangue against you, Mr. Wickham explained to his readers and to Mr. Rubio that U.S.-Cuban relations is "a two-way street," not a one-way dead-end proposition designed to benefit only a few self-serving entities. As he retires on his own terms after thirty years with USA Today, DeWayne Wickham might accept your appointment, Mr. President, as Ambassador to Cuba. If so, you could not make a better choice. Yes, anti-Castro zealots Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez in the U. S. Senate have vowed to block any such appointment but their extremist views haven't deterred you so far, nor should they. Your pro-Vidal assessment is both brave and correct. Your appointment of DeWayne Wickham as Ambassador to Cuba will, I think, be approved by enough Senators not named Rubio or Menendez. And that, Mr. President, would be a good appointment for most Americans and for most Cubans. As you have cogently stated, 50+ years of the same failed policy is 50+ years too long. It is past time, as DeWayne Wickham has advocated, for the majority, not a few, to be served by a sane Cuban policy.

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The Dawning Of A New Cuba

From Sunset to Sunrise
Updated: Wednesday, August 5th, 2015

  Cristina Escobar has some thoughts about what Cuba will look like "just five years from now." She says, "It's exciting. Transitions always are. I believe the twentysomethings on the island, not the forever pertinent Castro legacy and not selfish people in Miami and Washington, will determine what Cuba looks like in five years. That's not far off, I know. But acceleration has taken over the island. The next five years will be phenomenal...not easy, but phenomenal." Cristina's thoughts about Cuba's immediate future are important, probably more important than all the thoughts about the topic currently taking place in Miami and Washington. Cristina is 27-years-old. She is brilliant. She is 100% Cuban. All the twentysomethings on the island know her. They believe in her. She is their beacon, their shining light, and...their hope.

      Cristina Escobar is not too happy with the current state of U.S.-Cuban relations, even with the emerging detente that has resulted in the opening of embassies in the two capitals for the first time since 1961. She has closely followed those developments as Cuba's most ubiquitous broadcast journalist and anchor. She believes the upgrade from an Interests Section to a U. S. Embassy in Havana will afford the U. S. more of an opportunity to directly foment and finance dissent on the island. "I should be proud that the U. S. Embassy has opened here," she says, "but I am not. I should be cheering on August 14th when Secretary John Kerry comes here to officially raise the American flag on its new Cuban embassy, but I will not be cheering. I know decent Americans, and decent Cubans in America. I trust them. I just don't trust the Americans and the Cubans who make the laws and the decisions regarding Cuba."

      But Cristina Escobar's thoughts about ongoing and future U.S.-Cuban relations do not encompass all gloom and doom scenarios. "The enthusiasm of the Cubans on the island is palpable," she says. "I give our great Minister, Josefina Vidal, credit for that. And Mr. Obama, of course. The Cuban people deserve what Josefina and Mr. Obama have accomplished. I think there will be more positives. I think more Americans will visit the island and see for themselves how beautiful Cuba is, and how wonderful the Cubans who have stayed here truly are. I think what has prolonged the negativity between the U. S. and Cuba for all these decades is mostly a failure of the U. S. media to rise above obvious propaganda and present a true portrait of what post-revolutionary Cuba is. Yes, we who live here can see things to criticize and improve. But we are far better than the U. S. when it comes to equality. When it comes to safety. When it comes to free quality education. When it comes to free quality health care. When the World Bank praised Cuba for devoting such a huge portion of its economy to education, health, and shelter, U. S. media ignored it. When the World Health Organization praised Cuba for having a lower infant mortality rate than the U. S. and other much richer nations, the U. S. media ignored it. But the U. S. media, at least in Miami, wailed about the terrorist downing of a civilian airplane as being a huge blow against Castro while not mentioning all 73 innocents who died. Is an inept U. S. media Cuba's problem or is it America's problem? I believe you know how I would answer that question."

     Yes, we know how Cristina Escobar would answer questions about Cubana Flight 455; about Cuba's infant mortality rate; about Cuba's free educational, health, and shelter programs; and about how "the inept" or intimidated U. S. media portrays Cuba. We know because she blistered a lot of ears about her disdain for the U. S. media when she garnered headlines while in Washington covering the last Vidal-Jacobson diplomatic session. And we know how she feels, frankly, because she is opinionated and she has an effective forum -- on Cuban television but also on regional telecasts -- to air her views, as well as her extremely talented anchoring, probably the best on the North American continent. Her incisive interviews, in either Spanish or English, are nightly highlights on Cuban television but also readily available regionally on networks such as Telesur and internationally on venues such as YouTube.

  Uhhhhhhhh...did I tell you that Cristina Escobar has some thoughts about Guantanamo Bay too? She wants it back!! "It won't happen while I'm in my twenties," she says, "but it had better happen when I'm in my thirties, or there will be hell to pay." Ummmmm...? Cristina, as well as the rest of the world, is aware that Guantanamo Bay is one of the world's best and most beautiful ports, and that the U. S. simply "stole it" in 1903. She is aware that the U. S. has a major military base at Guantanamo Bay not to mention Starbucks, McDonalds, a beautiful golf course, luxury recreational and entertainment structures, and..."oh, yes!"...one of the world's most infamous prisons. It'll be hard for the U. S. to give it back and Cuba is not capable of getting it back militarily. "But," says Cristina as she mellows down a bit about the hot topic, "pressure and diplomacy should do the trick. For heavens sake, rational Americans must know how the theft of such a valuable portion of Cuban land and water is viewed by the rest of the world. Imperialism is no longer in vogue. Neither is terrorism. Neither is outright thievery, at least in civilized societies. I still believe that Americans, if they are told the truth about things such as their Mafia and imperialist heritage, they will act fairly and rationally towards Cuba. The Platt Amendment right after the Spanish-American War in 1898 and the Helms-Burton Act written by Miami extremists are viewed worldwide as undemocratic, criminal acts. If Americans don't know that, they should...especially if they care about their democracy." After a touch of calmness even about the hot topic of Guantanamo Bay, Cristina steamed up again. "Dammit!" she said, defiantly shaking a pencil at the camera, "they should! THEY SHOULD!"

         But, truth be known, Cristina Escobar doesn't trust either Miami or Washington "as far as I can throw them." Mulling her phraseology and a bit surprised by it, she laughs and adds, "And those are two biggggg cities. I've seen them. Most people, including Cubans in Miami, are nice people. Most people in Washington are nice people. I've told friends in both those cities that my problem with their democracy is...it's not really democratic. If it was, a few extremists in 1898 wouldn't have started the Spanish-American War to steal Cuba from Spain and, while they were at, 'why don't we take Puerto Rico and the Philippines too?' Would a true democracy then have stolen Guantanamo Bay in 1903 and supported a succession of puppet dictators, culminating in 1952 with a coup that put the cruelest dictatorship of all -- Batista and the Mafia -- in charge of Cuba? I say 'no' to those questions. Do you in your democracy have the freedom or the knowledge to say 'yes?' I don't think so. That's where we are today in the second half of 2015. I think, I hope, that this twentysomething generation of Cubans...Cubans on the island, my generation...will be the ones to decide Cuba's future. I believe we will. And I believe it will be a bright future. I believe we deserve it. So, there you have it. My biggest problem, my biggest regret, with the United States is that I don't believe it is a true democracy. If it is, if it were, there would have been no Spanish-American War, no Platt Amendment, no stealing of a big chunk of Cuban land, no terrorist bombings of Cuban hotels and cane fields and fishing cabins on our coasts and a Cuban civilian airplane, no unconscionable and long-term protection of the region's most notable terrorists, and so forth. Believe me, I want the United States, for Cuba's sake, to be Cuba's friend and its best trading partner. And that means I want the majority of America's people, not a few powerful and selfish criminals, making the basic decisions that will govern America's relations with Cuba. Is that too much to want? I mean...the majority of Americans still think of their country as a democracy, right? If they take pride in their democracy, I believe Cuba will have a brighter future. I believe those of us on this island deserve that. I believe, whatever the odds, we will fight for what a lot of great nations, large and small, including the United States of America, have fought for, and that is Sovereignty. So, that's where I'm coming from tonight. Now...let's get some other opinions."

     Ana Navarro is a Poster Lady for what Cristina Escobar considers an "America problem" that "hurts everyday Cubans on the island while promoting extremist Cubans in Miami and Washington." Navarro was born in Nicaragua but she is a pure anti-Cuban zealot in Miami. She graduated from the University of Miami in 1993 and she has made a fortune as a publicist for powerful anti-Cuban zealots such as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. And that's what she is today...a prime propagandist for Jeb Bush #1 and Marco Rubio #2, both of whom are Republican presidential candidates. She is also a highly paid "CNN political commentator" whereby CNN affords her countless hours of free propaganda time promoting Bush as America's next President to be succeeded, eight years later, by President Marco Rubio. As Cuba's top broadcast journalist, young Cristina Escobar cites Ana Navarro as "a paradigm of the American media that is nothing more and nothing less than a giant, lucrative propaganda machine...left-wingers, right-wingers, and even middle-wingers like CNN, a network with an international reach that reaches Cuba too. As a journalist in Cuba, I sometimes watch CNN and cringe." This is what makes Cristina cringe: {"And now next on CNN we present our fair-and-balanced political commentator from Miami, Ana Navarro, and she will tell you again this hour why Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio should be America's next two Presidents and why they will overturn every major program President Obama has put forth. So now, Ana, tell America all about YOUR UNBIASED VIEWS."}} Americans, of all people, should be able to separate propaganda from truth. 

        When highly paid propagandist Ana Navarro is presented to the American public by CNN as a ubiquitous "political commentator" when any intelligent person should know that she is nothing but a publicist for Bush and Rubio, one would have to agree, I think, that Cristina Escobar is correct about the sorry state of the media in the United States. In Washington Cristina garnered headlines when she directly told the U. S. media about her "utter disdain" for the U. S. media because "it hurts everyday Cubans. It doesn't hurt me and it doesn't hurt Fidel but it hurts everyday Cubans. Lies and propaganda, especially when it is not balanced with truth and facts, hurts Americans too and makes fun of their democracy. My problem with that is how it hurts everyday Cubans. I don't hurt or criticize everyday Americans but as a broadcast journalist with respect for my profession, the U. S. media is shameful." {"AND NOW NEXT ON CNN WE PRESENT ANA NAVARRO.......!!!" "THANK YOU, ANDERSON. THIS IS MY 4TH APPEARANCE ON CNN TODAY. I JUST WANT TO REMIND AMERICANS THAT THE TWO GREATEST AMERICANS ARE #1 JEB BUSH AND #2 MARCO RUBIO, OUR NEXT TWO PRESIDENTS FOR THE THE 16 YEARS BEGINNING IN 2017. AND THE WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY IS OBAMA AND HIS WORST MISTAKE IS TRYING TO CHANGE THE WAY WE TREAT CUBANS ON THE ISLAND. ONLY THE CUBANS IN MIAMI SHOULD MAKE SUCH DECISIONS, ANDERSON. JEB AND MARCO WILL CORRECT ALL OF OBAMA'S EFFORTS....!"} Cristina Escobar thinks propagandists should be corrected.

Cristina Escobar

Leader of Cuba's twentysomethings
Is she more powerful than the rich Cubans in Miami and Washington??
Changing topics:

       This magnificent photo is courtesy of Richard Day/Daybreak Emagery/Birds & Blooms Magazine. Five American Goldfinches and one bluebird: Healthy, beautiful, peaceful, content and very well-fed. Just like the whole wide world should be.

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A Cuba In Limbo

Transitioning To Post-Castro Cuba
As U.S.-Cuban Relations Begin To Thaw

          Arnaldo Brown has been Jamaica's Foreign Minister and Trade Minister since January of 2012. Like other Cuban neighbors, Jamaica is very interested in U.S.-Cuban relations. Brown says, "Cuba is the Caribbean's largest and most dominant nation. When the regional superpower, the United States, hurts the Cuban people, all of us are hurt by a foreign nation that should be our friend and our best trading partner." Brown, a lawyer and former member of the Jamaican parliament, remembers when a Jamaican company "unfortunately 10% owned by an American company" was fined by the U. S. for shipping a box of baby aspirin to Cuba. Brown believes the people who should have been fined are "the ex-Cubans and their bought-and-paid-for associates who make such U. S. laws." On Sunday -- August 2nd -- the Jamaica Observer carried further stinging quotes from Mr. Brown. He called the U. S. embargo against Cuba "unjust" and "a yoke." He believes the embargo, imposed way back in 1962, has unjustly harmed the entire Caribbean and is a yoke around the neck of all Caribbeans. "Americans are not supposed to understand that," he says, "and if they do they are supposed to accept it as America's imperialist right." In yesterday's Jamaica Observer Mr. Brown said: "Long live Cuba! Long live Fidel Castro! Long live the Cuban Revolution!"

         Cuba dominates the Caribbean in America's backyard. That's the island of Jamaica directly south of Cuba's southeastern tip. All the Caribbean nations oppose the U. S. embargo against Cuba and oppose what Arnaldo Brown calls "decades of Miami-Washington intransigence against Cubans who remain on the island and decades of gifts for those enticed to defect or enticed to create dissident chaos on the island." Brown says, "Obama's friendly gestures toward Cuba will last only till the next Republican takes over the White House, if that long. Stealing Guantanamo Bay in 1903 and keeping it all these decades remains a crime, like a bully in grade school stealing a little kid's lunch money every morning...because he can."  

         Now that the United States and Cuba have opened embassies in their respective capital cities for the first time in 5-and-and-a-half decades, the Cuban focus shifts to the current presidential campaigns in the U. S. The two-term presidency of Barack Obama, which has a mere 17 months to go, has been even more vital to Cuba than it has been to the rest of the world. If Obama is succeeded by another Democrat -- Hillary Clinton or maybe Joe Biden -- Cuba expects to continue transitioning to a Vietnamese-style economy that will soon have the United States as a friend and a prime trading partner. But if Obama is replaced by a Republican -- namely another Bush -- Cuba, frankly, anticipates a military confrontation of some sort.

         This AP/Getty Images montage shows the two candidates -- Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton -- who will be the likely finalists in the presidential sweepstakes. That is not the way it should be but that is the way it is. Bush and Clinton, perpetuating political dynasties that would make America's Founding Fathers cringe, are the two presidential candidates with the billions of dollars needed to win in a money-crazed election process that stuns democracy lovers worldwide with its emphasis on bought-and-paid-for candidates as opposed to quality public servant-type candidates. Billionaire donors dominate national elections in the U. S. and, unfortunately, those billlionaires favor Bush and Clinton, with the Republican Cuban-Americans Rubio and Cruz the next most favored by the billionaires because, like Bush and Clinton, they can be bought. All the while, ad agencies, television stations, and lobbyists are wildly cheering the system as they rake in their share of those anti-democratic dollars. More and more Americans, most of whom haven't bothered to vote in recent national elections, agree with the foreign assessment of unlimited and often unaccounted money gone amok deep within the bowels of the U. S. democracy. As a nearby island, since 1492 Cuba has been tightly tied to whatever transpires in America, and that includes America's bought-and-paid-for political system. Even non-billionaires who give money to politicians are shaming democracy, mocking the intentions of our Founding Fathers who cherished the sacredness of one-person/one-vote.

           This is one of the most iconic photos of Cuba when the U. S. dominated the island in the period after the Spanish-American War in 1898 up until the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. In the 1930s a Cuban named Jose Garcia opened Sloppy Joe's Bar. It became a Cuban playpen for famous Americans.

        Famed author Earnest Hemingway was a regular at the Sloppy Joe's Bar. In this photo Hemingway was talking with actor Alex Guinness and entertainer Coel Howard. Other American celebrities who frequented Sloppy Joe's Bar were...Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Nat King Cole, Fred Astaire, and many, many others. But the Cuban Revolution was not too fond of sin...gambling, prostitution, drinking, etc. So for fifty years, Sloppy Joe's Bar was closed and, like many Mafia mansions, became houses for Cuban peasants.

      Sloppy Joe's reopened in 2013. This AP photo was taken on April 13, 2013. It shows Sloppy Joe's on one side of the street and on the other a Cuban woman is drying freshly washed clothes on her balcony.

And by the way..............

          ........................I subscribe to the theory that a photo is worth a thousand words. The above photo courtesy of REUTERS/Wojazer is a case in point. It was used to illustrate a long, long article about French President Francois Hollande welcoming Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to Elysee Palace in Paris. Now we all know that Mr. Hollande is a renowned skirt-chaser, which makes this photo both hilarious and worth about a million words. Study Hollande's smirky smile and his engaging stare. He is not paying any attention to President Nieto. His attention is clearly focused on Nieto's stunningly gorgeous and very distracting wife. Her name, by the way, is Angelica Rivera. By having Angelica at his side, I believe President Nieto was purposely trying to either tease or distract President Hollande. What do you think?

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Memories Of Latino Dictators

Still Shape Today's Latin America
Updated: Sunday, August 2nd, 2015

        Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic candidate for President, this week {July 31st} made a key political speech at Florida International University in Miami. Reading cogently from a teleprompter, she made statements like this to a receptive audience: "The Cuban embargo needs to go once and for all."

        Mrs. Clinton, a prototypical politician, was not being very brave with such a strong Cuban speech in the heart of Miami's Little Havana power-base. She reads the polls, which show that even Cuban-Americans want an end to the embargo, which was codified into law by powerful anti-Castro Miami stalwarts led by Jorge Mas Canosa and his easily acquired supporters in the U. S. Congress -- such as Robert Torricelli, Jesse Helms, and Dan Burton. While politicians such as Mrs. Clinton read the tea leaves, pro-democracy advocates have grown tired of the harm the U. S. Cuban policy heaps upon the United States, merely to appease a handful of what now is a second generation of revengeful Cuban exiles.

         Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio {Photo: LatinoFoxNews.com}, two prime Republican presidential candidates, were quick to denounce Hillary Clinton's audacity to make an anti-embargo speech in their front-and-back yards. Both men have mansions almost within sight of Florida International University, and Rubio teaches there. Bush and Rubio also read tea leaves and polls. But, like most of their other political stances, their Cuban views during this presidential campaign are largely predicated by their big-money billionaire donors. When it comes to Cuba, neither Bush nor his protege Rubio care a whit about public opinion or about the deleterious effect the cruel and archaic embargo has on America's and democracy's image. But they do care about billionaire donors. Meanwhile, throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, the embargo backed by Bush and Rubio is mostly a reminder of America's past relations with Cuba -- such as teaming with the Mafia to support the vile Batista dictatorship and terrorist attacks such as the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 that was hailed in Miami as "the biggest blow yet against Castro." Although the Castros have remained in power in Cuba since January 1, 1959, Bush and Rubio seem to still rely on that 1976 chant about the downing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455 being "the biggest blow yet against Castro" while less biased observers believe such things helped entrench, not remove, the Castros. That's what President Obama meant when he said, "After fifty years, if something doesn't work, maybe it's time to try something different." And that's what President Michelle Bachelet meant this week when she said, "More Americans need to care about wiping away reminders of the bloody imprint their past leaders left on Latin America."     

        This photo of Michelle Bachelet was taken this week and is used courtesy of Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images. She is the President of Chile. I'll explain the tortured look on her face in a moment. She was born 63 years ago in Santiago, Chile. She served as Chile's President from 2006 till 2010. Chile does not allow consecutive terms so she then did humanitarian work for organizations such as the UN. Then, after being reelected to a second term, she returned as Chile's President in March. Her countenance in this week's photo reflects the fact that she has been tormented all of her adult life by the U.S.-installed and U.S.-backed Pinochet dictatorship, which from 1973 till 1990 was one of history's most brutal. Compounding the pain etched on her face this week is the memory that Pinochet replaced the decent, democratically elected President Salvador Allende. Allende died defending his presidential palace from a Richard Nixon/Henry Kissinger-inspired coup that replaced Mr. Allende with the U.S.-friendly criminal Pinochet. From 1973 till 1990 Pinochet's agents murdered people around the world, including the 1976 car-bombing within sound of the White House in Washington that killed beautiful 25-year-old Ronni Moffitt. In all, Chile now registers 40,018 Chileans known to have been murdered or tortured by Pinochet's killers. One of those imprisoned and murdered was President Bachelet's father; one of those imprisoned and tortured was President Bachelet herself. In this hot summer of 2015, led by President Bachelet, perpetrators of Pinochet's "crimes against humanity" are still being brought to justice in Chilean courtrooms. This week for one of those trials Carmen Quintana flew from her home in Canada. At age 18 she was disfigured in a gasoline attack in which Pinochet soldiers set fire to and killed young photographer Rodrigo Rojas. In Chile this week seven former Pinochet henchmen are finally being tried after decades of exhaustive investigations. And so, now you know that the taunting memories of the murderous Pinochet regime accounts for the pain etched this week on the countenance of a truly great woman, Michelle Bachelet, the two-term President of Chile.

         This photo is courtesy of The Associated Press's Patricio Guzman. It shows Victor Jara in the 1970s when he was the most popular singer/musician in Chile. Pinochet considered him a dissident. It has been historically documented how Victor Jara died. Pinochet's goons took him to a basement and shot him forty times, allegedly to see how many gunshots he could endure before he died. Of the 40,018 known Chilean victims of Pinochet's crimes against nature, the fate of Victor Jara still looms very large in many memories.

        This is a beautiful photo of Ronni Moffitt. In high school, she cherished the U. S. democracy so much she wrote a term paper in which she lamented America's "flirtations with regional dictators." She specifically referenced Batista in Cuba, Somoza in Nicaragua, and Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.

         This is Ronni Moffitt at age 25 in 1976, the year she died. Her passion for democracy found her working for Orlando Letelier, who had been Chile's Ambassador to the U. S. and then Defense Minister in the administration of Salvador Allende, who had been democratically elected President of Chile in 1970. That election didn't sit well with U. S. President Richard Nixon and his top adviser Henry Kissinger because President Allende wanted Chile's resources to benefit Chileans, not rich Americans. Nixon and Kissinger preferred "U.S. friendly" dictators -- not patriotic and democratically elected Presidents. President Salvador Allende famously fought to the end from a palace window with an engraved AK-47 rifle that his friend Fidel Castro had given him as an inauguration gift. Allende's death in the U.S.-backed coup that installed dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1973 is something not only Chile but all of Latin America is still trying to come to grips with, as evidenced by President Bachelet's ongoing investigations and trials as July turns into August in the year 2015. Letelier, a key associate of Salvador Allende, ended up in Washington as a democracy advocate. Ronni Moffitt worked for him. They both died within a mile of the White House on September 21, 1976, after a terrorist bomb exploded beneath their car. Chile and Latin America are still to this day trying to investigate the murders of Letelier and Moffitt, still without much assistance from the United States.

        Notable journalists such as John Dinges and Saul Landau quickly surmised that Pinochet's dreaded DINA security assassins had carried out the attack. So did the FBI, but the FBI would soon complain that their investigations were being "stalled" or "misdirected" by the CIA. The year 1976 was the only year George H. W. Bush was CIA Director. A mere three weeks later -- on October 6, 1976 -- a terrorist bomb blew Cubana Flight 455, a civilian airplane, into the ocean killing all 73 on board, including two dozen young Cuban athletes. Declassified FBI documents confirm that the two most infamous Cuban-exile/CIA terrorists -- Luis Posada Carriles and Orlanto Bosch -- were masterminds of the Cubana Flight 455 bombing. Bosch, after being pardoned by President George H. W. Bush at the request of Jeb Bush, lived out his long life a free man in Miami; Carriles to this day is a controversial but heralded citizen of Miami. John Dinges, who wrote the above article about the Letelier-Moffit murders, also wrote a definitive book entitled "Assassination On Embassy Row." Such Pinochet-related murders are known to history and to Hollywood as "Condor Operations." John Dinges, Peter Kornbluh, and other respected authors have pointed out that Pinochet often used Cuban exiles in Operation Condor attacks because they had been expertly trained in explosives by the CIA and U. S. Army since 1959. And yes, Cuban exiles were tied to the Letelier-Moffitt car-bombing in Washington. In the last week of July, 2015, President Bachelet of Chile is still grim-faced and distraught over the thousands of murders during the Pinochet reign from 1973 till 1990.

        The car-bombing that murdered Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt within a mile of the White House in 1976, as well as the airplane bombing of Cubana Flight 455 three weeks later, haunt Michelle Bachelet to this day. They should also haunt Americans who, at long last, need to hold the perpetrators responsible.

          For example, the photo above was one of the last ever taken of 22-year-old Rosetta Pallini. She was a university student in Santiago, Chile, when Pinochet's goons labeled her a dissident. She escaped to Mexico City but the long reach of Operation Condor found her. She was then brutally murdered merely on the assumption she still opposed Pinochet's murderous rule back in her beloved country of Chile.

 Pinochet is shown in this Wikipedia photo with his key supporter, Henry Kissinger.

        Because Americans are not supposed to know much about Latin American history, they understandably have trouble comprehending the two modern-day photos depicted above. On the left showing deep affection for Cuba's Fidel Castro is Cristina Fernandez Kirchner. She has been President of Argentina since 2007. On the right is Michelle Bachelet showing deep affection for Cuba's Fidel Castro. She is the two-term President of Chile. President Kirchner and President Bachelet, in their younger days, both felt the wrath of vile U.S.-backed dictators, dictators who were Fidel Castro's bitter enemies too.

         The other current two-term female President of a very important Latin American country is Dilma Rousseff of Brazil. Yes, in this photo that is President Rousseff showing deep affection for Cuba's Fidel Castro. In her youth Dilma Rousseff paid a severe price for opposing a U.S.-backed dictatorship: She was unmercifully tortured for three years in that dictator's prison. Fidel Castro strongly opposed the U.S.-backed dictatorships that so harshly maligned today's three female Latin American Presidents in their youths -- Cristina Kirchner, Michelle Bachelet, and Dilma Rousseff. To understand Latin America today, Americans need to understand Latin American history -- and I don't mean the classified and sanitized versions that Americans have been spoon-fed for decades. {Note: As a passionate, democracy-loving American, I am not pleased that Presidents Kirchner, Bachelet and Rousseff -- as well as many other democratically elected Presidents throughout Latin America -- love Fidel Castro a lot more than they love the United States of America. Anyone who is pleased with that, I believe, is someone who cares little about democracy or the U. S. and, further, such a self-serving lack of admission or knowledge about Latin America perpetuates the power of Henry Kissinger clones. Ask President Bachelet of Chile while she tries to hold people in her country accountable for the crimes against nature perpetuated during the 1973 till 1990 terror orchestrated by one of Kissinger's favorite dictators, Augusto Pinochet. PRESIDENTS BACHELET, KIRCHNER, AND ROUSSEFF ARE TRUE EXPERTS ON LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY SIMPLY BECAUSE...THEY LIVED IT.}

        This, by the way, is an historic Latin American photo. It shows Cuba's Fidel Castro with Chile's beloved, democratically elected President Salvador Allende. According to information unearthed by President Bachelet's diligent researchers, on the above trip Castro warned Allende "that Nixon and Kissinger will target you as they are targeting me." It is assumed Castro meant that any leader of any country would be targeted if that leader tried to restrict how much U. S. business interests could extract from that country. Shortly after the above meeting, in September of 1973, President Allende died in his presidential palace trying to fight off a U.S.-backed coup as he used the engraved rifle Castro had given him upon his inauguration. Allende's relationship with Castro...starkly in contrast to his relationships with Nixon, Kissinger, and Pinochet...to this day resonates across Latin America, as President Bachelet and other Latin American leaders will readily attest. If you disbelieve that, go back and study the photo at the top of this essay. It was taken this week and it shows intense pain on the face of President Bachelet...pain caused by the U.S. penchant for supporting vile dictators from the 1950s till the 1990s...from Batista in the 1950s till Pinochet into the 1990s. Democracy lovers believe U.S. politicians -- either elected or appointed and either living or deceased -- should be held accountable if they aided or made such dictatorships possible.

Today the largest hospital complex in Cuba is named for Salvador Allende.

          In between her two stints as President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet campaigned tirelessly in quest of justice for victims of the Pinochet dictatorship. The photo above is courtesy of Martin Burnett/AFP. It was taken on September 10, 2013, when Michelle had served one term as President but could not run for consecutive terms. That's her on the right in this photo. Her mother, Angela Jeria, is in the center. They and the lady on the left are holding photographic memories of Pinochet victims as they demonstrate in front of the infamous prison at Villa Grimaldi where Michelle and her mother were tortured and where Michelle's father died. Now in her second term as President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet is still reminding the world of the U.S.-installed and U.S.-backed Pinochet dictatorship. Such reminders should also resonate with Americans, especially those who should be aware of American leaders whose actions besmirched democracy and...still torment President Bachelet, a great lady Americans should know and support.

        Michelle Bachelet, in her second term as President of Chile, is an expert on Latin American history, especially the period from 1952 till 1990 when she admits she still "has trouble believing" the world's greatest democracy "spread" vicious dictators "across" the Caribbean and Latin America. She believes it would not have been so "terrible" if Americans had "objected" to the U. S. support of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship beginning in 1952. And she openly suggests that Americans should know Latin American history so they can "learn from it." The Latin American dictatorships essentially ended in 1990 with the end of the Pinochet reign in Chile, a 17-year-old rule that was so brutal it still brings tears to President Bachelet's 63-year-old eyes. This week, in the summer of 2015, she said, "We must never stop."  By that, she means that Latin America must never stop seeking justice for the victims and from those responsible.

  

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