And Miami Admits It
This photo is courtesy of Astrid Riecken-MCT. It was used this week to illustrate an important article in the Kansas City Star. The photo shows three of the most hardline anti-Castro members of the United States Congress -- Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Robert Menendez -- applauding Bay of Pigs veterans. The article blared this headline: "CONVERSATIONS ON CUBA LEAVES OUT MIAMI'S ONCE-MIGHTY POLITICAL GUARD." The article had three highly significant sub-titles:
{1} "The Cuban-American Politicians Have Been Left Out."
{2} "They Were Not Involved in Obama's Cuban Policy."
{3} "The Group Faces the Prospect of Four More Years of the Same."
Actually, Patricia Mazzei of the Miami Herald wrote the aforementioned article that I read when it was republished in the Kansas City Star. That's why it appears to be an admission that Cuban hardliners in Miami are hurtin' for certain because Barack Obama has been the first U. S. President since 1959 to successfully challenge them on a Cuban policy that most unbiased observers believe has mocked the U. S. democracy long enough. Mr. Obama, realizing that their rigid input would never remotely comply with his plans to normalize relations with Cuba, simply left them out in the cold while he astutely and bravely used his Executive Authority to thrust ahead with remarkable achievements, such as removing Cuba from the untidy Sponsors of Terrorism list, reopening embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961, and greatly increasingly the reasons Americans can actually visit Cuba. All this was accomplished even thought the Miami hardliners still have dictatorial control of the U. S. Congress on issues such as the ungodly embargo that has hobbled Cuba since 1962, at least till Obama punctured much of it. Here's the way Ms. Mazzei put it: "Left out of the conversation: anyone who disagreed, including the eight Cuban Americans -- Republicans and Democrats -- in Congress 57 years after the Cuban revolution. Half of them -- one Senator and three Representatives -- hail from Miami, the new city exiles made in Havana's old image."
Patricia Mazzei's long article then lamented Miami's being "left out of the conversation" by Obama. She then gives a first-hand account of how Miami became "the new city exiles made in Havana's old image." Of course, being a top journalist for the Miami Herald, Ms. Mazzei presented the viewpoints of the exiles from the ousted Batista-Mafia dictatorship that were booted out of Cuba, at least the views of the hardliners who, prior to Obama, dictated America's Cuban policy although polls now show that most Cuban-Americans in Miami support Obama's approach, not the late Jorge Mas Canosa's approach and certainly not the infamous Luis Posada Carriles' approach. Regarding the Miami hardliners and politicians, Ms. Mazzei wrote: "For eight years, they've had zero input on the issue on which some of them built their political careers. And now they face the prospects of four or eight more years of the same, with a new White House tenant come January. Of the five presidential candidates left from both political parties, a Cuban-American Republican, whose father is from Matanzas, has adopted the traditional hard-line position on Cuba and vowed to reverse Obama's policy. On the other side, there is deep commitment to Obama's Cuba doctrine." Ms. Mazzei's reference to the Cuban-American presidential contender, of course, is Ted Cruz. In the long article she liberally uses vicious anti-Obama quotes from Miami contributions to the U. S. Congress such as Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, whose rich father, Rafael Diaz-Balart, was a former key Minister in the Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Also, Ms. Mazzei liberally quotes such powerful benefactors of America's Castro Cottage Industry as Mauricio Claver-Carone. So if you want an update on Miami's hardline reaction to President Obama's Cuban overtures, you should go online and read the entire article. Patricia Mazzei knows Miami's Cuban-American hardliners and she knows precisely how they grabbed hold of America's Cuban policy to suit their whims and goals. She proved that when she wrote this line: "Jorge Mas Canosa had the ear of President Ronald Reagan." Indeed he did, and that's how just a handful of the most hard-line Miami Cubans, especially since the Reagan-Bush administration, acquired unencumbered dictation of America's Cuban policy, at least till President Obama reined it in a bit.
Reagan was President and G. H. W. Bush Vice President from 1981-1988.
The Reagan-Bush presidency from 1981 till 1988 ran roughshod over U. S. democratic principles in its alignment with Miami's Cubans, about the time it embroiled Oliver North and some Cuban-Americans in the infamous Iran-Contra conspiracy. {Horseback photo courtesy of Politico}. For sure, right-wingers in the Eisenhower administration in 1959 -- VP Richard Nixon, CIA Director Allen Dulles, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, etc. -- had tied the U. S. government to the Batista-exile extremists. But those ties became indelible, as Patricia Mazzei referenced, when, "Jorge Mas Canosa had the ear of President Reagan."
Mas Canosa famously leaning in on President Reagan's ear.
But this photo, showing Mas Canosa having Vice President George H. W. Bush's ear, is far more important in the annals of U.S.-Cuban relations than all other photos since the 1980s. This is the nexus that meant most to Mas Canosa, and the one that endeared him to the Reagan administration with his friend Bush as his uncontested prime supporter. The Bush-Mas connection also crystallized the Bush dynasty's unfathomable ties to the Cuban-American extremists in Miami, an alliance that extended from the two-term Reagan administration to the one-term George H. W. Bush presidency, the two-term George W. Bush presidency and the two-term governorship in Florida of Jeb Bush. Although Jeb's lushly funded bid for the Republican presidential nomination was unceremoniously ended this year, both the Bush dynasty and the Republican Party continue their self-serving, right-wing alliance with the extreme Cuban hardliners.
This photo shows President George H. W. Bush handing a souvenir pen to Havana-born anti-Castro zealot Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. She has been in the U. S. Congress from Miami since 1989 when Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager. The next souvenir pen, in honor of signing a very punitive anti-Cuban bill, went to Jorge Mas Canosa, who is in the black suit. Bush Sr. sealed the Bush Dynasty-Miami Cuban alliance.
These four Republican presidents -- Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Bush -- all forged extreme right-wing agendas against Cuba, including the total of 16 years that Nixon and Bush Sr. served as Vice Presidents. {The art work above is courtesy of and available at www.imagekind.com}. As Patricia Mazzei referenced, the same thing would happen if the Republican Cuban-American Ted Cruz ever makes it to the White House. Remember what Ms. Mazzei wrote when she mentioned the five current presidential contenders: "Only Texas Sen. Ted Cruz....has adopted the traditional hard-line position on Cuba and vowed to reverse Obama's policy." But again, Ms. Mazzei's most pertinent sentence was the one about Jorge Mas Canosa tying up with the Reagan administration in the early 1980s. Surely, no Cuban-American -- not Cruz, Rubio, Menendez, the Diaz-Balart brothers, and Ros-Lehtinen all rolled into one -- has had the money or the power to match Mas Canosa, who shaped the malleable Republican Party to suit his Cuban agendas.
Jorge Mas Canosa was born in Santiago de Cuba in 1939. He died at age 58 as a young billionaire in Coral Gables outside Miami in 1997. The above black-bordered AP image of Mas Canosa was used in reporting his death and the AP highlighted his reign as "the leader of the Cuban exiles." He had been, in effect, the leader of the Cuban-Government-in-Exile since the early 1980s when the Bush in the Reagan-Bush administration designated him as such. Thus, Mas Canosa...in that fashion...pioneered the Bush-paved path that other powerful Cuban-Americans have traversed -- including Cruz, Rubio, Ros-Lehtinen, the Diaz-Balarts, etc., etc., etc. But only Jorge Mas Canosa created the political fact-of-life that essentially gave the Miami Cubans dictatorial control over both the Republican Party and the U. S. Congress when it came to America's Cuban policy. To understand today what President Obama has achieved regarding Cuba, you need to comprehend what Mas Canosa crafted on behalf of the Cuban-American hardliners.
&*************************&
This photo shows Jorge Mas Canosa in his 2nd Lt.'s uniform at Fort Benning, Georgia. Right after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, many fleeing the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba ended up in Miami and then the most vehement anti-Castro Cubans were sent to the Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning. Unknown to the American taxpayers who were paying for it, that's where the U. S. was training Latin American soldiers and then sending them back to support U.S.-friendly right-wing dictators -- such as Batista in Cuba, Trujillo in the Dominican, and Somoza in Nicaragua. On Jan.1-1959 Cuba became unique by becoming the first nation to overthrow a U.S.-backed dictatorship. Proving that the U. S. immediately planned to recapture Cuba, any young Cuban-exile male who vowed to overthrow Castro was put on the payroll at Fort Benning -- and that included such soon-to-be famous {or infamous} anti-Castro zealots such as Luis Posada Carriles, Felix Rodriguez, Jorge Mas Canosa, etc., etc. Upon graduation, they were inducted in the anti-Castro Brigade 2506 and continued training at bases in South Florida and friendly dictatorships such as Nicaragua. It was Brigade 2506 that launched an air, land, and sea attack on Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961. President Kennedy, who had inherited the Bay of Pigs plan from the Eisenhower-Nixon administration, was told by the CIA that the attack would be "a piece of cake" and that "Fidel will run for his getaway airplane when he hears the bombs from our Air Force." The U. S. warplanes were disguised with the Cuban insignia to perpetuate the lie that the attack was a popular uprising that didn't involve the U. S., with even Adlai Stephenson, the respected U. S. Ambassador to the UN, lying to the world that the U. S. was not involved, until a downed U. S. airplane unveiled the great American lie.
American taxpayers and democracy-lovers had no idea that the U. S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning was training foreign soldiers that would be sent back to support U.S.-friendly dictators like Batista, Trujillo, Somoza, etc. That is, till the 1990s when President Clinton held a news conference to apologize for it. Then there were demonstrations like the one above demanding the U. S. close it...forever!
Well, even after the Clinton news conference, the infamous Army School of the Americas was not closed, not exactly. But at least it was renamed and is known today as "The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation." And as you can detect from the above political cartoon, President George W. Bush was mocked for continuing to fund, with tax dollars, the "School" that affected Cuba so drastically.
But unlike Batista, Fidel Castro didn't have a getaway airplane. He raced to the front-lines at the Bay of Pigs and led the successful defense of the Cuban Revolution, greatly exacerbating his legend.
While the U. S. and the Cuban exiles were preparing for the Bay of Pigs attack, the U. S. government before, during and after the attack lied to the U. S. people, denying any U. S. involvement. But even the planning was an open secret as this article in the New York Times illustrated. Insiders at Fort Benning, unhappy with the subterfuge, kept Cuban decision-maker Celia Sanchez informed about Brigade 2506 and she even knew exactly what they were being paid and when they shipped off to countries like Nicaragua and Guatemala to continue their training. Celia and Fidel had, in fact, visited the Bay of Pigs prior to the attack to devise their defensive plans. As reported later by Cuban journalist Carlos Franqui and by Herbert L. Matthews of the New York Times, Fidel at the Bay of Pigs prior to the attack pointed to two ridges and told Celia, "We need machine guns placed there, and there." But even after Szulc's article in the NY Times depicted above, and even during and after the attack, the United States lied about participating in it.
Cuban rebels at the Bay of Pigs inspecting a downed U. S. B-26 Douglas Invader warplane.
Cuban rebels, including a female on the right, inspecting a downed B-26 at the Bay of Pigs.
Brigade 2506 Bay of Pigs prisoners.
In December of 1962 Fidel Castro sold Brigade 2506 prisoners back to the U. S. for $53 million, much of it paid in the form of many crates of Gerber Baby Food. As the photo at the top of this essay indicates, to this day the Cuban-Americans in the United States Congress celebrate the Brigade 2506 attackers.
But the Bay of Pigs attack was Fidel's triumph, not Brigade 2506's.
This montage shows Fidel Castro on the front lines at the Bay of Pigs and President Kennedy flummoxed back at the White House as he received the sad news. Kennedy's fuming included his famous exclamation: "If I could I'd blow the CIA to smithereens!!" Yet, after the Bay of Pigs, Mr. Kennedy allowed his brother, Attorney General Robert, to devise plans that repeatedly tried to assassinate Fidel Castro.
This is Fidel, visiting the UN, holding a cigar and showing a U. S. newspaper blaring a headline about another plot to kill him. The Guinness Book of World Records confirms that Fidel, nearing his 90th birthday on August 13th, easily holds the world record for surviving the most assassination attempts in history.
As you can see above, Celia Sanchez, the most important Cuban rebel, said she, Fidel and the other rebels got "far too much credit" because "our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots." There are, of course, some historians and unbiased journalists who agree with her.
Yet, the Bush dynasty in the United States has made sure that two generations of post-Batista Cuban-Americans have become rich and powerful as the chief orchestrators of America's Cuban policy.
For example, Cuban-born Jorge Mas Canosa and his three sons born in Miami {above} all became billionaires after Jorge Mas Canosa was anointed leader of the Cuban-exiles, after which he created such tax-funded enterprises as the anti-Castro propaganda machine, Radio-TV Marti, which operates out of lush studios in Miami and till this day soaks taxpayers for many millions of controversial dollars. Mas Canosa's three sons now run their father's multi-billion-dollar MasTec Corporation that employs over 15,000 people.
To have even a basic understanding of U.S.-Cuban relations since the 1950s, you need to read and study this book -- "CUBA: WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW by Julia E. Sweig. For sure, what the great Ms. Sweig documents is not available in the mainstream U. S. media, certainly not since newsman Emilio Milian was car-bombed after complaining about Miami-based terrorism against innocent Cubans or since top columnist Jim DeFede was fired by the Miami Herald when he excoriated Miami members of the U. S. Congress -- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers -- for supporting Miami's most famed Cuban-American terrorists. Julia Sweig's book depicted above, for example, details the most important advice the Reagan-Bush administration gave Jorge Mas Canosa when he was anointed leader of the Cuban exiles: Study the Jewish lobby AIPAC and then replicate it. Mas Canosa did, and founded the mighty CANF.
After you have read and studied Julia Sweig's book, you need to read and study Ann Louise Bardach's seminal CUBA Confidential: LOVE AND VENGEANCE IN MIAMI AND HAVANA. Ms. Bardach, far better than anyone else, delineates how Mas Canosa and the other Miami hardliners easily dictated their Cuban policy to the U. S. Congress, over and above any interference from any Democratic president, easily enacting binding U. S. laws such as Helms-Burton that grossly harmed everyday Cubans on the island and greatly helped Cuban hardliners. Ms. Bardach's vivid depiction of Miami hardliners jetting up to Washington to celebrate those laws is beautifully documented but far too juicy for the intimidated mainstream U. S. media to even mention. Ms. Bardach also brilliantly explains how two Democratic presidents -- Carter and Clinton -- were easily blown away when they tried to sanely sanitize America's relations with the island of Cuba.
And so, after this circuitous journey that began with the Patricia Mazzei article that admitted President Obama has beaten Miami because of his sheer brilliance and boldness regarding Cuba, I have ended with the superb books by Julia E. Sweig and Ann Louise Bardach. To understand Obama's victory and that article this week by Patricia Mazzei, you really do need to read those two books by Ms. Sweig and Ms. Bardach. And, I believe, a quotation by William Faulkner actually best sums up America's relations with Cuba from the 1898 Spanish-American War till today. Below is that timely William Faulkner quotation:
And because "the past is never dead, it's not even past," these Cuban-American hardliners in Miami's Little Havana are adamantly opposed to President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. As William Faulkner would know, the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961 is as topical as today's sunrise in Miami.
