Say, "Thanks, Cuba."

 Or at least, we all should!! 

         Even Americans, propagandized since the 1950s to never utter a kind word about Cuba while praising all ex-Cubans, should study this photo and then say, "Thank You, Cuba." This Alexandre Meneghini/ Reuters photo was taken in Havana yesterday -- Wednesday, August 25th, 2016. Thanks to an arduous four-year process brokered relentlessly by Cuba, this handshake officially ended the world's longest war, one that has raged for over five decades between the government of Colombia and the FARC rebels. It has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and maimed countless others, costing billions of dollars, including huge sums from U. S. taxpayers. The handshake officially ending the war yesterday involves FARC leader Ivan Marquez on the left and Humberto de la Calle, representing Colombia, on the right. In the middle representing Cuba is the island's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. STUDY THE PHOTO and don't be afraid to thank Cuba. In a world riven with bloody wars and rampant terrorism, any nation that works so tirelessly, and in this case so successfully, to end the world's longest war should be thanked...EVEN IF IT'S CUBA.

        This John Vizcaino/Reuters photo shows Colombians in a Bogota bar wildly celebrating the peace agreement as they watched live television coverage of the momentous event taking place in Havana.

     This AP photo shows Colombians in Bogota out on the streets celebrating the peace agreement. Huge outside television screens were sending the live coverage from Havana back to them. A 57-year-old Colombian, Orlando Guevara, told the AP, "I can die in peace because finally I'll see my country without violence with a future for my children." Of all the world's nations, his hope was engineered by Cuba. As an American, I wish it had been engineered by America. And I wonder why it wasn't engineered by, say, the United Nations? But it was engineered by Cuba. Does that mean no one is supposed to be congratulated?

          Juan Manuel Santos has been the President of Colombia since 2010. In stark contrast to his predecessor Uribe, President Santos based his legacy on reaching a peace agreement with the FARC.

      President Santos of Colombia himself flew to Havana to help Cuban President Raul Castro broker the monumental peace deal. In this iconic photo, Castro in the middle is jubilant that he succeeded in getting President Santos, on the left, shake hands with the famed FARC guerrilla fighter known as Timoleon.

       Alvaro Uribe, the former Bush-aligned President of Colombia, has expressed fierce opposition to the Cuban-brokered peace treaty between Colombia and FARC. Uribe is shown here with former U. S. President George W. Bush at the White House. In 2002 President Bush sent massive economic and military assistance to Colombia in the belief that Uribe could wipe out FARC "once and for all." It didn't happen.

The former Presidents -- Uribe and Bush -- are still close pals.

And still fiercely opposed to Santos, Cuba & FARC.

       Reminiscent of the Cuban Revolution, many of the key FARC guerrilla fighters were fierce and beautiful young females. This AP photo shows Juliana during a restful moment with her boyfriend Alexis.

Juliana alone with her thoughts prior to a battle.

       This is Yira Castro. She is famed as a fearless veteran female guerrilla FARC fighter and leader. Notice the Apple laptop computer she kept in the Colombian mountains, attesting to her power as a leader and recruiter. During the four years of peace negotiations in Havana, Yira spent 3 years in Cuba as a top FARC negotiator. The FARC movement against the Colombia government began in 1964. Yira says, "I and many other girls devoted our lives to fighting the vast social disparity between the richest Colombians and the majority poor who had nothing but despair." Yira was a FARC leader when its 17,000-person army captured huge swaths of Colombian territory. She does not deny nor apologize for the fact that cocaine and kidnappings helped fund FARC. "We had to survive in order to fight," she said. "And somebody had to fight." 

FARC Guerrillas bathed and washed in mountain streams.

      This is a FARC guerrilla patrol that had spotted government soldiers back in a forest. Juan Pablo, a legendary fighter for three decades, had just made the decision to attack. Juan is the big guy on the left. That's his girlfriend right behind him. The AP caption to this photo said Juan's former girlfriend died in his arms during a battle. A London Daily Mail reporter said this unit returned to camp safely "on this day."

       Robert Frost wrote these classic words about a peaceful and purposeful night in snowy New England woods. But a lot of soldiers and a lot of guerrilla fighters have for decades memorized them and taken comfort from them. Remember Yira Castro, the legendary FARC guerrilla fighter armed with that Apple laptop computer? She said she softly spoke those four Robert Frost lines "over and over" during battles.

WAR IS HELL even for survivors as this photo courtesy of Stephen Ferry and The Guardian attests. This is a young female FARC guerrilla fighter three hours after a fierce battle against government soldiers. She survived. Her best friend didn't. Back in camp, she showered with water flowing through the spigot holes in the bottom of a bucket. Then she put on fresh clothes and sat listlessly at a table. A big pan of hot food was placed before her. She had not spoken a word since the battle, since her friend died in her arms. And despite not have eaten all day, she didn't touch her food. But when this photo was taken, the comrade on her left had just begged her, "Please eat, Maria." She then replied softly, "Why? So I can be alive and healthy when I am slaughtered when we fight again tomorrow? I regret...I washed...Alina's warm blood...off my chest." 

       The Colombia-FARC Civil War had waged on ferociously for five decades. From 2002 till 2010 Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's powerful army -- massively supported by U. S. dollars and arms -- tried desperately to win the war, and couldn't. Uribe's successor, President Juan Manuel Santos, tried a different tactic -- peace. That's President Juan Manuel Santos on the left in the above photo with Cuban President Raul Castro's right arm around his shoulders. Castro's left arm is around Timoleon, the famed FARC guerrilla fighter.  Yesterday -- Wednesday, August 25th, 2016 -- the two sides finally signed an official peace treaty in Havana, the culmination of Cuba's 4-year effort to end the world's longest war and one of the bloodiest. 

 "Thanks, Cuba" 

The quotation marks are mine. Perhaps they should also be yours.

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Cuba Can't Shed the Batistianos

Batista's U. S. Legacy Reigns

       Yesterday -- August 24th, 2016 -- a major article in the Miami Herald blared this headline: "IRS Goes After Pastors for Peace for Sending Aid to Cuba." Americans are not supposed to realize it but the article is a reminder that the Batistianos & Mafiosi booted off the Island by the Cuban Revolution in 1959 were largely kicked only a short distance -- resulting in a quick but soft landing in Miami where recapturing Cuba is still a big dream.

              The Miami Herald article pointed out that the founder of Pastors for Peace, Reverend Lucius Walker, has been "received like a hero" for helping everyday Cubans who have long suffered from such assaults as the U. S. embargo, which has been in effect since 1962 when it was imposed, according to declassified U. S. documents, for the purpose of starving and depriving Cubans to induce them to rise up and overthrow Fidel Castro...after U.S.-based assassination attempts, the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack, etc., had failed to accomplish the reinstatement of the Batistiano-Mafiosi rule in Cuba. The Miami Herald yesterday mentioned the aid Pastors for Peace has managed to get to needy Cubans and then reported: "But Pastors for Peace now faces punishment for its charitable acts from...the Internal Revenue Service. The organization was recently informed that it will lose its tax-exempt status for failing to disclose its shipments to Cuba." Yet, as indicated by the above photo, Pastors for Peace has long made no secret of its many shipments of aid to Cuba.

      The U. S. embargo against Cuba...Cuba calls it a blockade...has since 1962 severely harmed millions of Cubans on the island while also severely harming the worldwide image of the United States and democracy. But that fact, of course, doesn't concern those who have insisted on maintaining it for the past half-century and plan to keep it in place for the next half-century, or at least until the Batistiano remnants and their easily-acquired congressional sycophants reclaim the plush island.

        Despite the ongoing efforts of good people like President Obama, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Congresswoman Kathy Castor and Pastors for Peace, the longest and cruelest embargo/blockade ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation remains very much in vogue to sate the revenge, political and economic appetites of a small but powerful minority very willing to mock the U. S. democracy as well as the 191-to-2 yearly vote in the United Nations that vehemently opposes them.

This image of America pleases a few but shames many.

       The two-bit army sergeant Fulgencio Batista had one lucrative stint as Cuba's ruler in the 1940s. But it's his second stint as Cuba's brutal, thieving dictator -- from 1952 till 1959 -- that shames America the most to this day.

      Meyer Lansky was the financial brains of the U. S. Mafia, second in power only behind his buddy Lucky Luciano. Both men had long craved Cuba, as had many politicians in Washington. It so happens that one day the semi-retired Lansky mentioned to his retired friend Batista, "I've always wanted the Mob to own its own country." That comment gave author Enrique Cirules the title and sub-title for his book: "A CARIBBEAN MOB STORY: The Mafia in Havana." Batista, following his rule of Cuba in the early 1940s, still had friends in Washington and Havana. So in 1952 Batista easily fulfilled Lansky's long-time dream.

       Beginning in 1952, the trio above -- Luciano, Lansky and Batista -- relished their brutal, thieving dictatorship in Cuba that was powerfully and shamefully supported by the world's most powerful and most famed democracy, America. It seems that key people in the Eisenhower administration...Nixon, the Dulles brothers, etc...in 1952 thought Lansky's dream about the Mob owning its own country, nearby Cuba, was a wonderful idea.

The April 21-1952 edition of Time featured Batista on its cover.

         This photo shows U. S. President Dwight Eisenhower warmly shaking the hand of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. In the center with his head bowed but softly grinning is Secretary of State John Foster Dulles whose brother Allen was CIA Director. Later...decades later...it would become known that the omnipotent Dulles brothers had strong connections to the United Fruit Company, the most infamous of the many American companies that benefited from U.S.-friendly dictators in the Caribbean and Latin America.

       But robbing the island blind while starving the peasants was not the reason the world's most improbable revolution began a do-or-die rebellion against the Batista dictatorship that was considered unbeatable because it was backed by the U. S., the strongest nation in the world, and by the Mafia, the strongest criminal organization in the world. However, the biggest mistakes Batista and the Mafia {and thus Washington} made in Cuba were the routine murders of children designed to quell dissent. It had the opposite effect, spawning marches like the one depicted above in which very brave "madres Cubanas" -- Cuban mothers -- vividly and loudly protested the murders of their "hijos" -- children. Americans were aware of these marches because top New York Times reporter Herbert L. Mathews told them exactly what was happening in Cuba. The Americans didn't care. But a young Cuban lawyer...his name was Fidel Castro...took note of the marches. He then concluded that women brave enough and outraged enough to do that would join a revolution as guerrilla fighters. Many did -- Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, Vilma Espin, Tete Puebla, etc., etc. -- and Fidel Castro repeated as late as April of 2016 that "I believe my judgment about Cuban women was unique at the time and is the best one I've ever made." 

The U. S. trained the Batistianos at Fort Benning, Georgia;

Then in Nicaragua for the failed Bay of Pigs attack in 1961.

       After overthrowing Batista, Fidel Castro in April of 1959 spent 12 days in the United States as a well-received U. S. hero. He believed the Eisenhower administration would permit Cuba and the U. S. to normalize relations. But this photo revealed that wasn't to be. Vice President Richard Nixon surprised and infuriated Castro by proclaiming that the U. S. and the Cuban exiles would quickly "regain control of Cuba."

       After those Nixon-marred 12 days in the U. S. in April of 1959, the two most important revolutionaries -- Celia Sanchez and Fidel Castro -- returned to the island determined that Nixon's bold prediction would never come true. By the time she was back on Cuba soil, Celia Sanchez...not Fidel Castro...was the one envisioning the Soviet Union, the world's other nuclear superpower, as the only counterbalance to the United States. It was Celia Sanchez who countered Nixon's proclamation with one of her own: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." Celia died at age 59 of cancer in 1980 but the now 90-year-old Fidel is still alive. And thus, so is Celia's proclamation to this day.

        My favorite Celia quotation is her very prophetic rebuke of Nixon. But THE WOMAN PROJECT.ORG favors the one above: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots." I suppose, if she were alive today, Celia Sanchez would assign the same credit to the Batistianos and Mafiosi for the longevity of her Cuban Revolution.

      In 1960 the nascent Kennedy administration -- President John and Attorney General Robert -- inherited secretive Eisenhower administration plans to recapture Cuba. The Kennedy brothers dutifully carried through with multiple assassination attempts against Fidel in 1959, the Bay of Pigs attack in 1961 and the embargo/blockade in 1962. But by 1963 the Kennedy brothers both considered their Cuban actions their "biggest regret," as John told key aides such as Pierre Salinger and Robert told close associates including his wife Ethel. At one point, President Kennedy -- far angrier with the CIA than with Fidel Castro -- famously bellowed out loudly that he wished he could "blow the CIA to Smithereens!!" Indeed, in November of 1963 -- prior to his fateful trip to Dallas -- President Kennedy told his top aides that his top priority when he returned to Washington was to normalize relations with Cuba. If he had returned to Washington alive, the popular young President basking in Camelot glory probably would have accomplished that priority.

      For a myriad of reasons, the 1000 days of the Kennedy presidency were deeply intertwined with Fidel Castro's Cuba because of what Kennedy had inherited from the Eisenhower-Nixon administration.

         The strikingly handsome and awesomely popular John Kennedy Jr. went to Havana to personally show that he had no animosity towards Fidel Castro and "neither did my father." This photo shows John Jr. directly across the dinner table as he talked to Fidel. John Jr. tragically died in a plane crash in 1999.

     Just as Kennedy inherited the anti-Cuban vitriol from Eisenhower, President Obama has inherited massive anti-Cuban venom from the George W. Bush administration as well as from a Republican-dominated Congress. Yet, Obama has managed to apply more decency and sanity to U.S.-Cuban relations than all U. S. Presidents since 1952 combined. But still, remnants of the Batista dictatorship, ousted in 1959, still control most of the Cuban narrative and much of the Cuban policy in the United States. 

    The revolution that ended the Batista-Mafia rule in Cuba.

       After overthrowing Batista, Castro spent those fruitless 12 days in the U. S. in April of 1959 hoping that the Eisenhower administration would allow Cuba to have somewhat normal relations with America.

     Roberto Salas took this photo of Fidel in New York in April, 1959.

Celia Sanchez in New York City in April of 1959.

        Free educations and free health care as well as free food and free shelter, if needed, have been some of the successes of the revolution, along with failures and setbacks. While the U. S. has helped many countries and people around the world, it has yet to help Cuba and its people, at least prior to Mr. Obama. 

        From 1959 till today -- Aug. 25-2016  -- the so-called Miami Cuban Mafia has been able to dictate, to an inordinate degree, America's Cuban policy. Yesterday's Miami Herald article about the U.S./IRS "punishing" Pastors for Peace for shipping some aid to needy Cubans is a case in point that shames America. 

Meanwhile: 

       Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is co-sponsoring a bill that would help President Obama end the embargo and normalize relations with Cuba. But it seems the unpopular 535-member U. S. Congress simply does not have enough people with her combination of courage, astuteness, decency and patriotism.

        Senator Amy Klobuchar proudly posted this photo on her Senate website. It shows her in Havana celebrating the reopening of the United States Cuban embassy that had been closed ever since 1961. 

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Hurt Americans to Hurt Cuba

 Obama Tries to Stop It 
{Updated: Wednesday, August 24th, 2016}

         The great British news agency, Reuters, used the above image this week -- Monday, August 22nd, 2016 -- to explain what U. S. President Obama is trying to do in his herculean attempt to normalize relations with Cuba: Obama wants to correct a longstanding U.S. Cuban policy that, while created to hurt Cuba and bring about regime-change on the island, also hurts not only America's image worldwide but also directly hurts Americans in many ways. Of course, two generations of propagandized Americans since the 1950s are not supposed to be brave enough or smart enough to comprehend that. And, of course, the handful of vicious, self-serving and revengeful Cuban-Americans -- and their easily acquired handful of sycophants in the U. S. Congress -- don't give a damn about America's image or about hurting Americans in order to hurt Cuba.

              This week A T & T announced that it has signed a deal with Cuba's Etecsa telecom provider so A T & T can offer direct roaming services to its customers when they visit Cuba, which is much easier now, thanks to Obama, than it has been in almost six decades. Prior to Obama any such services had to be routed between other countries if Americans in Cuba wanted to make phone calls, etc. That sharply reduced the quality and was much more expensive. Other prime U. S. carriers -- Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile -- had already signed such deals with Cuba. And those are big deals because, in addition to helping Cubans on the island, they ALSO HELP AMERICANS. While that may displease a few Cuban-American hardliners and their most eager supporters, it reflects how President Obama is trying to change and ease a Cuban policy that hurts innocent Cubans, Americans and America's best friends all around the world.

       President Obama's extremely brave and astute efforts to correct six decades of a debilitating anti-Cuban policy that is actually more anti-American than anything else has a multitude of decent parameters -- including jobs for Americans. It is known that, as he embarked on his majestic Cuban policy, he made a pertinent comment to his key adviser {wife Michelle} that closely resembled these words: "Honey, if Americans had an inkling as to how our Cuban policy angers our friends and delights our enemies, maybe they would insist that it be changed. Or if they had any inkling as to how much of their tax dollars for decades have been devoted to regime-change programs and anti-Cuban propaganda vessels such as Miami's Marti broadcasts, maybe they would insist that it be changed." That lament, according to an Obama confidant, was for Michelle's ears only. She listened intently and then offered this sage advice: "Then go to it. You've been saying that to me for two years. Congress is Congress but you are the President." The next morning -- a December morning in 2014 at the White House -- President Obama began heeding his best adviser's advice.

A very smart, caring, and patriotic First Lady.

      In just a few days -- on August 31st -- jetBlue Airlines will register another huge Obama-orchestrated step in his dramatic efforts to defy Congress and normalize relations with Cuba, another historic move that will help both Americans and Cubans. Since 1962 the U. S. embargo has prevented commercial flights from the U. S. to Cuba. On August 31st a jetBlue commercial plane will depart from Fort Lauderdale and land in Santa Clara, Cuba!!! That's BIG news, so permit me to repeat it: ON AUGUST 31ST A jetBlue COMMERCIAL AIRPLANE WILL DEPART FROM FORT LAUDERDALE AND LAND IN SANTA CLARA, CUBA!!! And next month jetBlue, which has permission for 7 daily flights to Cuba, plans to start service to Holguin and Camaguey.

         In the eager battle to begin commercial flights to Cuba for the first time in half-a-century, American Airlines has been awarded 13 daily flights. Ten U. S. airports will soon offer daily service to Cuban cities.

      Not only will airlines make money with the historic flights to Cuba, but it will also benefit many Americans in jobs related to the industry. That's why these workers connected to American Airlines are proudly displaying a Cuban flag. Like most Americans and Cuban-Americans, they support Mr. Obama's initiatives, not the cruel and out-dated embargo that benefits revenge and political motives of a few.

       The red dots on this map indicate six of the Cuban cities that American Airlines will be flying to. The Obama and Cuban plans call for up to 110 daily flights from the U. S. to ten Cuban cities. Havana is the grand prize for the U. S. airlines but Jose Marti Airport in the capital city is already being severely challenged with current traffic as Obama has also sliced into the embargo by opening up more reasons for Americans to visit the island. Since 1962 Americans, to quench a revenge thirst for a few Cuban-exiles, have been the only people in the world without the freedom to travel to nearby Cuba. That apparently is so a few Cuban-exiles can dictate the Cuban narrative to Americans as opposed to Americans being able to judge the island for themselves. American plans 4 daily flights from Miami and one from Atlanta. Alaska Airlines will make one daily flight from Los Angeles. Delta will have one daily round-trip from Atlanta, one from JFK Airport in New York, and one from Miami. Frontier will have one daily round-trip from Miami. JetBlue will fly two round-trips a day from Fort Lauderdale, one from New York City, and one from Orlando. Southwest has 2 daily round-trips from Fort Lauderdale and one from Tampa. Spirit Airlines has two daily round-trips from Fort Lauderdale. And United has one weekly round-trip on Saturdays from Houston and one daily round-trip from Newark. American got the bonanza with 13 daily flights to the six Cuban cities highlighted with the red dots above. That includes one daily flight from Charlotte to Havana and four daily flights from Miami to Havana. All ten Cuban airports are undergoing hasty upgrades in preparation.

IN OTHER WORDS, President Obama believes that America should apply some decency and democracy to its relations with Cuba. From a legacy standpoint, his Cuban actions against powerful forces reveal him to be a great man, a great president and a great patriot. I don't believe the same can be said of his enemies.

       President Obama believes that rosy-cheeked little Cuban girls should not, unlike the entire lifetimes of their mothers, be punished all their lives by regime-change moguls hiding behind the skirts of the U. S. government, much like the Batistianos and the Mafiosi did when they ruled Cuba from 1952 till 1959. 

And by the way:

        On my first day in Cuba, I asked the clerk at the Victoria Hotel where I might be able to see a Tody, the incredibly tiny and beautiful Cuban state bird. She said the Tody is found only in Cuba and only in two particular places, which she marked on a map for me. The next day, my driver and I hooked up with three Belgium tourists also looking for a Tody. With their help, I got to watch two Todies fluttering back-and-forth from a perch and expertly snatching bugs out of the tropical air, and it's a mighty memorable memory.   

Clockwise: A Goldfinch, a Cardinal, I'm not sure, and a Woodpecker.

Can you help me with I'm not sure? 

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