23.9.17

The Cuba-U.S. Divide

It SHOULD Get Much Wider!!
{Sunday, September 24th, 2017}
      This week - Friday, Sept. 22, 2017 -- Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez addressed the United Nations General Assembly session in New York. Mr. Rodriguez used the occasion to solicit donations to help Cubans whose homes and most of their other possessions were destroyed by the ravages of Hurricane Irma.
     Very innocently and benevolently, Cuba's Bruno Rodriguez displayed this graphic at the United Nations this week to show how anyone wishing to help Hurricane Irma victims in Cuba could donate. He was not demanding anything but just pleading.
      But not everyone thought Cuba's request for donations to help devastated Cubans was either innocent or benevolent!!!
     Virtually within minutes of Cuba's fervent plea at the UN this week requesting donations for victims of Hurricane Irma, Mimi Whitefield had penned an article in the Miami Herald with this jarring two-sentence headline: "CUBA SETS UP HURRICANE RELIEF BANK ACCOUNT. U. S. CITIZENS SHOULD BE WARY OF CONTRIBUTING."
          Although that vicious reaction in the Miami Herald, which has been dominated by vicious counter-revolutionaries since 1959, is not surprising, I would like to ask Mimi Whitefield this question: "If there was an account set up requesting donations to expedite the embargo's attempt to starve and deprive Cubans on the island to entice them to rise up and overthrow their government, would you then have a two-sentence headline suggesting, by all means, that U. S. citizens contribute to that??? {As I was asking that question I wondered if Mimi Whitefield thinks it is appropriate?}.
     In my opinion...if indeed I'm allowed to have one as a democracy-loving U. S. citizen...the aforementioned Miami Herald headline proves that the already extreme Cuba-U.S. Divide should be wider...much wider. A sovereign island nation trying to go deep into a second half-century surviving against the nefarious plans of vicious counter-revolutionaries hiding behind the skirts of the world's superpower is, I believe, a sovereign island nation that would be better off severing all ties with that behemoth. A tired, tasty lamb trying to sleep with a hungry, vicious lion is, I sincerely believe, a no-win situation.
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22.9.17

Cuba Is Back to Business

Despite Hurricanes, Embargo, etc.!!
Photo courtesy of Sven Greulzmann/Mambo Photos/Getty Images.
       The outstanding photo above was used to illustrate a major article this week in the Americas Quarterly written by Collin Lavery, one of America's greatest experts on U.S.-Cuban relations. The article is entitled: "After Irma, Cubans Are Ready to Get Back to Business." The two young Cuban girls above are getting back to enjoying life after the recent devastation caused by Hurricane Irma and after they, as well as their parents, have been punished all their lives by the U. S. embargo of their island.


      When a true Cuban expert like Collin Lavery writes an honest, updated and insightful article about what's happening in Cuba, Americans should read it because, for the most part, the Cuban narrative in the U. S. is saturated by a pack of lies and distortions purposely crafted only by counter-revolutionary Cuban-Americans.


     
     In his aforementioned article Collin Lavery wrote: "Hurricane Irma was expected to largely skirt Cuba, sweeping over the eastern tip of the island before barreling toward Florida. Instead, the monstrous storm practically ran the length of the nation, leaving a path of destruction along the northern coast. This was the first time the eye of a category five storm reached the island since 1932, and the traumatic consequences were dire. The Malecon, Havana's famed seawall, was no match for the 20-foot swells that hurled against it. Irma did not, however, take the resilience, resolve and spirit of the Cuban people. It did not leave Cuba uninhabitable and it didn't destroy the beauty the country has to offer. But you wouldn't know that from the news. Media coverage focused on..." It was then that Collin Lavery correctly criticized the mainstream American media that has, even when a devastating hurricane constitutes the big Cuban news, neither the competence nor the guts to tell the truth about Cuba but the United States media is a lapdog conduit for counter-revolutionary lies and distortions.
    The London Daily News is an online superstar. It's major article this week is entitled: "Damning Evidence Cuba Launched A Si-Fi Sonic Weapon At America."
      The Daily News used the above graphic to illustrate its "damning" article accusing Cuba of purposely using some sort of "sonic weapon" to harm about two dozen Americans attached to the Obama-reopened U. S. embassy in Havana.
     The "Sonic Wave" mystery is being used by counter-revolutionary Cubans and some proselytized Americans to insist that, among other things, President Trump's U. S. government close its embassy in Havana and Cuba's embassy in Washington that the brave U. S. President Obama had reopened for the first time since 1961.
         But since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January of 1959, Revolutionary Cuba and its capital city have been targeted by counter-revolutionary bombings, terrorist acts, military attacks, and self-serving lies that include lavishly calculated and well-funded actions designed as pretexts to justify continuous attempts at overthrowing Cuba's revolutionary government. In 1996 when President Clinton was considering normalizing relations with Cuba, Brothers to the Rescue planes from Miami, led by a notable counter-revolutionary, began overflying Cuban territory, even Havana, and even after Cuba begged both the U. S. State Department and the United Nations to stop the overflights. Cuba ended up shooting down two of the planes, not only changing President Clinton's mind but forcing him to sign the ultra-punitive Helms-Burton Act into law and, as a financial offshoot, hundreds of millions of dollars were awarded to relatives of the four shoot-down victims. Now many observers believe the current "Sonic Mystery" may be a similar perpetration...either by counter-revolutionaries in the U. S. OR by hardliners in Cuba who oppose the Obama-orchestrated peaceful overtures between the two nations. Meanwhile, the U. S. embassy as well as U. S. homes in Havana have been swept for evidence as have rooms in the Spanish-run Capri Hotel where Americans stay.
     Even insiders like Michael Parmly, considered by Cuba to be a staunch Bush-connected U. S. counter-revolutionary, believe that counter-revolutionaries may be behind the sonic assaults on Americans in Havana attached to the U. S. embassy. And even some Trump appointees believe that Cuban President Raul Castro is as flummoxed and alarmed about the situation as anyone. He has requested that the FBI and CIA send top agents to Havana to investigate. He also has welcomed the Canadian Royal Mounties to investigate in Havana because at least one person at the Canadian embassy has been victimized by the sonic or electronic vibes. Cuba surely would not purposely harm its close relationship with Canada, especially now that Cuba-loving Justin Trudeau, the son of former Cuba-loving Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, is now Canada's Prime Minister and is a needed North American friend.
     During the fiercely anti-Cuban George W. Bush presidency, Michael Parmly was the head of the U. S. Interests Section in Havana from 2005 till 2008, and he was noted for mocking and harassing the Cuban government. So he knows something about nuances in U.S.-Cuban relations. He believes counter-revolutionaries in Miami or hardliners in Cuba might be using the sonic attacks to undermine President Raul Castro's peaceful agreements with the Obama administration in the United States. Parmly said, "There is a struggle going on for the soul of the Cuban Revolution. It's entirely possible there are rogue elements." The Washington Post -- in a major article entitled "Cuba Mystery. Even Castro Baffled by Harm to U. S. Diplomats" seemed to agree with Parmly that rouge elements in both the United States and Cuba strongly oppose rapprochement between the two neighbors. Parmly now lives in Switzerland and apparently is no longer an anti-Cuban hardliner; in 2013 he began arguing that the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay should be returned to Cuba.
      While America's President Trump was lambasting Cuba in his first UN address this week, Cuba's top expert on the U. S., Josefina Vidal, was back in Washington. She was representing Cuba at the 6th U.S.-Cuba Commission, which has alternated between Havana and Washington since it was started by the Obama administration. This marked the first time it was held during the Trump presidency and it took place on the heels of his UN address Tuesday. The Miami Herald, in a major article written by Mimi Whitefield, said that Vidal "wasn't very cordial in her reactions to Trump's UN accusations." At the U. S. Commission session in Washington Vidal said: "Cuba strongly protests and resents the disrespectful, unacceptable and meddling statements made by President Donald Trump in his address to the UN General Assembly. This Commission designed for harmony meets in the backdrop of a reversal of U.S.-Cuba relations from that of the previous 2-term Obama presidency."
       During the Obama presidency, Josefina Vidal negotiated on friendly terms with two Americans she deeply respects -- Jeffrey de Laurentis and Roberta Jacobson, who were Obama's two prime diplomats related to Cuba. Roberta is now the U. S. Ambassador to Mexico and Obama appointed Jeffrey the U. S. Ambassador to Cuba. But counter-revolutionary U. S. Senator Marco Rubio from Miami held up Roberta's badly needed posting in Mexico City for months and Rubio to this day has blocked the U. S. from having an Ambassador at the new U. S. embassy in Havana. Allowing Rubio or a handful of self-serving zealots like him to dictate America's Cuban policy mocks both America and democracy, but that's the way it's been since 1959 except for Obama's two terms as President. Thus, decent Cubans like Josefina Vidal and decent Americans like Jeffrey de Laurentis and Roberta Jacobson are routinely victimized by unchecked miscreants such as Marco Rubio.
      The above photo shows Josefina Vidal on Dec. 7-2016 when she hosted the 5th U.S.-Cuba Commission in Havana. This week Mimi Whitefield in the Miami Herald summed up the 6th Commission session in Washington with this paragraph: "By contrast, the previous meeting last Dec. 7th in Havana was a comparative love fest with the sides noting achievements in U.S.-Cuban relations, including signing 11 non-binding agreements on health, the environment, counter-narcotics, and other areas of agreement." But there was no "love fest" this week.
      The Mimi Whitefield article in the Miami Herald also reported that Josefina Vidal spoke out strongly regarding the ongoing mystery about the sonic attacks on Americans in Havana after the issue was brought up by United States representative John Creamer in Washington this week. Vidal sternly said, "Cuba has never perpetrated nor will it every perpetrate action of this nature, and Cuba has never permitted nor will it ever permit any third-party use of its territory for that purpose. Cuba has a keen interest in clarifying what happened to the diplomats." As the long-time top Cuban Minister regarding U. S. affairs, Vidal believed "perhaps my prime task is being on the alert for elements in Miami and Washington trying to goad Cuba into a reaction they could use to justify a regime change in our sovereign country, meaning a U. S. puppet as in America's Caribbean and Latin American past."
      Vidal is also outspoken on Twitter Q & As. There are indications that she is becoming more convinced that negotiating with the U. S. is useless when "any Republican White House and a couple of Miami Cubans can reverse anything achieved by respectable people operating in the best interests of most Cubans, Americans, and Cuban-Americans." It is also apparent in Cuba that the all-important young-adult generation agrees with Vidal during a transitional period on the island after the Nov. 25-2016 death of 90-year-old Fidel Castro and the impending Feb.-2018 retirement of 86-year-old Raul Castro. At one point in time Fidel told Vidal he would support her if she "wanted one day to be Cuba's leader." She recovered in time to let him know that she preferred being "a revolutionary diplomat for you and for Cuban sovereignty." 
      But being Cuba's top diplomat related to the United States, Vidal seems tormented by the realization that "reversals" by current U. S. President Donald Trump negates "many months, years" of the "positive accomplishments" she negotiated with the decent and courageous Obama presidency. Trump's UN speech this week, as chronicled above, re-convinced Vidal that Trump has neither the courage or the decency to oppose Cuban extremists in Miami and in the United States Congress.
      Obama was the first American President since 1962 to have both the courage and the decency to simply say: "Recognize that the Cold War is over. Lift the embargo."
            Barack Obama was the first American President since Herbert Hoover in 1928 to visit Cuba. And once there, on live television in both Cuba and the U. S., President Obama told the Cuban people, "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." He spoke those words sincerely in March of 2016, not knowing that by September of 2017 a President named Trump would revert America's Cuban policies back to a Miami U. S. Senator named Rubio, to the detriment of the American democracy and everyone other than a handful of counter-revolutionary extremists.
      And that brings us back around to the photo above that Cuban expert Collin Lavery used to illustrate his insightful article this week entitled "After Irma, Cuba Is Ready to Get Back to Business." Collin Lavery knows the two happy Cuban girls survived Hurricane Irma and he seems to believe they will survive Trump and Rubio. Decent people like Collin Lavery and Josefina Vidal are convinced that rich people in a powerful country should not prey on poorer people in a weaker country.
And by the way:
     This week The Voice of America used the above photo-graphic to highlight this pertinent question: "Is the U. S. really ready, willing and able to 'totally destroy' North Korea, as President Trump asserted during his speech at the UN General Assembly? An analyst tells VOA the U. S. 'better be ready to go all in and be ready to finish it.'"
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20.9.17

Trump Targets Cuba Anew

Aligned with Batistianos at UN!
{Updated: Thursday, September 21st, 2017}
       America's President Donald Trump made his first speech at the United Nations Tuesday. It was a confrontational "America first" tirade that lasted 41 minutes.
       Not unexpectedly, Trump drew some gasps at the UN when he said he may be forced to "totally destroy" North Korea. He also threatened Iran and Syria but conspicuously omitted criticism of superpowers China and Russia. He earlier had mentioned he was considering "military action" in Venezuela but at the UN, while expounding on that threat, he didn't use such explicit words. Surprisingly, he mentioned Cuba five times, each time in extremely derogatory and threatening tones. The Miami Herald, fronting an article written by Franco Ordonez, quickly blared this headline: "Trump Threatens Venezuela and Puts Cuba on Notice." In his bombastic tone, he said, "Cuba is delivering only anguish and failure to its people. We will not lift sanctions against Cuba until the government in Havana makes fundamental changes." In the 41-minute UN speech, Trump used the words "sovereign" or "sovereignty" 21 times. What he meant in regards to Cuba is very, very clear: Cuba must fundamentally change by surrendening its sovereignty and returning its fate to the Batista-Mafia remnants in Miami and in the U. S. Congress. That, of course, is the crowd that the Cuban Revolution chased to American soil.
      This photo at the UN shows Trump huddling with his Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. Any Cuban watcher should have concluded long ago that his appointment of Haley clearly signaled that Trump would turn over his Cuban policy to Haley's best political friend -- the counter-revolutionary U. S. Senator from Miami Marco Rubio.
      The most ambitious of Trump's appointments is Nikki Haley. She gave up her position as Governor of South Carolina only because she believes the higher national profile as UN Ambassador will expedite her path to the presidency. She caters to Trump now but she doesn't like him and she will undercut and double-cross Trump in a eyelash when the opportunity presents itself, and that may be sooner than later.
     During the heated Republican presidential campaign in 2016, as the Governor of South Carolina, Nikkie Haley campaign wildly for Marco Rubio. In that process both Haley and Rubio mocked and assailed Trump unmercifully. But now Trump is President and, as blatant turncoats, they will pretend to be working with Trump while scheming to destroy him. It is known that when Haley leaves her UN post in New York to travel to Washington, she mostly huddles with the ultimate schemer Rubio.
        Nikki Haley's love for Marco Rubio is eternal and well known in Washington's political circles. That's bad news for Cuba but worse news for Trump because there are two foxes in Trump's hen-house, ready to feast when the time is right and that figures to be well before Trump's first term ends in 2020. Trump is facing a daily and unending media coup being perpetrated relentlessly by omnipotent coup-mongers led by NBC-MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. That's rather formidable, but it's not as big a threat to Trump as Haley and Rubio.
    To demonstrate how much Nikki Haley hates Trump and loves Cuban-American counter-revolutionaries, especially Marco Rubio, the instant her beloved Marco Rubio was unceremoniously booted out of the Republican presidential primary by Trump, Haley then campaigned furiously for Senator Ted Cruz against Trump till Trump also eliminated presidential wannabe Cruz. Then, stupidly and probably fatally, President Trump talked with Haley about her becoming Secretary of State. She declined, believing she wasn't prepared for that. But she accepted the position as UN Ambassador as her path to the presidency. Political insiders now believe she feels fortified enough to replace Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, the most powerful cabinet position in the Trump presidency, although to date Haley has made the UN job the most gratuitous for her with a profile on foreign affairs already higher than Tillerson's. But Cruz is only Haley's second favorite counter-revolutionary Cuban. Rubio is and will forever be her first choice. She envisions both herself and Rubio as future Presidents with either of them still young enough for a Vice Presidential stint.
       At the UN Tuesday Nikki Haley was the obedient fox in President Trump's hen-house. In the above photo the dour expression on First Lady Melania's face might have been because of the nearness of Haley, whom Melania does not like and doesn't trust. The First Lady speaks five languages including German, French and Italian. And her instincts regarding Haley and Rubio are also superior to Trump's as he dangerously assumes his White House hens are safe and the two foxes are his pals.
       At the United Nations next month the Batistiano-loving Nikki Haley will cast a vehement "No!" vote for the United States against ending the U. S. embargo against Cuba. That decision has been made and it will be announced prior to October.
      By contrast, the decent President Obama's Ambassador to the United Nations was the brilliant and kind-hearted Samatha Power, a true and experienced U. S. diplomat.
      On October 26, 2016, in a heart-wrenching speech at the UN, Ambassador Samantha Power explained why the Obama administration could not support the U. S. government's own Congress-directed embargo against the "suffering" Cuban people.
     Last year the more decent Obama administration wasn't nasty enough to vote in the UN to support the embargo against Cuba that has been in effect since 1962 and is considered the longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation. Thus, last October the UN vote condemning the embargo was, as shown above, 191-to-0. The U. S. abstained and thus so did Israel, which is dependent on massive economic and military support from the United States. Again next month 193 nations will vote on the embargo. This time Haley's vote and Israel's vote will guarantee there will not be a 191-to-0 unanimity this year. Based on the Batistiano-mandated Helms-Burton Act, only Congress can eliminate the embargo and a mere handful of Batistianos control the 535-member Congress as far as Cuba is concerned. If and when they control the White House, the goal of capturing America before they re-capture Cuba will finally be chaotically complete, and the current generation of Americans is neither brave enough nor patriotic enough to prevent it.
      Cuba calls the U. S. embargo a genocidal blockade. For over half-a-century it has severely hurt two generations of totally innocent Cubans, such as the ones above. 
    The anti-Cuba/anti-Venezuela boondoggles at the UN this week reveal how the Trump presidency is sandwiched between's Miami's extremist contributions to the U. S. Congress -- Marco Rubio and Mario Diaz-Balart. The Miami counter-revolutionaries, of course, don't  have to explain to intimidated democracy-lovers that over two million Cuban-Americans in South Florida, a decisive majority, favor normal relations with Cuba but it seems only radical, self-serving extremists are eligible to be elected to Congress. Rubio, with stalwarts like Nikki Haley in his hip-pocket, is positioned to dictate Trump's upcoming assaults on Cuba as well as his threatened "military action" against Venezuela, and that would be a Miami-parlay reminiscent of the terrorist bombing of Cubana Flight 455 and the short-lived 2002 coup in Venezuela, with both events Miami-related. The first lofty praise of Trump's Miami-directed UN threat against Cuba came from Mario Diaz-Balart who was quickly quoted in the aforementioned Miami Herald as lauding Trump for "dealing a clear message of freedom against the tyranny of despotic regimes." Of course, speaking of despotic regimes, Mario's father was a key Minister in the Batista-Mafia regime in Cuba before he helped make Little Havana in Miami the regime's new capital back in 1959.
     Mario Diaz-Balart's older brother, Havana-born Lincoln, preceded him in the U. S. Congress form Miami and another brother, Jose, is an anchor at NBC-MSNBC where every anchor and pundit are required to be anti-Trump extremists, not broadcast journalists. But impeaching Trump to pave the way for Rubio and the Diaz-Balarts would simply be replacing an anti-Cuban President with a counter-revolutionary Commander-in-Chief who likely would almost immediately try to make up for the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack, which Revolutionary Cuba famously repelled.
    Cuba's UN Ambassador, Anazansi Rodriguez Camejo, said, "Neither Trump nor his ambassador here have any right to lecture any Latin American nation about despots when the United States' history, so well known to every Latin American nation, is one of supporting wicked dictatorships from Batista to Trujillo to Pinochet, and that includes multiple coups that overthrew democratically elected governments to put their despots in place. So what's just another American coup against a Latin American nation?"
      At the UN, Anazansi Rodriguez Camejo admits her heart is back in Cuba and "more concerned with hurricane recovery than I am with Trump and his Miami Cubans."
     The President of the Havana Defense Council, Mercedes Lopez Acea, updated the ongoing recovery from the devastation left by Hurricane Irma: "Transmission networks have been restored in Havana. Also, work on repairing the electrical network in the capital is almost completed. We sent 200 lineman from Havana to Villa Clara province to restore electrical services. But the damage is so immense to private homes. In 2008 three consecutive hurricanes -- Ike, Gustau and Paloma -- damaged or destroyed over 200,000 homes. Irma was so big it was like that in its ferocity."
      Understandably, Cubans right now are more concerned with coping with the Hurricane Irma damage than with the upcoming damage they expect from President Trump and what Anazansi Rodriguez Camejo called Trump's "Miami Cubans."
      The quotation by Anazansi Rodriguez Camejo at the United Nations this week rekindles memories of the historic quotation by Cuba's greatest revolutionary heroine Celia Sanchez: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots."
And by the way:
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18.9.17

America's Cuban Albatross

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

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