Beautiful Horizons

Putting an End to the Sham

Full disclosure: while I have nothing but contempt for Fidel Castro and his minions, I oppose the US Embargo against Cuba. It is little more than a convenient scapegoat for the powers that be to blame the US for their failed economy.

To the best of my knowledge, no other country has an embargo against trade with Cuba. Cuba is free to trade with every country in the Americas save the USA, the European Union, China, India, Japan, etc. This is precisely why the embargo is both ridiculous and is not harming Cuba:

“Cuba does have problems,” said Kirby Jones, a business consultant, stating the obvious at the start of a meeting last week that brought American travel industry executives and Cuban government officials to Cancún to strategize on what might, and what might not, play out in the years ahead.

Mr. Jones urged potential investors to banish certain words from their minds — Bay of Pigs, dissidents, Elián González, hijackers and socialism, for instance — and to focus on the fact that the Cuban government had already joined more than 200 joint ventures with foreign corporations, none of them American.

“Everyone is there, except us,” he told the travel agents, hoteliers, tour operators, charter companies and others with an eye on Cuba. “There are offices and representatives of over 500 companies around the world. Nobody knows when it will open up for Americans, but it will.”

There are only two groups who benefit from the embargo: the old guard anti-Castro fanatics who believe it's doing any good and the ruling powers in Cuba. Get rid of it.

Meet the new boss

This McClatchy article suggests that there's not much new under the Cuban sun.

Don't Hold Your Breath

As appealing as this may be to some - myself included - it will probably have very little impact in the short term:

“My basic duty is not to cling to office, nor even more so, to obstruct the rise of people much younger, but to pass on experiences and ideas whose modest value arises from the exceptional era in which I lived,” said the statement attributed to Mr. [Fidel] Castro, who is 81.

"Not to cling to office?!?!" He's been jefe for nearly fifty years. He must be speaking in geologic time.

I Feel Safer

Knowing that Fiorella Maza is  back in Peru certainly makes me feel safer. This Peruvian track star, college student and ballet dancer was clearly a threat to our values:

Fiorella Maza, a standout student, ballet dancer and track star, had just started her freshman year at Miami Dade College when immigration agents knocked on her door.

Instantly, her middle-class American life was turned upside down.

Maza now spends most of her time inside a drafty old home in Peru's capital city. She's dislodged from her circle of friends, socially disoriented. She speaks only rudimentary Spanish.

''I never thought I could be sent to Peru,'' said Maza, 19, who was brought to West Kendall illegally as a toddler and was deported in March. ``It's like a foreign country to me.''

Don't get outraged just yet. Save your anger for  this:

A federal judge dropped charges against former CIA operative and anti-Castro Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles on Tuesday, blasting what she called government "fraud, deceit and trickery" in an interview with Posada that led to the charges.  

Posada, 79, was charged with seven counts of immigration fraud. He was arrested in Miami in May 2005 after entering the country illegally.

U.S. district judge Kathleen Cardone ordered Posada's electronic bracelet cut off in the courtroom Tuesday and cleared the way for him to return to Miami a free man.  

Posada's attorney, Arturo Hernandez, told CNN the ruling was "an incredible legal victory."

The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security said they were reviewing Cardone's decision.

Remember Orlando Bosch?

On October 6th, 1976 Cubana Flight 455 was destroyed after takeoff by a bomb detonation that had been placed in the aircraft toilets in which all seventy-three people on board were killed, including many young members of a Cuban fencing team. Five people from North Korea were also killed on board the flight. This bombing would have been plotted at the same meeting, attended by Luis Posada Carriles and DINA agent Michael Townley, where Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier's assassination, in Washington, D.C. in 1976, was decided. Bosch was jailed in Venezuela awaiting trial for his role concerning the Cubana Flight 455 bombing, but he was never convicted of these charges.

In 1968 Bosch was arrested in Florida for an attack on a Polish freighter with a 57 mm recoilless rifle and was as a result sent to prison for a ten year term. In 1987, almost a decade after the Flight 455 incident, Bosch was freed from Venezuelan charges and went to the United States, assisted by US Ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich; there, he was ultimately arrested for a parole violation. Bosch was pardoned of all American charges by President George H.W. Bush on July 18, 1990 at the request of his son Jeb Bush, who later became Governor of Florida; this pardon was despite objections by the then President's own defense department, that Bosch was one of the most deadly terrorists working "within the hemisphere." Although many countries seek Bosch's extradition he remains free in the United States. The political pressure to grant Bosch a pardon was begun during the congressional campaign run by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, herself a Cuban American, and overseen by her campaign manager Jeb Bush. The resultant pardon reputedly saw huge celebrations in Miami, in what was then called 'Free Orlando Day.'"

Like father, like son.

George Bush's America: protecting us against Peruvian teenagers, providing refuge for a terrorist. The mind reels.

Maradona as Political Commentator

I'm hardly an America love it or leave it type. I have no problem with making informed, well-grounded criticisms of my nation's government when merited.

However, should I take seriously a multiple-rehabbed, possibly brain-damaged, ex-footballer who cannot control his addictive behavior or ignorant statements, whose sole World Cup Championship will forever be tainted by the fact that he cheated to attain a major victory in the run to the championship and who blamed his inability to defend the championship on the mafia, when he says “I hate everything that comes from the United States. I hate it with all my strength.”

Naah.

Here's  an artist's  rendering of Maradona's first training session of national team coach:

Fortunately, even the AFA has more sense than to give Maradona that job.

Messi v Maradona

Wow!

No doubt that the Maradona comparisons will mount, but I sure hope Lionel Messi leads his life a whole lot better than Maradona:

Diego Maradona was transferred to a private psychiatric clinic where he is to undergo treatment for alcohol addiction after being hospitalised twice in less than a month.
Dr Alfredo Cahe, personal physician to the Argentine soccer hero, said the 46-year-old elected treatment at the private Avril Clinic in Buenos Aires that specialises in dependency treatment. “He himself decided on this choice ... to enter the clinic,” Dr Cahe said on the Argentine broadcast network Todo Noticias.

To say nothing of Maradona's admiration for a certain totalitarian dictator.

Any Takers?

Are there any takers in the pro-Bush world who can explain why a man who the US Department of Justice regards as “an unrepentant criminal and admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks on tourist sites” is likely to be paroled from an immigration detention center in El Paso?

Luis Posada Carriles deserves to answer for his crimes. He's a terrorist and an unrepentant one.

I Certainly Didn't Celebrate Yesterday

Yesterday was Fidel Castro's birthday and I suppose there is no greater evidence of the cult of personality that surrounds him than the fact that the nation is "celebrating." Gee, I always thought that a revolution was about so much more than the head revolutionary . . .

As for the revolution itself, there is no better evidence as to how wretchedly it has failed than Castro's own words. Consider this op-ed by Ann Louise Bardach, the author of the single best book on the exile community and Cuba. She quoted from a collection of letters Castro wrote from prison after the failed attack on the Moncada Barracks. Here's the most revealing quote:

“The best proof that there is no dictatorship is that there are no political prisoners,” they said for many months; today prison and exile are overflowing, therefore they cannot say that we live under a democratic constitutional regime.

That is Castro writing about the Batista regime. It could have easily have been any of the dissidents he has imprisoned over the years writing that about him. How quickly and how thoroughly he became that which he rebelled against.

Marc Cooper has more.

Eric Umansky has even more - and gives a righteous smackdown some pretty lame observations by the New York Times reporter who slipped into Cuba on a tourist visa.

Diego Maradona: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

Diego Maradona could be an absolute marvel on the football pitch. The "Hand Of God" notwithstanding, his second goal in that game as well as his goal in the game against Belgium in the 1986 Word Cup were simply breathtaking.

He's made a mess of his life: drugs, blaming the Mafia for Argentina's losing the 1990 World Cup Championship, cheating on his wife, you name it. Yet in Argentina he's still regarded reverentially, to put it mildly. Now he has his own television program, free to bloviate on whatever he wishes. Of all the stupid things he has said, this must rank amongst the stupidest:

Tonight, Mr. Maradona's interview segment will be with Mr. Castro, who spoke with him in Havana last week. During the interview, Mr. Maradona calls the Cuban dictator "a god."

In that same paragraph he goes on to put down President Bush, to put it mildly. Regular readers know that the level of contempt that I have for Bush is fairly high, perhaps Diegito should live like most Cubans have to live before he pronounces Castro "a god."

Strange Praise

Castro's Cuba embraces an independent judiciary and fair trials!

Cuba applauded a U.S. federal appeals court decision to throw out the convictions and sentences of five Cuban intelligence agents, saying Wednesday that it was a "happy day" on the island.

A statement on the front page of the Communist Party daily Granma called Tuesday's ruling "ethical" and urged Cubans to be patient as the men, known locally as the "Five Heroes," prepare for a new trial.

At least as long as the independent judiciary and fair trials are not in Cuba. While I think it is reasonable (and agreewith the decision) to expect that the defendants would not receive a fair trial in south Florida, it is incredibly risible that Castro would be cheering the Yanquis doing something that would never happen in his Cuba.