“Much more valuable than rural recruits for our Cuban guerrilla force were American media recruits to export our propaganda.” Ernesto “Che” Guevara, 1959.
Cuba’s media reports that Raul Castro has “postponed” his retirement by two months and the mainstream media parrots the matter as one of enormous consequence.
As if Castro’s official “retirement” will make the slightest difference in the suffering of the Cuban people and terror-sponsorship of the totalitarian Castro-regime!
In fact, Raul’s son, Alejandro Castro-Espin, 52, a KGB-trained Colonel in Cuba’s secret police and (needless to add) rabid Stalinist, has already been slated to run Cuba behind the scenes. In fact, according to many knowledgeable sources, Alejandro has been running vital Cuban matters for several years now.
Alejandro denounces to the U.S. as “an Empire of Terror” and shrieks that “Cuba will never return to capitalism.”
At least he’s honest about it, to the great discomfiture of his regime’s legions of unregistered U.S. agents (i.e. anti-embargo lobbyists) who’ve been claiming — for about a decade now– that Cuba is poised for a capitalist take-off.
Alejandro Castro, it was finally revealed to the President Barack Obama’s State Department’s great embarrassment, was the one actually in charge of the “negotiations” for the “opening” with the U.S. back in 2014. And matters don’t get much more vital for Cuba than relations with the U.S.
Oh, I know, I know, in the mainstream media all you read about is a U.S. “embargo” of Cuba—usually qualified as “cruel,” “vindictive,” “ineffective,” “outdated,” etc.
In fact this “embargo” qualifies as among the crown jewels of post-World War II U.S. foreign policy, helping bankrupt the Soviet Empire and saving the U.S. taxpayer billions, among many other (media-ignored) victories.
But in, fact, despite this so-called embargo the annual cash flow from the U.S. to Cuba for almost the past decade (mostly in remittances and travel expenses after Obama opened the spigot) exceeds what the Soviets used to send Cuba at the height of their sponsorship back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. In brief, thanks to Obama, the U.S. became Cuba’s new Sugar Daddy—and just in the nick of time!
Just as Venezuela imploded and her subsidies to Cuba started drying up, Obama came to the rescue.
Cuba qualifies as a police-state, as a military-dictatorship and as dynasty-ruled in the most genuine sense of these terms—which explains why you never hear it called as such by the mainstream media. After all, these terms aren’t exactly flattering. And as Vicente Botin, who reported from Cuba for Madrid’s “El Pais” until he was booted from the Castro-family fiefdom for taking his job title seriously.
“The Castro regime assigns 20 security agents to follow and monitor every foreign journalist. You play the regime’s game and practice self–censorship or you’re gone.”
“The vetting procedure starts the minute the (Castro) regime receives your journalist visa application,” adds Lt. Col. Chris Simmons, recently retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency where he served as the agency’s top Cuban spy catcher. “When your smiling Cuban ‘guides’ greet you at the airport they know plenty about you, and from several angles.”
Raul Castro, his family and their military/secret police cronies have been running Cuba for decades and doing quite well in the process. Of the 19 members of Cuba’s politburo, nine are military men—that’s more military men than ruled the Soviet Union during its last decades. A Cuban military corporation named GAESA majority-owns most businesses in Cuba, particularly the big-money-makers: tourism facilities and infrastructure. GAESA also owns a Bank in Cuba known as “Banco Financiero Internacional.”
Raul Castro’s son-in-law (Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja) heads this GAESA.
With this tourist revenue windfall, ongoing for almost two decades, Cuba’s Castro family and their military robber baron cronies are making a killing. Why would they voluntarily upset their own apple carts by retiring? They might “retire” from the stage—but they’ll still be pulling the wires from behind it.
And speaking of Matt Lauer … just as the Castro-Family-and-Military-Crony–Crime-Syndicate was turning to tourism to augment their already ample drug-smuggling windfall, the “Today Show” featuring Lauer decided to broadcast on location from Havana’s top tourist sites. This was in May 2007 before Obama’s “opening” (surrender) to Cuba, so it represented a not inconsiderable “honor” for a foreign news (especially American) news network.
Gosh? Many wonder what drove the Castro-Crime-Family to such generosity?! Well the “generosity” happened to coincide with Castro’s big push to lure American tourists to his fiefdom to further fill his regime’s military and secret-police service coffers.
So NBC’s “Today Show” gleefully broadcast from the Cuban capitol amidst smiling, clapping, dancing tourists while Lauer actually advised viewers on how to violate U.S. law and “legally” vacation in Cuba.
Castro’s U.S.–based agents (both on the payroll and off) keep insisting that a flood of rich Western tourists will magically smother Cuban Stalinism whereupon the island nation will quickly mutate into a bigger (and more historic and picturesque) Cozumel.
The logic seems to go something like this: rewarding and enriching the KGB-trained and heavily armed guardians of Cuba’s Stalinist status-quo will magically convert them into instant opponents of that Stalinist status quo.
Amazingly, this line of reasoning fails to convince those with first-hand experience under Cuba’s Stalinist regime. But never mind this insufferable rabble of “Cuban-American right-wing deplorables!” and their Congressional allies.
And never mind the evidence. To wit: for each of the past 20 years almost 10 times as many tourists have visited Cuba as visited in any year during the 1950’s, when Cuba was labeled a “tourist playground.” You will note the spectacular liberating effect this has had on Cubans. In fact, last year the Castro regime set a recent record for political arrests and repression against dissidents.
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Humberto Fontova was born in Havana, Cuba. He escaped when he was 7 years old with his mother and two siblings. His father was captured during the escape and was imprisoned with thousands of other Cubans for several months. For more information on this topic, please read visit the author’s website: http://www.hfontova.com/ You can also order and read his book by clicking here: “Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant”