Landau goes on to chronicle the recent incineration of a travel agency in Miami:
On April 25, 2012, fifty-three plus years after the Cuban revolutionaries took power, God’s licensed terrorists burned the offices of an airline charter company ostensibly because it flew pilgrims to Cuba. How such actions advanced their cause of freedom for Cuba remains a logical mystery – or perhaps simply a pretext for baser motives.
The targets for violence have shared two qualities: 1) they disagreed with the dictates laid down by the extremist wing of exiles who demanded everyone submit to their views or suffer the consequences; 2) they had no chance to defend themselves.
The most recent “sinner,” who offended the self-anointed arsonists owned Airlines Brokers Co. Vivian Mannerud told Miami’s Channel 10: “It’s not that it’s burned. It’s pulverized.” She stared at the ashes that once housed her charter company. “I have never seen a fire pulverize things. I’ve seen it in pictures of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.”
Investigators aided by dogs trained to recognize the odor of accelerant determined that the fire was “deliberate.” So, the arsonists did a professional job, just as their predecessors, the bombers and shooters did in their countless acts of murder and mayhem in Miami, New York, San Juan and Washington, DC – all to free Cuba, of course. --from the OP
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He discusses possible Miami mafia motives:
In March, the Miami Archdiocese, which had received bomb threats in 1998 during a previous Pope’s (John Paul II) visit to Cuba, contracted with Mannerud’s company to transport several hundred of the faithful from South Florida to the island. Was this the motive? Or did it relate to a sin of her father who started the charter company in 1982 and had testified in the trial of Eduardo Arocena of the Cuban Nationalist Movement and its “action arm” Omega 7. The jury convicted Arocena. --from the OP
And he mentions the Cuban Five:
If the Cuban Five network had remained in Miami they might have infiltrated the group that torched Mannerud’s company and tipped the police to the caper. But those anti-terrorists remain in federal custody, while arsonists roam the Miami streets and a bomber, like Luis Posada Carriles, has a publicized painting exhibition in a Coral Gables bank. --from the OP
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What is perhaps most appalling--in addition to the murders that this U.S. political powerhouse--the Miami mafia--has committed, and the trashing of property and businesses--is the collusion with, and support of, these fascists by the U.S. government, covert and overt, and by our political establishment, including our Democratic Party political establishment, whether by outright support or giving into blackmail.
It is shocking to learn the details of this collusion--the covert ops, when they eventually become revealed, and policies such as the federal welfare that the Miami mafia has received all along. While our government throws millions of poor Latin American workers out of our country, it fosters and protects fascists like Luis Posada Carriles (who bragged about his bombing of the Cuban passenger airliner and is honored for it in Miami) and it jails Cubans who were trying to prevent such acts (the Cuban Five).
U.S. government/Miami mafia relations are a mirror of the relationship between the U.S. government and transglobal corporations--not only in Latin America, where, for instance, Drummond Coal or Chiquita International hires death squads to murder trade unionists and does so with impunity here, with impunity and the active protection of the U.S. government, but also worldwide, with the U.S. military itself killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people for entities like Exxon Mobil.
The pretense of "human rights" and "defense" against "terrorism" that the U.S. government and the Corporate Press constantly put forward is also appalling. Landau attacks this "Alice in Wonderland" hypocrisy directly, as to Cuba. But it needs to be exposed on the wider landscape as well.
These are the excuses used for U.S.-inflicted murder and mayhem worldwide--in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya and elsewhere, and by proxy armies and death squads, in Colombia, in Honduras and other places. "Human rights." "Defense" against "terrorism." The lawbreaking--the utter contempt for the law--that has characterized the U.S. government-supported Miami mafia has been writ large, in U.S. government policy and actions worldwide, including torture, unjust war, drone bombings and other murderous assaults on civilians, brutal and massive displacement of human populations, murderous covert ops, overt and covert support of truly tyrannical regimes and elites and all the accompanying "Alice in Wonderland" propaganda.
Thanks to Saul Landau for pointing this out, as to Cuba, and to you, Judi Lynn, for posting it. I urge DUers and all good people to study this matter well. It is what we have become as a nation. It is why our nation is held in contempt throughout Latin America and by good people around the world.
I don't know how we can address this evil in our own government's policy except to suggest where we should start--with the corporate-run, 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines now spread all over the U.S., to every state. Until we have PUBLIC vote counting again, and can guarantee that those who take office were actually elected, and are not beholden to the far right-connected ES&S/Diebold (which now owns and controls about 80% of our election results), we really don't have any power over our public officials. They are not serving us--even, in the case of Obama, for instance, if we really did elect them (by bigger margins than we know)--for the very reason that they can EASILY be un-elected by the 'TRADE SECRET' code throughout our voting system.
Given that appalling fact, in addition to all the other controls on our public officials (including Corporate Press control), we appeal to them in vain on almost all major issues. They don't serve us any more. "We, the People" are way, way down on the list of considerations, even for leaders who may mean well. We barely count. And for many of our public officials, we don't count at all. Why? It ain't just corruption, believe me. It's far worse than that. It's this new, direct control of election results by a corporation (ES&S/Diebold) whose far right connections would make most peoples' hair stand on end. And Florida has one of the worst ES&S/Diebold systems in the country (along with Georgia and South Carolina). That is HOW the Miami mafia has retained control of Florida's politics. And it is WHY Barack Obama can't do a bloody thing about it, if he wanted to.
Obama's appointment of Chiquita International attorney, Eric Holder, as the Attorney General of the U.S., early on, made me doubt what Obama wants, and it is certainly an example of the limits on his power, whatever he personally believes or might have wanted to do. As for the impact of the rigged voting system on his decisions, we have only to contemplate the power of first term senator Jim DeMint (SC-Diebold) over Obama's policy in Latin America to understand how this works. DeMint used the Senate's power over appointments to force Obama onto the wrong side of the rightwing coup d'etat on Honduras. Whatever Obama's intentions were to change U.S./LatAm relations toward "peace, respect and cooperation," as he initially said, he could not do it. Right off the bat, the Bushwhacks who planned that coup put him in the wrong and ES&S/Diebold kept him there, by their "appointment" of Jim DeMint as a U.S. senator.
I hate to point out the failures of the U.S. government and the horrors of some of its policies without suggesting a remedy. One of the tactics of the far right and their transglobal corporate masters is to demoralize us, as a democratic people. That is why I'm discussing ES&S/Diebold in this context. Getting rid of those privatized voting machines will be a significant step forward in the re-democratization of the U.S., so that, when our people oppose unjust war--as they did the Iraq War--and insane policies such as the U.S. government boycott of Cuba and support of the Miami mafia--we have a chance at being listened to.
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