Former Prisoner Recalls Sanders Saying, 'I Don't Know What's So Wrong' With Cuba

[Jose Garcia]

American Alan Gross, a prisoner in Cuba for five years during the Obama administration, is accusing Sen. Bernie Sanders of commending the communist country when he came to visit him behind bars.

Sanders visited Cuba as part of a congressional delegation in 2014, along with Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and Jon Tester.

During the one-hour meeting, Sanders told the prisoner that he didn't understand why others criticized Cuba, Gross said in an interview with NPR.

"He said, quote: 'I don't know what's so wrong with this country,' " Gross recalled.

More: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/04/811729200/former-prisoner-recalls-sanders-saying-i-don-t-know-what-s-so-wrong-with-cuba

[hlthe2b]

1. Sounds like Bernie took the Che Guevara and "saintly heroic revolutionary" MYTHS to heart...

[Jose Garcia]

2. He criticizes Democrats, but won't criticize Communists

[.99center]

3. "How could he be so insensitive to make that remark to a political hostage -- me!"

Sanders visited Cuba as part of a congressional delegation in 2014, along with Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and Jon Tester.

"How could he be so insensitive to make that remark to a political hostage — me!" Gross told NPR

Gross spent 1,841 days in detention, losing five teeth and over 100 pounds. He also said interrogators threatened to pull out his fingernails and to hang him.

In prison pajamas, he met with the Congressional delegation. Sanders was mostly silent until he blurted out at the end.

Gross' claim - that Sanders commended Cuba to an American detained in a Cuban prison - follows other positive comments Sanders has made about dictatorial regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and the Soviet Union over the course of his decades-long political career

Gross said that he felt compelled to speak out about Sanders' comments now because of the interview that the senator gave to 60 Minutes that touched on Cuba, and Sanders' reference to the issue in the debates.

"I mean, it's relevant now. The guy's running for president of the United States," Gross said. "And for him to make those statements demonstrating a basic lack of a grasp on reality is problematic to me. I don't want to see this guy in the White House."

A source close to Heitkamp said she remembered that Sanders seemed to disregard the meeting with Gross and that an uncomfortable exchange occurred, but did not remember the exact remark.

Sanders' campaign declined to comment about the meeting with Gross

When Sanders visited Gross in a Cuban prison, he brought a copy of The Atlantic magazine.

Graeme posits what the cover of that magazine might have been based on the time:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Jose Garcia]

4. We criticize Trump when he embraces dictators like Putin and Kim

How is this different?

[dalton99a]

5. "To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary.

These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution. And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.”
- Ernesto “Ché” Guevara

Che Guevara personally ordered 100 executions
http://cubaarchive.org/home/images/stories/truth%20and%20memory/victims_of_che_guevara_in_cuba_9.30.2009.pdf

(There were at least 3,615 documented firing squad executions after Castro took over)