...to prevent horrors like the bombing of the Cuban passenger airliner in 1976 and the recent torching of a travel agency in Miami which books flights to Cuba.
Ironical how much the Miami mafia doesn't like the freedom of its opponents, even to the point of x-ing people out of existence, and wants to re-conquer Cuba in the name of "freedom." Appalling how closely U.S. policy echoes that utter hypocrisy, including the arrest and imprisonment of those trying to prevent its worst excesses. The "Cuban Five" weren't actually trying to subvert anybody--even the Miami mafia (and if they had been, I wouldn't have objected). They were merely gathering information on violent Miami mafia plots.
Gross, on the other hand, was trying to subvert the legitimate government of Cuba (legitimate in the opinion of all of Latin America and most of the world) which has been trying to defend itself, lo, this last half century, from all sorts of U.S.-launched attacks and plots like the above. It is therefore not terribly surprising, and, indeed, according to Cuban law which bans USAID (CIA) operatives, was quite justifiable, when the Cuban government arrested, tried and convicted Gross. The USAID is notorious for its support of fascists against leftist leaders and movements in Latin America, as is its parent organization, the CIA, which goes even further, supporting coup d'etats, assassination plots and dirty deeds of every kind.
The U.S., by its material support of the Miami mafia and by direct action, has done immense harm to Cuba. Cuba has done no harm to the U.S. Why should Cuba's government be overthrown or punished in any way?
Lord, we support utter tyranny in Saudi Arabia and other sheikdoms. Why should Cuba's defensiveness and occasional MILD excesses in trying to keep the CIA out, and trying to prevent internal spying and dirty ops, elicit draconian measures by the U.S. from mass murder to embargo (and secondary embargoes, and embargoes of medical supplies!)? Why? The Bush Junta committed far, FAR more, and far grosser, violations of human rights than Cuba ever has, including setting up torture dungeons around the world, official approval of torture in violation of numerous laws and treaties, egregiously unjust war and theft of public funds on a stupendous scale into the pockets of war profiteers and banksters (billions of tax dollars that will never help the poor here or anywhere else).
What has Cuba done? It has been entirely peaceful since the end of the "Cold War" and wasn't particularly war-like even before that. It didn't permit the Soviet Union to place missiles in Cuba until after the "Bay of Pigs" invasion (by the Miami mafia and the CIA), way back in the '60s. Stupid move--and dangerous--but wholly defensive. It did send soldiers to support leftist and independence fighters in Africa and other regions, but, um, the U.S. was also sending soldiers to other continents, always, in every case, supporting the wrong side. I can't say that the righteousness of the causes that Cuba supported justified that policy but those events are also way, way in the past. In current events, Cuba has repeatedly advised the last of the leftist guerrilla fighters in Latin America (the FARC in Colombia) to lay down their arms.
The U.S. is actively trading with Communist (or should I say, hybrid?) China which is guilty of much worse human rights violations than Cuba--MUCH worse. Indeed, the U.S. government has permitted--nay, encouraged--the outsourcing of U.S. manufacturing to China for the cheap labor. Perhaps I've put my finger on it. Our U.S. corporate rulers want to add Cuba to their slave-labor outposts in the Caribbean and Central America, and, probably even more important to them, want to end Cuba as an inspiration to the poor majorities elsewhere, as to the highly regarded, free Cuban medical care system, Cuba's intense devotion to education and the notion of a decent income and living conditions for everybody. Of all the communist systems in the world that have collapsed, or turned bad, little Cuba's communist government has survived, has kept its promises to its people, has gone in the opposite direction from "dictatorship" and has been recognized as a legitimate government by just about everybody except the U.S. government and the Miami mafia.
This must be a sore thorn in our Corporate Rulers' hides. Their mafia "running dogs," howling about a "freedom" they don't believe in, merely reflect their masters' views and are used by their masters to entrench an insane U.S. policy of hating and reviling Cuba and trying to overthrow its government.
The U.S. wants its CIA agent (Mr. Gross) back. Cuba wants its spies back. If there were any justice, the U.S. would release the "Cuban Five" in THIS country and ask them to keep up the good work on the Miami mafia. I hope there is at least a swap. Gross can be given a desk job (or have those all been outsourced to China?). Somebody else--say, the U.S. Justice Department--can be tasked with preventing home-grown terrorism in Miami (duh). And the "Cuban Five" can tell Cubans and the world what they have found out about the U.S. prison system--one of the worst in the world, now getting further packed with medical marijuana farmers and retailers. No, wait! They'll have to sign a "no talkee" agreement for the swap to work. Another snag.
We'll see if the former president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, was right, when he said, in his last speech in office, "The U.S. has not changed."
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