[News] Castro, Machiavelli, Posada and Bush

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/

February 14, 2007


Castro, Machiavelli, Posada and Bush


How to Obsess Your Enemies

By SAUL LANDAU

Imperial rulers and violently fixated Cuban exiles need Bush's "No 
Child Left Behind" program to accelerate learning processes and not 
continue to repeat mistakes. Hey, on Cuba policy, it's only been 
forty eight years!

Fidel Castro, on the other hand, learned fast. He used Washington and 
Miami to improvise material for three chapters in future releases of
Machiavelli's The Prince, the classic text on political realism.


CHAPTER 1: "EXPORT INTERNAL ENEMIES TO EXTERNAL ENEMY?"

In 1959, Cuban revolutionaries seized power. Washington immediately 
welcomed Cuba's most hostile opponents. Or, Fidel exported his 
homegrown enemy to his larger enemy. Anti-Castro Cubans became -- and 
remain -- a serious problem for US society. Once a government aids 
and abets terrorism, as the CIA did with thousands of Castro-hating 
Cubans, it institutionalizes terrorism in its own culture. In the 
1960s alone, the CIA launched, financed and equipped Cuban exiles to 
carry out thousands of assassination attempts and sabotage and 
destruction missions against their former homeland. Some of those who 
carried out assassinations and sabotage missions became vocationally 
committed to such "work."

Now, ironically, Bush wages a war against terrorism and harbors 
anti-Castro terrorists. Luis Posada illustrates the dilemma. Recently 
declassified CIA cables show Posada notified CIA officials in 
September 1976 of his plans to sabotage a Cuban jet over Barbados. 
CIA officials neither stopped him nor notified the Cuban government. 
In October, his agents triggered a bomb. 73 passengers and crew 
members perished.

US agencies worked intimately with Posada on terrorist acts. Does this explain

the government's reluctance to charge him with terrorism--despite 
publicly disclosed evidence--or deport him to Venezuela where he 
would face trial? Lawyers in Justice wring their hands over such 
"incongruities" because in 1971 the US government signed the 
Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of 
Civil Aviation. Article 7 of that document states: "The Contracting 
State in the territory of which the alleged offender is found shall, 
if it does not extradite him, be obliged, without exception 
whatsoever and whether or not the offense was committed in its 
territory, to submit the case to its competent authorities for the 
purpose of prosecution."

Orlando Bosch, Posada's co-author of airplane sabotage, also escaped 
prosecution. Indeed, in 1990 Daddy Bush pardoned Bosch. He now 
resides in Miami. Bosch still gloats when he describes orgasmic feats 
like firing a bazooka at a Polish ship in Miami Harbor in 1968 or 
knocking down the Cuban airliner in 1976.

In January 1965, Bosch launched phosphorus bombs at a Cuban sugar 
mill. He told the Miami press: "If we had the necessary resources, 
Cuba would burn in flames from one end to the other."

On November 10, 2001, Bush warned UN members: "Some governments still 
turn a blind eye to the terrorists, hoping the threat will pass them 
by. They are mistaken. The allies of terror are equally guilty and 
equally accountable." Bush's Florida congressional backers, Lincoln 
and Mario Diaz Balart and Ileana Ross Lehtinen, consider Bosch a 
patriot, not a terrorist.

Miamians understood what it meant to bring terrorists into their 
womb, however: car bombings and assassinations. These included the 
1975 Rolando Masferrer car bombing, a 1976 Post Office explosion and 
a bomb assassination attempt against Emilio Millan. Anti-Castro 
Cubans carried out a rampage of violence in the 1970s and 1980s 
including the assassination of former Chilean Chancellor Orlando 
Letelier in Washington and a Cuban diplomat in New York.

In 2000, Al Gore coped--badly -- with tactics used by Castro-haters. 
He may even harbor residual hard feelings about the Florida Cubans 
who helped steal the 2000 election. One Miami witness saw busses of 
seniors at a poling station. He greeted his great uncle, who retained 
Cuban citizenship. "It's my duty as a Cuban citizen to vote for 
George Bush," the old man declared.

Vote counters in some areas reported Cuban-Americans entering the 
counting rooms, showing guns under their jackets and ordering: "Stop counting."

For Castro, however, the absence of such people in Cuban made 
possible the rapid consolidation of revolutionary power. US leaders, 
not learning from 48 plus years of importing the opposition, continue 
to encourage boatloads of Cubans to land on US shores. Thanks to the 
1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, they may claim refugee status and rapid 
accession to green cards.

Did US decision makers think about applying this status to Chinese, 
Indians or Mexicans? Bush and the Castro-despisers in Florida seem to 
carry an obsession only with Fidel, a mental condition that makes 
clear thinking impossible.


CHAPTER 2 "How to Obsess One's Enemies."

Obsession blocks learning and clear thinking. After 48 years of 
futile violence and un-tempered linguistic hostility, Orlando Bosch 
continued to plot. In December 2001, between visits to gerontologists 
and proctologists, Bosch (81) boasted of sending explosives to Cuba 
that very month.

In late January, 2007, Posada groupies rallied to support the aging 
co-author of the airplane bombing. "But they didn't just rally," 
stated a January 30 South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial. "They also 
attacked two counter-demonstrators, chasing the young men back to 
their car while punching, kicking and spitting on them as they fled. 
This, you see, is why the exiles left Fidel Castro's Cuba: to embrace 
freedom and the inalienable right to such things as free speech. 
Unless the speech happens to disagree with theirs."

The editorial concluded that such activists "give Miami a bad name." 
US authorities arrested Posada two years ago after he held a press 
conference to announce his presence. Charged with suspicion of 
illegally entering the country, he now faces charges of 
naturalization fraud and six counts of lying to US officials. 
Ironically, as the Sun Sentinel observed, "Scores of people died in 
the bombing Posada is suspected of plotting. The U.S. government has 
strong evidence linking Posada to the bombing. That alone should keep 
him in U.S. custody even if he weren't charged with immigration 
violations." But, the editorial asked, "The government has shown a 
tendency to bow to political pressure from the Cuban exile community, 
but why should it?"

The answer, as even the obsessed Posada and Bosch have figured out, 
lies in the government's history of complicity with terrorism. 
Antonio Veciana provided two examples of such cooperation. In 1971, 
Posada joined Veciana, founder of Alpha 66, to assassinate Castro in 
Chile where the Cuban leader planned to visit. CIA lab ghouls 
invented a gun that fit inside a 16 mm camera that the assassins, 
posing as a news crew, would fire at Castro at his Santiago news 
conference. So, Veciana laughed, CIA knew made possible a terrorist 
plot. The hired cameramen-assassins chickened out. So, Posada hired a 
new crew to shoot Castro in Caracas on his return to Cuba. This also 
failed. Five years later, Posada did destroy the Cuban passenger 
plane. He "escaped" from Venezuelan custody -- Miami pals bribed the 
jailors -- and in the mid 1980s joined Lt. Col. Oliver North to 
re-supply the Contras. In the 1990s, Posada masterminded sabotage 
against Cuba's tourist industry, resulting in the death of one 
Italian tourist and extensive damage to hotels. Declassified 
documents show that he got help and financing from Miami-based 
buddies. US anti-terrorist squads knew of this.

Former and current US officials have tainted themselves by aiding and 
abetting Posada--and Bosch--plots. No wonder the government refuses 
to prosecute--aside from the debt the Bush family owes for the 
Florida elections.


CHAPTER 3: "Getting Your Enemies to Finance Your Economy."

Castro escaped 650+ assassination attempts. His revenge emerged after 
the Soviet Union collapsed. As Cuba's economy spiraled downward in 
1991, Castro lured the obsessed exiles into supporting his treasury. 
By mid 1996, Cuba's Central Bank was taking in a billion dollars in 
yearly US remittances. Even the ranting Castro-despising radio host 
Armando Perez Roura paid, lest his family "starve to death." As if!

In 2005, US Treasury bureaucrats, equally obsessed with "punishing 
Castro," threatened foreign banks handling Cuban dollar accounts. So, 
the Cuban government announced that Cubans had to exchange dollars 
for convertible Cuban money or suffer monetary penalties. Within 
weeks, Cuba's Central Bank accumulated $1 billion--a free loan!

Recovering last year's surgery, did Castro chuckle over US how the 
violent flotsam Bush had acquired became embarrassing. Google lists 
Bush's August 26, 2003, St. Louis, Missouri declaration: "...if you 
harbor a terrorist, if you support a terrorist, if you feed a 
terrorist, you're just as guilty as the terrorists."

Sure! In 2001, Bush's Justice Department prosecuted five Cubans who 
infiltrated Florida terrorist groups to stop terrorism. 
Intimidated--by the terrorists -- Miami juries convicted them. 
Ironically, Google shows no reference to Bush excluding himself or 
members of his government in his warning. But consistency, as Bush 
said, is a virtue of small minds. He forgot to add that inconsistency 
is the virtue of the mindless.

Saul Landau's new book, 
<http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html>BUSH 
AND BOTOX WORLD, with a foreword by Gore Vidal, is just out from 
Counterpunch Press. His new film, WE DON'T PLAY GOLF HERE, is 
available on DVD from 
<mailto:roundworldmedia at gmail.com>roundworldmedia at gmail.com


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