Cuba is always good political fodder in Miami. It’s downright gold at campaign time.
And the SOS Cuba movement could not have come at a better moment for some 305 and Florida politicians who are squeezing it for all it’s voter value.
The city of Miami is the latest to join a mess of other municipalities in denouncing the Cuban government’s crackdown on peaceful protests and urging the U.S. government to step in, one way or another to help the Cuban people who are clamoring for freedom. Most of these resolutions call for more sanctions, humanitarian aide, restored and expanded internet and the release of detained protesters — the newest Cuban political prisoners.
Mayor Francis Suarez said in a press conference Thursday that even military intervention should not be off the table.
But, then, he’s up for re-election this year and that message resonates with his voter base.
That’s why he interrupted public comments at the city commission meeting to have a quick and easy press conference so he and the commissioners could pat themselves on the back.
Baby X also also pouted because President Joe Biden hadn’t called him yet to, oh, I don’t know, get advise about what to do? Because Baby X is now an international relations expert? Maybe if it was about bitcoin.
“The first thing I would tell him is to come here,” Suarez said in the hastily called press conference. “He has to speak strongly, to show America’s might, to put some fear in some of these generals who are acting with no fear.”
That’s really just playing into their hands.
If Biden were to call Suarez, the first thing he should tell him is to put international pressure on the rest of the world to isolate Cuba, to send the very clear message that beating and disappearing demonstrators is not okay. He should tell him not to soften sanctions and to keep treating regime collaborators like the war criminals that they are. He should not be telling him to come to Miami for a photo op that he can then use in mailings to Democrat voters in Miami this fall.
How does that help the 500 or so protesters and activists who were arrested by Cuban police on July 11 and are still being held?
Know more: Another open letter to Cuban-Americans — sans biz interests
This is a hard column to write because I am wholly and completely on the side of the Cubans opposing the government on the island and their just demand for freedom from the crippling repression they have endured for 62 years, repression that has forced hundreds of thousands of Cubans, perhaps millions, to flee their homeland, even if it costs some of them their lives. I want to do everything I can to support the SOS Cuba movement and am excited about this being finally the time — no, really, this is the one, right?– que ya viene llegando.
No wonder every politician quiere ser protagonista of the momentous event.
Urging legislation, which everybody knows is symbolic but otherwise mostly useless, is good. Ladra believes in messaging. The more of these resolutions the better. But politicians have to stop patting themselves on the back for it. Because you’re not special. I mean, these are unanimously passed — even Democrats say aye (told ya) — because who in Miami-Dade would vote against the Cuban people and in defense of the corrupt regime?
These should be on the consent agenda y ya. No grandstanding. Because the political posturing is getting pesado. In the case of some, like Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, it’s downright hypocritical (more on that later).
It’s very obvious campaigning. This historic moment for Cubans couldn’t have come at a better time for them. Former Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban Bovo, who is running for mayor in Hialeah after losing the county mayoral race last year, got pole position front and center at the Hannity Rubio DeSantis show Wednesday. That’s a campaign picture for sure.
Expect to be hearing about all these fulanos‘ heroic SOS Cuba efforts through next November.
Ese show at Versailles Wednesday by Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis — two more politicians with competitive elections ahead — does absolutely nothing to further the Cuban people’s cause in Cuba. It’s all U.S.-side political propaganda from politicians who have sung and dance this song and dance before. Isn’t anybody else tired of it?
Know more: As freed Cuban political prisoner faces eviction, where’s Sen. Marco Rubio?
They use us. It doesn’t matter if they are Republican or Democrat. Politicians have historically used the Cuban exile. They used us before, during and after the Bay of Pigs. They used us after Cuban gunboats rammed and sank the 13 de marzo, intentionally drowning 41 Cubans trying to flee the country on the vessel in 1994. They used us during the balsero crisis that year as they held thousands of men, women and children in Guantanamo detention camps. They used us with Elian. They used us after the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown where four Americans were murdered by Cuban Air Force pilots in international waters.
These politicians say they are trying to keep the Cuban opposition in the news. That’s BS. They’re trying to put themselves in the news and actually taking airtime and space away from the activists who don’t have a ballot agenda.
Electeds can just quietly, as a matter of official capacity, help these activists and local organizations that have worked to help the opposition in Cuba even when it’s not an election year. They can offer logistical support and facilities to mount a humanitarian effort the Cuban government can’t refuse without losing credibility with their sympathizers around the world. They can call members of Congress — not ours, that would be preaching to the choir, but the ones who are on the wrong side of Cuba. They can have their phone banks call voters in other states, where Americans think the Cuban government and Che Guevara t-shirts are cool, to tell them the truth about jailed dissidents and the lack of freedoms.
But they could do all this without having a press conference about it.
SOS Cuba needs bipartisan support — but not the political grandstanding added by Ladra on
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How can we call peaceful protest, grown men pelting the PNR with rocks? Are we deaf and dumb? We have evolved in the U S. Cuba has developed in their chosen path , from 1959, the Obama Administration understood that. So they get shipments of oil from Venezuele, they got them from the USSR before. Its Socialist state has costs, too. Authoritarianism is ripe in many places, the Capitol was assaulted. We didn’t even visit the Capitol, when we visited, because it’s the seat of this country’s gov’t, and we choose who to invite into our house! .
What Cuba needs is us, the Cubans abroad to take care of our unfinished business using Private Military Contractors
When it comes to our homeland, Cuba, we have been and are alone in our quest to free our homeland for well over 62 years. No US President, Republican or Democrat alike, has ever rid our hemisphere of the most toxic and disruptive communist tyranny. It is time for all freedom-loving Cubans all over the world to realize the latter and act by using our phenomenal wealth and power to coordinate a concerted effort and raise funds for our use of Private Military Contractors (PMCs), widely used in the global military landscape today and accepted by the United Nations charter (they are not mercenaries), to rid the island of the tyrants who have overstayed their welcome in our homeland. Utilizing remittances that Cubans abroad send to the island as a baseline, with annual estimates ranging from $3 to $6 billion dollars, a well-planned fundraising effort would yield that or more. The funds would be used to contract the services of one or more credible PMC(s) whose task would be to rid the hemisphere of the most toxic form of communist tyranny, in our front yard, just 90 miles away. Believe me, Cuba’s armed forces would scurry like rats against the presence of a PMC’s world-class military personnel, mostly former military from the world’s best armies, with highly sophisticated training and equipment, all of whom would be contracted for to conduct specific tasks. Not to mention the vulnerability of the island as it stands all alone and exposed in the Caribbean Sea. The US uses PMCs in Irag in lieu of our armed forces, and other superpowers, like Russia, use them to promote their interests and agendas when they invade or conduct military operations outside their country. PMCs are surgically precise in their strategies and actions, thus minimizing harm to the civilian population, if any. Recent uprising actions by the Cuban people in the island have been a SOS Call never heard before. The present US administration has a golden opportunity to write itself into the history books as the one United States president that rid our hemisphere of communism and oppressive tyrants. Cuba is the source of it all. Once it is gone, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and all other mini-Castros will cease to exist. The heart of terrorism and communism in our hemisphere is only 90 miles away, in our front yard, for 62 years. The fund’s name would be La Patria Llama, The Homeland Calls. An idea whose time has come because, as in the past, we are on our own. Very possible and very real today. Cubans abroad, yes, we can. Yes, we will. Patria y Vida. Los Venceremos.