Newsweek Spouts GOP Partyline on Cuba

An article in the August 2nd issue of Newsweek (“On Standby” Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey) repeats the Bush administration baloney: “It was only last month that President Bush’s officials detailed their plans to help Cuba transition from the Castro regime to a free society. Little did they know that Fidel Castro would be executing his own transition this week, handing over power to his brother Raul—at least, on an ostensibly temporary basis, while the Cuban leader underwent urgent surgery. “Bush officials concede they still know very little about Castro’s condition now, including the most basic question of whether the Cuban leader is alive or dead.” Little did they know? And they still know very little? Oh please! Bullshit me not! Not only did the Bush administration know about Castro’s health crisis, but it also knew in the middle of July that Castro was dead or on his deathbed. It’s true, most of the Bush administration policies make no sense. But it is beyond belief that the US would suddenly decide to renew its push to “free Cuba” at the exact time when the Israel/Lebanon war had started and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were spiraling totally out of control, unless it knew that Castro’s demise or resignation was imminent. In mid-July the US announced that its Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, would offer “prioritized assistance” to a “transitional Cuban government” and that even before a transition started transiting, the Bush administration would spend $80 mil in the next two years on “opposition groups” and “uncensored information” for Cubans delivered over television and the internet. “We will do all this and more,” Havana-born Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told reporters last month,“provided we are asked by a Cuban transition government that is committed to dismantling all instruments of state repression, and implementing internationally respected human rights and fundamental freedoms.” All this and more, Gutierrez said. However, there was a proviso that the “transitional government” hold free elections within 18 months. Why? Of course there’s the humiliation factor. Castro humiliated President Kennedy shortly after his inauguration with the US-sponsored Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961. And there’s the issue of Soviet missiles that were installed in Cuba in August 1962 forcing a showdown (which Kennedy won) in October. Then there’s the hatred of Castro by President George Herbert Walker Bush, which has been inherited by George W. Bush. But why not just let Cuba stew in its juices with the demise of Fidel Castro and the assumption of power by brother Raul Castro? And let a whole Hispanic/Cuban-exile voting faction slip through GOP fingers? What about big businesses that fled to Florida, such as the Rowland Coffee Roasters? Rowland is a Miami-based company owned by the Cuban-exile Souto family. The family’s roots are in the Cuban province of Sancti Spiritus where it’s been growing coffee beans since the 1820’s. Rowland does the coffee bean roasting for the Bustelo and Pilon coffee companies, without which no family calling itself Cuban can make a cup of coffee. Not to mention the Medaglia D’Oro brand, for which Rowland also does the bean roasting. The Soutos prospered until Castro and his merry band took over in 1959. The Soutos came to the US and started a coffee business here. Of 500 Hispanic businesses in Florida, Rowland was ranked 80 in 2006. Revenue for the 2005 year was 72 million. But can Rowland Coffee be called Cuban coffee? Of course not. Rowland’s coffee beans come from Columbia or Brazil. And the Soutos would dearly love to get back to Cuba where they could grow actual Cuban coffee beans. The Tampa Bay Business Journal said in April 2006, “A study conducted by Tim Lynch, director of the Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis at Florida State University, concluded that lifting the (Cuban) embargo would result in a $5 billion to $13 billion annual dynamic increase in U.S. GDP over 20 years, and $1.1 billion to $2.1 billion growth in Florida GDP over 35 years.” And then there is the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay. Wouldn’t it be lovely to expand that base to cover half of Cuba? So what is our freedom and democracy garbage all about this time? It’s about revenge, votes, helping big business, expanding our military power, and oh yeah…what about the US being able to drill for oil (which it cannot now do) in the ocean 60 miles off the Florida shore? Now that surely is worth mounting war ships and missiles for, in the interest of freedom and democracy.