5.11.2004

Cuba: Bush About to Make it Worse

Only one phenomenon has kept Fidel Castro in power in Cuba for the past four decades: the American reaction to him. We've tried to assassinate him, invade him, make fun of him, starve his people, allow Cubans who reach shore to get a fast track to citizenship enjoyed by no other refugees, and for awhile there, it looked like we were going to allow relatives in Miami to "steal" the Gonzalez boy because the boy's father chose to live in Cuba.

Bush, whose ranking among Latinos isn't so hot and has been dropping among the anti-Fidel brigades in Florida, is now prepared with a new initiative that - with the way things have gone thus far - will help Fidel stay in office there until he's 105.

Read this column in the New York Daily News by Albor Ruiz:

In a few days, "the dumbest policy on the face of the Earth" - as Colin Powell's chief of staff Larry Wilkerson called the U.S. Cuba policy - is bound to become even dumber.
Come May 20, President Bush will fly to Miami to share with an audience of ultraconservative Cuban-Americans a series of new measures supposed to "hasten" the demise of the Fidel Castro regime.

Among them are increasing anti-Castro propaganda, giving greater support to "dissidents" on the island and - listen to this - initiating clandestine operations to keep money from relatives from falling into the government's hands.