The Sway of Pigs Invasion Begins
G.O.P. To Fight Cuba Relations
View From The Virgin Islands
By John McCarthy
Moderate Voice Columnist
The last time the portable Big Brother of The Media stalked an American in real time, we were waiting to see how a fellow citizen with Ebola walks in a Hazmat suit after a long flight from Africa.
The news has been mostly bad in 2014: a wide body jet airliner disappeared without a trace in March; months later Russia annexed Crimea and used a foothold in the Ukraine to shoot down a passenger jet; then Eric Garner was allegedly choked to death by police in New York and Michael Brown was shot by police in Missouri, resulting in a wave of racial unrest nationwide.
So when President Obama announced from the East Room of the White House today that the release of Alan Gross from an Havana prison signaled a monumental shift in United States-Cuban relations, the tears that it brought to my eyes were of the non-acrid or “good” variety. Good news is always welcome even if it isn’t originally recognized as such.
“Neither the American nor the Cuban people are well-served by a rigid policy that’s rooted in events that took place before most of us were born,” Obama said. “It’s time for a new approach.”
But Gross himself stole the show from Obama in Washington, D.C. and Cuban President Raul Castro in Havana when he held his own press conference from his lawyer’s office in Maryland. Before the press conference the American public had been briefed by CNN that Gross had received at least two of his three holiday wishes on the flight back – a bowl of popcorn and a corned beef sandwich on rye with mustard.
“I guess so far it’s the best Hanukkah that I’ll be celebrating and probably will be for a long time,” he added, noting first day of the Jewish holiday. “What a blessing it is to be a citizen of this country.”
Despite five years in captivity, Gross managed his best Bill Clinton head swagger after earning some chuckles by smiling and revealing some missing front teeth and adding that he would likely visit a dentist soon.
“One of the things I’ve learned is that freedom is not free,” the U.S. government subcontractor said.
Despite the reasons for the seasons, Gross gave all credit for his release to the efforts of President Obama and was gracious in his thanksgiving to his wife, his team of attorneys and the members of Congress who visited him in captivity and who he credited with uplifting his spirits in prison.
One of which was Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) who seemed to sense that the winds of change were blowing with hurricane-force velocity after the first joint American-Cuban announcements since the atomic missile crisis in October 1962.
“My sense is that most of my colleagues feel we are long past due, and so I think the politics are good,” Flake said. “The American spirit is alive and well.”
CNN reported that citizens of Havana were “in tears” and taken by surprise by Castro’s noon state-sponsored television address that stated Obama “deserved respect” and credited Pope Francis for his role in the global warming of relations between the two neighboring countries.
But on the same day that C-SPAN was called “funny and exciting” for airing an unrelated political battle between two brothers that was cut short by their mother phoning into the program, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was having nothing of the warm fuzzy feelings going around. Rubio variously called the President’s actions “naïve,” “absurd” and “disgraceful.”
“This notion that somehow being able to travel more to Cuba, to sell more consumer products, the idea that’s going to lead to some democratic opening is absurd,” Rubio said. “But it’s par for the course with this administration constantly giving away unilateral concessions … in exchange for nothing.”
Perhaps the harshest criticism of all came from Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) who referred to the President as the “Appeaser-In-Chief.”
“President Obama’s decision to allow the Castro regime to blackmail the United States and abandon our pro-democracy principals is an outrage,” Diaz-Balart said in a written statement. “These changes to policy will further embolden the Cuban dictatorship to continue brutalizing and oppressing its own people as well as other anti-American dictatorship and terrorist organizations.”
The President’s policy towards Cuba might be evolving, but he has been re-asserting his stance that he is still relevant as the American Commander-In-Chief since the mid-term elections victories of Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate. Today’s announcement represented tectonic policy shift, but it was mostly about legacy building. In a post-911 world, it might be the closest BHO will come to a Reagan-esque “tear down this wall, Mr.Gobachov”-type moment.
Meanwhile Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a possible 2016 presidential candidate, said he would oppose normalizing relations with Havana even if public opinion was “99 percent in favor.”
“I reserve the right to do everything within the rules of the Senate to prevent that sort of individual from ever even coming up for a vote,” Rubio said on CNN.
Still, just as it is likely that Gross was granted his third request – “a drink of a good Scotch” in an after party following his triumphant press conference – the likelyhood that the distance between Florida and Cuba might be narrowing to Jurassic-era closeness is also good.
© 2014 John Francis McCarthy/Secret Goldfish Publishing House, LLC
John McCarthy is an investigative reporter, artist and photojournalist based in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Please send questions and comments to: [email protected]
Publisher of the Virgin Islands Free Press at http://vifreepress.com