The Cuban Paradox

The Cuban Paradox 

Cuba, once known to Spain as their "Pearl of the Antilles,“ is a hell hole today of totalitarian repression and Socialist economic misery. But it wasn’t always like this. Only as far back as the late 1950s, Cuba‘s economy was second only to that of its closest neighbor to the North, the United States. 

For those of you unfamiliar with geography, Cuba is closer to Miami than Disney World in Orlando, at just 90 miles south of Key West. You probably don’t even know that at one time, a Cuban Peso was the equivalent of one American Dollar. Today Cuba is only slightly better off than it’s neighbor to the East, Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, only because of Cuba‘s aging infrastructure. Haiti has none. But what happened, you surely ask? 

Castro’s hybrid of Communism, that‘s what, and the window of opportunity to reverse course ended when the Kennedy administration “betrayed” Brigade 2506 on the beaches of the Bay of Pigs, in 1961. More on that stab in the back another day. 

Cuba‘s version of Communism has always been a sort of a "pseudo-Mafia-Commie hybrid creature.“ On the surface, the quintessential Marxist collectivist mantra loudly reaching all four corners of the world, but beneath that surface, a Mafia-style syndicate with a Godfather figure, Fidel, the lieutenants like Raul and his other obscure brothers, and all the intrigue and rewards of organized crime. Tony Soprano would be proud. 

The Cubans played along with the Soviets because of the billions of Dollars poured into Cuba, but when the Berlin Wall fell and the subsequent lifting of the Iron Curtain, the money stopped coming in and Fidel had to reinvent Cuba. That’s when some outside the island recognized the Cuban regime for what it was, a criminal organization. Let me give you an example. To get caught with drugs in the former USSR, was a death sentence, for they saw drugs as one of the decadent West‘s many strategies—pornography was another—to destroy Communism, and as such, they abhorred drugs and were particularly brutal against both it's peddlers and consumers. 

After the Medellin Cartel was dismantled, some of the surviving founders who went to prison like Carlos Lehder – released last year after 30+ years, began to sing like canaries and exposed Cuba as a major transitional point for aircraft and boats carrying Colombia‘s illicit raw domestic product, Cocaine. When this was exposed, Fidel needed to redirect blame to a scapegoat he could use to rid himself of the stain on his carefully fabricated Communist image, so he killed two birds with one stone. He brought up charges of drug trafficking against a perceived threat to his power, General and veteran of Cuba’s involvement in Africa‘s Angola on behalf of the Soviets, Arnaldo Ochoa, who was very popular with the military. 

He offered Ochoa a raw deal, confess to drug trafficking and go to prison for a little while, then retire on a modest pension or don’t, and die. Ochoa, a man of principles even for a Communist, said no. He wasn’t a drug smuggler. He was a soldier. So a military court was convened, a guilty verdict expeditiously delivered, and Ochoa was executed by firing squad the next morning. Thus, Fidel, got rid of the drug stain hanging over his image and a threat to his power, both at the same time. 

Fast forward to today. To the rich and famous worldwide, particularly in entertainment and sports, Cuba is a Caribbean Garden of Eden. To others like Canadians and Europeans, Cuba is a major tourist destination and vacation spot. They arrive in their private jets or respective national airlines, and stay in the five star hotels saturating the island, owned by foreign corporations, who enjoy a cozy relationship with one of the world‘s last remaining Communist dictatorships.

That in itself is questionable, but these wealthy elites ranging from European politicians, to Latin American entertainers, to Israeli businessmen, to Russian mafiosos, to even American celebrities like Jay-Z and Beyoncé, enjoy an isolated luxurious experience in Cuba, oblivious to the daily hardships plaguing the average Cuban living in abject poverty. Many come for Cuba’s other raw domestic product, prostitution. Even Cubans have a pejorative for the masses of beautiful young women willing to sell themselves not for money, but for clothes and shoes, “Jineteras” or “jockeys.” 

Cubans have a saying: "En Cuba, existen dos de todo,“ or "In Cuba, there exists two of everything.“ What this means is that there exist two Cubas, the one for the average citizen and the one for the vacationing wealthy elites and the government-connected. Think about that. The easiest way to demonstrate this is health care. On one hand, a tourist or high ranking government official in need of medical treatment, will go to the hospital fully equipped with the most modern technological equipment available and the best doctors on the island. 

But for the unfortunate average Cuban Joe citizen, he will be sent to the dilapidated, vermint infested, state ran hospital, which doesn’t even have bed sheets let alone medicines. That’s medical care for Cubans in what Bernie Sanders celebrates as the best health care in the World. Did I mentioned that Sanders honeymooned in Communist Moscow and New York’s Mayor, De Blasio, honeymooned in Communist Havana? It’s a fact Jack! Look it up.

Things have never been more dire for Cubans than today. Cuba is a country ravaged by decades of poverty and disease. A repressively brutal pseudo-Socialist regime imposing its corrupted authoritarianism on a disarmed, helpless populace, using well fed, well trained, and well armed, sociopathic goons. No money for basic necessities but an unlimited budget for repression. A wealthy elite class of government officials who live in such a world of luxury, that they even have a small neighboring island populated with African wild game for exclusive hunting expeditions for those driven around in Range Rovers, while Cubans ride bicycles and horses-drawn carts. 

The rest of the world ignores the American embargo, shipping in daily all the consumable luxuries that the brutal regime and the connected enjoy. Take the world's largest cement manufacturer, CeMex, owned by Mexico’s richest man, Mexican-Lebanese Carlos Slim Helú. CeMex has multiple facilities in Cuba, but all that cement is exported while Cuban dwellings crumble as they have no access to any of it. Cuba is the only country in the world where “ferreterias” or hardware stores, have empty shelfs like their food markets. 

American administrations couldn't care less for Cubans, the only Hispanics with a legitimate claim to asylum, but there’s a problem. Like the Vietnamese, Cubans are a reliable voting bloc for the Republicans once they arrive here from the island prison. Democrat administrations welcome everyone from the rest of Latin America escaping poverty and granting them asylum for their votes, while recently telling those who are real political refugees, Cubans, to not make the journey. Are Democrat administrations that incompetent or corrupt? Maybe both! 

There has always been a nagging question as to why the United States hasn't done anything about Cuba but a worthless embargo, particularly so, after the fall of the Soviet Union. Something just doesn't add up. I have heard rumors whispering of nuclear weapons left behind on the island by the Soviets under the control of those crazy enough to use them. But it's just a rumor. Its noteworthy that even the Trump administration, so popular with Cubans, couldn't do much for them other than tightening restrictions. 

As for Cuban-Americans willing to return in a thousand ships not for Helen of Troy, but to liberate their home, try jumping on a boat in Miami with weapons and sail to Cuba and you won't make it 15 miles before the US Coast Guard intercepts you and brings you back to jail. Don't believe me? CBS News Miami: "DHS said in the advisory that any boater from the United States intending to enter Cuban territorial waters, will risk facing fines of $25,000 a day and 10 years in prison, the advisory said."

In the end, only Cubans on the island, willing to overwhelm machine guns with their bodies can bring freedom to Cuba.