Michael Moore Knocks Cuban Exiles, Capitalism, etc. in Book "Downsize This"

Third World Traveler ^ | 08.01.04

[Coleus]

p193

Miami -- It is there that a nutty bunch of Cuban exiles have controlled U.S. foreign policy regarding this insignificant island nation. These Cubans, many of whom were Batista supporters and lived high on the hog while that crook ran the country, seem not to have slept a wink since they grabbed their assets and headed to Florida.

And, since 1960, they have insisted on pulling us into their madness. Why is it that in every incident of national torment that has deflated our country for the past three decades-the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, IranContra, our drug abuse epidemic-the list goes on and on-we find that the Cuban exiles are always present and involved? First it was Lee Harvey Oswald's connection to the Cubans in New Orleans. (Or was it the Cuban exiles acting alone to kill Kennedy, or Castro ordering the assassination 'cause he just got bored with Kennedy trying to bump him off? Whichever theory you subscribe to, the Cubans are lurking in the neighborhood.)

Then, on the night of June 17, 1972, three Cubans- Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, and Virgilio Gonzalez (plus Americans Frank Sturgis and James McCord Jr.)-were caught breaking into the Watergate offices of the chairman of the Democratic Party. This covert operation eventually brought down Richard Nixon, (so I guess there is a silver lining to that particular Cuban-exile operation).

Today, Barker and Gonzalez are considered heroes in Miami's Cuban community. Martinez, later pardoned by Ronald Reagan, is the only one who feels bad. "I did not want myself to be involved in the downfall of the President of the United States." Oh, well, how nice of you!

When Ollie North needed a cover group to run arms into Nicaragua to help overthrow the government, who else could he turn to but the Miami Cubans? Bay of Pigs veterans Ramon Medina and Rafael Quintero were key managers of the air-transport company that supplied weapons to the Contras. The U.S.-backed Contra War was responsible for the deaths of thirty thousand Nicaraguans.

One of the big bonuses to come out of our funding of these Cuban exiles was the help they gave us in bringing illegal drugs into the States, destroying families and whole sections of our cities. Beginning in the early sixties, a number of Cubans (who also participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion) began running major narcotics rings in this country. The DEA found little support within the federal government to go after these Cuban exiles, because they had organized themselves under the phony banner of "freedom groups." In fact, many were nothing more than fronts for massive drug-smuggling operations. These same drug runners later helped to run arms to the Contras.

U.S.-based Cuban terrorist organizations have been responsible for more than two hundred bombings and at least a hundred murders since Castro's revolution. They have got everyone so afraid to stand up to them that I probably shouldn't even be writing this chapter. I am, after all, one of the few unarmed Americans.

So why am I not worried? Because these Cuban exiles, for all their chest-thumping and terrorism, are really just a bunch of wimps. That's right. Wimps.

Need proof? For starters, when you don't like the oppressor in your country, you stay there and try to overthrow him. This can be done by force (American Revolution, French Revolution) or through peaceful means (Gandhi in India or Mandela in South Africa). But you don't just turn tail and run like these Cubans.

Imagine if the American colonists had all run to Canada-and then insisted the Canadians had a responsibility to overthrow the British down in the States. The Sandinistas never would have freed their country from Somoza if they had all been sitting on the beach in Costa Rica, drinking margaritas and getting rich. Mandela went to prison, not to Libya or London.

But the wealthy Cubans scooted off to Miami-and got wealthier. Ninety percent of these exiles are white, while the majority of Cubans-62 percent-are black or of mixed race. The whites knew they couldn't stay in Cuba because they had no support from the people. So they came here, expecting us to fight their fight for them. And, like morons, we have.

It's not that these Cuban crybabies haven't tried to help themselves. But a quick look at their efforts resembles an old Keystone Kops movie. The Bay of Pigs is their best-known fiasco. It had all the elements of a great farce-wrong boats, wrong beach, no ammo for the guns, no one shows up to meet them, and, finally, they are left for dead, wandering around a part of their island completely unfamiliar to them (their limo drivers, I guess, had never taken them there in the good old days).

This embarrassment was so monumental the world still hasn't stopped laughing-and the Miami Cubans have never forgotten or forgiven this. Say "Bay of Pigs" to any of them, and you might as well be a dentist with a drill on a raw, decaying nerve.

You would think that the Bay of Pigs defeat would have taught them a lesson, but then you would probably be projecting. You would have given up. Not this crowd. Since 1962, numerous Cuban exile groups have attempted even more raids to "liberate" their homeland.

Let's go to the highlights reel:

* In 1981, a group of Miami Cuban exiles landed on Providenciales Island in the Caribbean on their way to invading Cuba. Their boat, the only one of four exile boats to make it out of the Miami River (the other three were turned back by the Coast Guard due to foul weather, engine trouble, or too few life jackets), ran aground on a reef near Providenciales. Stuck there on the island with no food or shelter, the Miami Cubans started fighting among themselves. They begged the people of Miami to rescue them off the island, and after three weeks they were airlifted back to Florida. The only one of their group to make it to Cuban waters, Geraldo Fuentes, suffered an appendicitis attack while at sea and had to be helicoptered by the Coast Guard to Guantanamo for treatment.

* In 1968, a group of Miami Cubans learned that a Polish ship was docked in the port of Miami and that a Cuban delegation might be aboard the freighter. From the MacArthur Causeway, according to the St. Petersburg Times, the Cuban exiles fired a homemade bazooka and hit the ship's hull. It only put a nick in the ship, and the group's leader, Orlando Bosch, was sentenced to ten years in prison, but was released in 1972. Bosch explained that they had hoped to cause more damage, but, he pleaded, "It was a big ship!" Bosch had earlier been arrested for towing a torpedo through downtown Miami during rush hour, and another time he was caught with six hundred mini aerial bombs loaded with dynamite in the trunk of his Cadillac. In 1990, the Bush administration released him from prison, where he was serving time for parole violations.

* According to Washington Monthly, "During the summer and early fall of 1963, five commando raids were launched against Cuba in the hopes of destabilizing the regime. The negligible Cuban underground was instructed to leave faucets running and lightbulbs burning to waste energy."

* In 1962, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Cuban exile Jose Basulto, on a CIA-sponsored mission, fired a 20-mm cannon from a speedboat at the Incan Hotel next to Havana Bay, hoping to kill Fidel Castro. The shell missed, and Basulto, seeing gasoline spilling all over his boat, hightailed it back to Florida. "One of our gas tanks, made of plastic, began to leak," Basulto explained later. "Gas ran all over the deck. We didn't know what to do."

Years later, Basulto would go on to form "Brothers to the Rescue," an exile group that for the past few years has been flying missions over Cuba, buzzing Cuban sites, dropping leaflets, and generally trying to intimidate the Cuban government. In February 1996, Castro was apparently fed up with this harassment, and after the twenty-fifth incident in the past twenty months of the Brothers violating Cuban airspace, he ordered that two of their planes be shot down.

Even though Brothers to the Rescue was violating U.S. law by flying into Cuban airspace (a fact the FAA acknowledges), the Clinton administration again went to the exile trough and instantly got a bill passed to tighten the embargo against Cuba. This embargo has brought the wrath of the rest of the world against us-the UN General Assembly voted 117 to 3 to "condemn" the United States for its economic violence against Cuba (as it has in every vote since the embargo was imposed).

[Nachum]

Yeah, and if those darn Russian exiles wouldn't have gotten in the way, there would still be a USSR. Darn nuisance.

[counterpunch]

Michael Moore could use some downsizing.

[RobbyS]

This idiot does not know that Castro wanted to launch those atomics missles at our cities back in 1962. We now know this from the testimony of the Russians.

[68skylark]

Moore supports communist idea every chance he gets (usually without mentioning communism explicitly). No wonder he's such a strong Kerry supporter.

[South40]

[SunnySide]

Ahhhhh-mazing

The only thing Moore needs to down size is his obesity.

[xm177e2]

Years later, Basulto would go on to form "Brothers to the Rescue," an exile group that for the past few years has been flying missions over Cuba, buzzing Cuban sites, dropping leaflets, and generally trying to intimidate the Cuban government.

Free speech = Intimidation?

We know how Michael Moore values liberty (he doesn't).

[jocon307]

Coleus,

this guy is such a creep and an *ssh*le, I'm sure someday we will find out something awful about him. I just hope you and I don't stroke out gettig aggravated over him before that time.

[AQGeiger]

Is Michael Moore capable of any originality? Almost all of his book and movie titles are rip-offs of the titles of other works.

[bikepacker67]

Hey Mikey... what would John F. Kennedy say?

[blackdog]

Moore's ignorance of history is only surpassed by his endless desire to take a dump on someone else. All of his questions have answers readilly available regarding US policy toward communist Cuba. That's why it's called policy. It's not just make stuff up as the day suits you.

[Mrs Zip]

ping

[Guillermo]

Cubans are the only "minority" group where it's PC to bash.

[Coleus]

That fat pig is living in the lap of luxury in NYC, enjoying a high standard of living and all the conveniences which modern living has to offer through capitalism, freedom and the American way,  collecting residuals for his books and movies while Cubans live in Spartan conditions with 1950's technology living in constant fear of imprisonment or death with a Communist Dictator in command.

Where they and their children risk starvation, dehydration and death by trying to escape to America.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I'd love to drop that fat f*ck smack dab in the middle of Little Havana late at night.

[Chgogal]

'bout time he downsizes his bank account and gives it to me!

[Coleus]