Obama's Cuba Caper at One Year

"I do see in him (Raul Castro) a big streak of pragmatism. In that sense, I donâ€™t think he is an ideologue." (Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama, Dec. 14, 2015.)

"I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of man. Harry [Hopkins] says he's not and that he doesn't want anything but security for his country, and I think if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing in return, noblesse oblige, he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace." (Democratic U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Feb. 1945.)

Barely one year after FDR's surrender to Stalin at Yalta, Winston Churchill was seriously upsetting New Dealer applecarts with his "Iron Curtain" Speech in Fulton Missouri.

Well, we're one year into Obama's "rapprochement" with the Castro regime. (I.e. a U.S. administration trashing the interests of the American and Cuban people with a financial rescue and diplomatic benediction of a bankrupt, kleptocratic, terror-sponsoring Stalinist regime that brought the world to the very brink of nuclear war.)

Here's what's crystal clear: exactly everything predicted by "embittered right-wing crackpot, Cuban exiles!" (as denounced by the mainstream media, the Obama State Department and Castro's agents of influence—but I repeat myself) a year ago has come to pass. To wit:

The fat and happy Stalinist regime has unleashed a wave of repression on the Cuban people unlike anything seen in decades—even under Fidel. Cubans are risking their lives to flee Cuba at a rate unseen for decades.

Meanwhile, the Castro regime snickers and stonewalls over any settlement of the $7 billion in property stolen at Soviet gun-point from U.S. citizens ( and the torture and murder of a few who resisted.) Meanwhile some of the FBI's most-wanted terrorists (against U.S. citizens) and cop-killers (of U.S. cops) who were granted (much-needed) asylum in Castro's terror-sponsoring fiefdom remain in Cuba, snickering and living like celebrities.

The outrage against Obama's scandalous Cuba policy by folks who actually know how the Castro regime operates was manifested in a recent letter signed and sent by the longest-suffering political prisoners in modern history to president Obama.

Based on our history and experience as political prisoners under Castro's totalitarian regime, the new Cuba policy established by your Administration has been a regrettable mistake. This will prolong the life of the dictatorship, is worsening the human rights situation there, marginalizing the democratic opposition and compromising U.S. national security.

Naturally you haven't heard of the letter—much less of the Cuban prisoners. So I won't bother listing their names. Instead, for those interested, I'll link the letter and signatories here.

Thought so! But he was jailed for terrorism by an independent judiciary of a U.S. Cold-War ally eight thousand miles away. Mandela also denounced the U.S. as "a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world...They don't care for human beings!"

On the other hand, the Cuban political prisoners were jailed by Stalinist kangaroo courts 90 miles from our shores by the most rabidly anti-American regime in modern history—and which came closest of any to nuking us all. Furthermore most of the Cuban political prisoners are U.S. citizens today and live in the Miami and New York areas, a short cab-ride from all major U.S. media studios.

So it's perfectly understandable why the media tugs your heartstrings about Mandela but ignores (if not actually disparages) the Cubans…Now regarding the "pragmatic" Raul Castro:

"If any Gorbachev raises his head around here," snarled Raul Castro as recently as 2002, "we'll promptly chop it off!" Yet this is the man who Obama hails as a "pragmatist."

Cuba is a military dictatorship in the most genuine sense of the term, but you never hear it called that in the Mainstream Media. Actually, Raul Castro and his military cronies had been running Cuba (the nuts and bolts of the thing) for years while big brother Fidel reigned.

In fact, Raul Castro was a committed Communist well before Fidel. Unlike Fidel, Raul actually joined the youth wing of Cuba's Communist party. He did this in 1953 and traveled with his ideological cohorts to a Communist festival in Vienna that same year. From there, he traveled behind the Iron Curtain and met with Soviet officials. By 1957, Khrushchev had already assigned him a personal KGB handler named Nikolai Leonov.

Fidel Castro only officially declared Cuba "Socialist" in April of 1961 and himself a "Marxist-Leninist" only in October of 1961. Yet a mini-Communist state had existed in Cuba as early as 1958. This was Raul Castro's area of command during the anti-Batista rebellion in Cuba's Sierra Cristal mountains.

Many Americans of Cuban heritage vividly recall the Castro brothers' good-cop/bad-cop routine of 1959-60. Fidel played the good cop -- and his brother, Raul, the bad-cop. "Nothing had better happen to me," Fidel would warn from his ubiquitous pulpit, hinting that his sinister brother was poised in the wings. In August of 1960, Time magazine crowned Raul Castro "the fist" of the Cuban Revolution. Fidel was "the heart" and Che Guevara "the brains."

But let's get some perspective from someone who actually knew and often interacted with Raul Castro. Romanian General Ion Pacepa was the Soviet bloc's highest ranking intelligence defector. He knew Raul Castro well for over two decades. As he explains: "As head of one of Communism's most criminal institutions, Raul has been the butcher. He has been instrumental in the killing and terrorizing of thousands of Cubans."

Note that Pacepa regards Castro's political police as "one of Communism's most criminal institutions." Coming from a man who learned the ropes of his profession from Stalin's henchmen and who served as Nikolai Ceaucescu's chief spy, this is saying something.

Russia Boosts Arms, Training for Leftist Latin Militaries

Moscow defense minister inks deals with Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua for joint exercises

BY: Bill Gertz
February 20, 2015

Russia agreed to provide military training for three leftist regimes in Latin America and increase military visits and exercises following a visit last week to the region by Moscow's Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu, Pentagon officials said.

Shoygu met with defense and military leaders in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua and signed several agreements on warship visits and military training during the visit, which ran from Feb. 11 to 14. It is not clear whether any new arms deals were completed during the visit.

Defense officials said the Russian leader is seeking bases in the region for strategic bomber flights that Shoygu recently promised would include flights over the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.

U.S. intelligence agencies closely monitored the visit but a Pentagon spokeswoman played down the Russian military encroachment.

"Just as we have bilateral and multilateral relationships around the world, so do other nations," Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen M. Lainez told the Washington Free Beacon. "All nations are free to choose their associations as they see fit."

The U.S. Southern Command, the command responsible for maintaining security in the region, also played down the visit.

"We respect the sovereign right of nations in the region to seek constructive relationships with the international community," said Col. Lisa Garcia, a command spokeswoman.

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), a member of the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, said "the Russian bear is out of hibernation from Damascus, to Donetsk, and from Pyongyang to Peru."

"Putin and his coterie of "former" communists smell weakness," Pompeo said. "Their window to expand Russian influence is now and they are acting with great vigor and with nearly zero resistance from America and the West. Russian military expansion into Latin America is simply one more manifestation of their resolve and American inaction."

Defense officials familiar with intelligence reports said Shoygu discussed future arms sales and signed military training and joint exercises accords during his four days of meetings.

All three Latin states are members of the 11-member Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, known as ALBA, a leftist alliance set up by Cuba and Venezuela in 2004 as an anti-U.S. grouping of states.

The Russian news site Pravda reported that the defense minister's visit appeared to set the stage for a future visit to the region by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian leader is under growing isolation as the result of diplomatic and financial pressure from U.S. and European states that U.S. officials have said are beginning to cause serious economic problems for Russia.

The Shoygu visit also comes amid heightened tensions between Russia and the West over Moscow's military annexation of Ukraine's Crimea and continuing Russian military destabilization, despite a recent ceasefire accord, in eastern Ukraine.

The Obama administration has remained largely silent on Russian military encroachment in the western hemisphere. Russian Tu-95 Bear H bomber flights have increased sharply near U.S. coasts in recent months, with one recent air defense zone incursion simulating a practice nuclear cruise missile strike on the United States from northeastern Canada.

British jets on Thursday intercepted Russian bombers flying along the coast near Cornwall, in southwest England.

In Nicaragua, Shoygu signed an agreement aimed at simplifying procedures for Russian warships to make port calls. A second accord was reached that will increase military training in Russia for Nicaraguan military personnel.

Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista President Daniel Ortega announced last year that he plans to build up the armed forces with Moscow's assistance.

Russia also agreed previously to supply naval gunboats to Nicaragua beginning in 2016.

Venezuela also is a major recipient of Russian weapons, including an estimated $12 billion in arms, including Su-30 jets, Mi-17, Mi-26 and Mi-35 helicopters, T-72 tanks, Smerch multiple launch rocket launchers, S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, and artillery.

Venezuela also agreed during the Shoygu visit to increase visits by Russian warships, and Caracas will hold joint military exercises with the Russians. Joint Russian-Venezuelan air defense training also was discussed, and Russian warship visits will take place in the future.

"We will most certainly take part in your air defense and artillery drills," Shoygu was quoted by state-run Sputnik news agency as saying in Caracas.

Pravda reported Russian air force aircraft may make use of Venezuelan bases in the future.

In November, Shoygu announced that Russian strategic nuclear bombers would conduct long-range training flights over the Gulf of Mexico. "In the current situation we have to maintain military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico."

Marine Corps. Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, confirmed the likelihood of future Russian bomber flights during testimony earlier this month before the House Armed Services Committee.

"Moscow has made significant progress in modernizing its nuclear and conventional forces, improving its training and joint operational proficiency, modernizing its military doctrine to integrate new methods of warfare and developing long range precision strike capabilities," Stewart said.

Stewart said Russian military forces, including Tu-95 bombers, conducted "record numbers" of out of area air and naval deployments.

"We expect this to continue this year to include greater activity in the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas," he said.

In an article published Tuesday, Pravda quoted Putin as saying Russia would not permit the United States to achieve military superiority, and Moscow will continue to bolster its nuclear forces, space weapons, navy, and long-range aviation.

The newspaper also said Moscow lacks a system of bases to achieve its objectives.

In Cuba, Shoygu met Cuban dictator Raul Castro and noted that military relations continued to "develop constructively." The Russian leader also thanks the Cuban communist regime for hosting port visits by Russian naval vessels, including the intelligence-gathering ship Victor Leonov, which made a port call in Havana in January, coinciding with the Obama administration's diplomatic initiative to seek normalized relations with the regime.

Cuba also agreed to send military personnel to Russia for training.

U.S. defense officials said the Leonov was anchored some 25 miles off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, last week, where it is suspected of conducting surveillance of U.S. nuclear missile submarines based at nearby Kings Bay, Georgia.

"This long-term strategy imposes obligations on Russia to supply its allies in Latin America with advanced weapons, including air defense systems, aircraft, and warships," Pravda stated.

Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton said the Russians appear to be filling a power vacuum in the region by the lack of focus from the Obama administration.

"Russia's perception of American weakness under Obama has fueled their new adventurism in this hemisphere," Bolton said. "Since I see no chance of Obama waking up to the potential threat, I am very worried about the situation a new president will face in January 2017."

Dan Goure, a Russia expert with the Lexington Institute, said Russia's current moves into Latin America "are like a page Xeroxed from the Soviet political-military playbook."

"Now, like then, the Kremlin is attempting to counter what it perceives as western encirclement by operating in America's backyard," Goure said.

"The U.S. deploys missile defenses in Eastern Europe and sends warships into the Black Sea so the Russian military is attempting a riposte by orchestrating naval visits to Venezuela and seeking to reopen its intelligence facility in Cuba."

Goure said Moscow is seeking to encourage anti-American sentiment in the region "much the same way as it perceives the U.S. has done to Russia in the so-called color revolutions."

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-boosts-arms-training-for-leftist-latin-militaries/

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

How Russia arms America's southern neighbors

Russia Boosts Arms, Training for Leftist Latin Militaries