Soap Box

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 In 1959, after Fidel Castro won the coup against an evil dictator named Fulgencio Batista, expectations were over the moon that Cuba would be joining the community of democratic nations, that political repression would be lifted, human rights restored and the Cuban economy would soon boom, bringing prosperity to one and all.

I was in Washington, DC working the club circuit at the time and was with some Cuban expatriates shortly after the Castro victory was announced. They were ecstatic, some of them had even had first hand experiences with the cruelty of the Batista regime and their joy that he had been deposed was boundless in anticipation of the better days ahead for Cuba.

Castro was hailed as the great liberator, hero of the Western Hemisphere, who would at last bring peace and prosperity to this beautiful island that lay just 90 miles off the coast of our own nation.

The great man himself came to Washington and flitted around town like a sweat bee as local radio sang his praises, dynamic, charismatic, special in so many ways, destined to become one of the great leaders of the 20th Century. 

We all know what happened, there would be no freedom for Cuba under Fidel Castro, it would be business as usual -banana republic style - with political executions, repression of human rights and long prison terms or worse for all those who didn't impeccably toe the line.

Every time I see some kid wearing a Che Guevara tee shirt I know I'm looking at somebody who has swallowed the Hollywood romanticisation of this monster. Che Guevara was a butcher, a man who murdered in cold blood and was allowed the latitude by the Castro regime to do it as often as he deemed fit.

Castro was being courted and of course America expected Cuba to become a staunch ally and trading partner, which would have brought about a complete transformation of the island, as American tourists flocked to Havana and Cuban sugar and tobacco would find a lucrative and steady market in our country.

But then Fidel Castro made the worst mistake of his political life.

Russia threw a line in the water and Castro bit hook, line and sinker walking straight into the arms of Moscow complete with communism and Russian military aid, which would enable him to terrorize the Caribbean community for the next several decades, not to mention bringing America and Russia to the very brink of nuclear war.

The isolation and trade sanctions that would follow would cripple the Cuban economy, making the population even poorer than it already was, as Castro built up a formidable military and tried to export communism throughout the island nations of the Caribbean. He was an ever-present threat to America and American interests everywhere.

Russia fell on hard fiscal times a few years later and could no longer purchase the entire Cuban sugar crop or the other products which were embargoed in America and Castro had to tighten the belt a little more. 

Then Venezuela suddenly got oil rich and formed an alliance with Castro that kept his regime afloat a little longer.

Now, Hugo Chavez is dead, oil prices have fallen sharply, stifling Venezuelan and Russian aid and Castro has once more got his back to the wall and after fifty years of trying to dethrone this dictator without firing a shot, it looked as if it was going to happen.

Enter Barack Hussein Obama to save the day for Castro negating fifty years of diligent efforts by America to free the people of Cuba and now Obama is going to prop up the Castro administration with American dollars, very little of which will ever filter down to the Cuban people, and aid and proliferate communism in the Western Hemisphere, as Raul Castro has already made the statement that Cuba would remain a communist nation.

This little Obama adventure will be little more than a multi-billion dollar headache for America as in typical Obama fashion; he has given away the farm getting little or nothing in return.

This is cosmetic politics at it very finest and I hope the new Congress will have sense enough and gonads enough to put the brakes on it.

And to top off the Cuba farce, Obama is trying to establish diplomatic relationships with the world's biggest exporter of terrorism.

Barack, no matter what the mullahs say, Iran don't love us.

Go figure.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels