The Essay

Why the Quest for Cuba?

This just in: Did you know that we have more government agents tracking the movements of American tourists going to Cuba than we have tracking Osama bin Laden?

“The Bush Administration has six times as many Treasury agents from OFAC [Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control] tracking people traveling to Cuba as it does tracking the finances of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein combined.” That’s according to a press release issued by the office of U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND)

“I think we all agree that Fidel Castro is a dictator,” Dorgan said. “But no one would even attempt to argue that he represents a greater threat to our country or our national interest than Osama bin Laden.”

The Treasury Department, however, issued a statement saying they “fully utilize the resources and tools available to us to protect our nation and the good-willing people around the world from those who seek to harm us, be they terrorist thugs or fascist dictators.”

“Rather than spending precious resources to prevent Americans from exercising their right to travel, OFAC must realign its priorities and instead work harder to keep very real terrorist threats out of our country,” said Max Baucus (D-Mont).

While Americans are free to travel to communist China, North Korea and Vietnam, they will be rigorously fined for spending money in Cuba.

“Since Bush took office in January 2001, more than 1,200 Americans have been threatened with a maximum $55,000 fine for violation of Cuba travel-related sanctions, more than twice the number during former president Bill Clinton's eight-year mandate,” according to Agence France Presse.

Meanwhile, the list of abuses against American travelers, by the American government, is becoming quite alarming. For example, a 75-year-old woman from San Diego, traveled via Canada to Cuba for a bicycle tour and was fined nearly $10,000 for doing so. One question we ought to be asking is why the OFAC is tracking 75-year-old women around Cuba. Another couple, from Michigan, were fined $4,000 dollars for “providing nursing services to a Cuban national.” Apparently, they had given her a band-aid.

“Since Bush took office, some 1,226 Americans have received letters from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) threatening fines of up to the maximum of $55,000 for violating the travel ban by spending money in Cuba without a license (the average fine is $7,500),” according to the Washington Post. “That's more than double the total during Bill Clinton's entire last term.”

Despite vocal Congressional opposition, Bush and the Treasury Department have continued to impose travel restrictions on America. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) for one, has advocated lifting travel restrictions that were imposed in 1961 in an attempt to pressure Castro.

“Since Castro has not changed, we have a couple options: continue sitting idle or bomb Cuba—not with ordnance but with policies of engagement and Sears catalogues,” Craig said at the Conference on Freedom to Travel to Cuba in Washington, D.C., according to the Lewiston Morning Tribune.

I might be paranoid, (though I doubt it) but Craig’s remarks underline a theory I’ve been harboring, namely that the Bush administration is preparing for an eventual coup in Cuba with the goal of making it a U.S. territory. Sound preposterous? Let’s consider some peripheral facts. Everyone has been waiting for Castro to die (he was born in 1927) for some years now; Cuba is a mere 100 miles from Key West; America has a huge constituency of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans who have funded Republican administrations and, lastly, Castro has not groomed anyone in Cuba to take over when he dies. He’s governed largely via the cult of his personality and the government will undoubtedly fall into unstable hands when he does die.

Now let’s consider some political realities: In October of last year, Bush announced to a gathering of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans that Secretary of State Colin Powell and Housing Secretary Mel Martinez (an anti-Castro Cuban-American) would chair a panel to “plan for the happy days when Castro’s regime is no more. . .The transition to democracy and freedom will present many challenges to the Cuban people and to America, and we will be prepared.” Castro, Bush inveighed, had insulted all with a “new round of brutal oppression that outraged world conscience.”

True, Castro has been a busy man. In 2003, Cuba executed three hijackers and convicted 75 people as U.S. government agents. It would be absurd to deny his abysmal human rights record. The same could be said, however, of dozens of governments around the world—so the question is, why Cuba?

The Bush administration claims Cuba has biological weapons of mass destruction and Powell has asserted that Cuba permits child prostitution (and almost certainly this is a neat piece of propaganda with no basis in truth). Powell has preposterously claimed that Castro's regime is “the only totalitarian dictatorship existing in the hemisphere.” (I guess Haiti and Iraq, among dozens of others, simply slipped his mind). In his New Year’s Day editorial in The New York Times Powell wrote:

“This struggle [for freedom] will not be confined to the Middle East. We are working for the advent of a free Cuba, and toward democratic reform in other countries whose people are denied liberty. And we are resolved to support the young democracies that have risen in Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The consolidation of freedom in many new but often fragile democracies will shape the aspirations of people everywhere, assuring that the 21st century will be a century of liberty worldwide.”

My, my, isn’t it lovely to live in such an altruistic country? I wake up mornings reveling with delight that my country is so damned generous. (True, some mornings I do push back nagging suspicions that our interests might be economically motivated.) Nah, not that—we simply want to bring freedom and liberty to all those hapless suckers around the world, ‘cause, heck, we ain’t got anything else to do—our education and prison systems are ideal—we have universal healthcare suffrage, homes for everyone, jobs a plenty—with not much to do here, we got to help the rest of the world. So, yes, I share Powell’s vision, hell, I applaud it.

Or, might it run more like this:

“If one compiles the nourishing of anti-Cuban sentiments within the U.S. before the 2004 elections; the reach into Cuba with radio/television facilitated by the Guantanamo Bay satellite dishes; the continued support for anti-Castro Cuban dissidents; the economic positioning of the U.S. in Latin America; the diplomatic venture at the OAS led by Powell; the military strategy related to allegations of biological weapons manufacture; the recent overt and covert U.S. operations to destabilise Latin American governments (such as those in Venezuela and Colombia) which raise eyebrows at the U.S.; and the punitive actions against those that supports Cuba; the similarities to the pre-Iraq invasion tactics become rather plain,” Shermini Peries, writing in The Hindu (India’s national newspaper).

I’ll cop to having a healthy streak of paranoia running through my veins. Considering that we’ve now seen the appointment of a president by the Supreme Court, despite popular vote, and seeing that we (the media and indeed all Americans) have subsequently dropped all discussion about the purpose of the electoral college (and indeed, voting ballots and boxes), the old mantra “question everything” seems like the only healthy response. Better still: Question everything, but especially question government. —A.M. McNary