Smugglers
This post was born from a comment I posted at Mr.T's blog, under his article Angels who smuggle men to freedom
There has not been a single instance where one smuggler has been tied to the castro government by any American court.
There's no documented instance in which they have killed their human cargo, given it to kasstro, or abandoned them in the hi-seas, or thrown them overboard. So, this makes me say that they are the underground railroad of the Straits of Death for a while.
At the same time, I understand that they might have various motivations, one is to free Cubans, another one is adventure, and another one is money. Let's see, the fact that they go to Cuba and they risk it all to free Cubans is enough to elevate those men to the ranks of secret fighters.
The love for adventure, nothing wrong with that, while used to oppose tyranny: they risk what people who also own boats don't risk: their lives when they go to Cuba and pick Cubans from a beach. Money, yes, money: All patriotic enterprises have been at least in part fueled by money, if we have to pay them to get Cubans out of there in a safer way, so be it.
Oh, let's say that people don't like smugglers...
Well, there's the dry foot wet foot which gurantees the existence of smugglers. Because is the American Coast Guard was nearer Cuba saving men, women, and children from the waters, and the US government were not in cahoots with the tyranny to send them back or to put them indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay, there would not be a reason for these smugglers to exist. Period.
How is that the communists can have all the resources of the word to keep the slaves enslaved and we cannot even buy their freedom, not from the commies, mind you, but from men who are adventurers -and anticastro adventureres- to spirit them to freedom?
In the meantime, rich American men are bribing the biCoastal Guard to have their luxury yatchs moored at the Marina Hemingway. This happened years ago when I lived in Cuba, and it still happens today. One can see huge yatchs, some with helicopter decks, and most of them roll off luxury cars on arrival. And tell me that these people don't pay to stay in Cuba. But no, the smugglers are the spawn of kasstro, according to some. I have a word for the traitors: Rome despised the traitors it used, usually executing them once the dirty work was done.
We have said many times that people who own yatchs or more modest seafaring vessels should go to Cuba en masse and pick up their relatives, defying the laws of Cuba. The US government would have to explain to the world why they are trying to block them from liberating their relatives, and from liberating Cuba, because we all know that Cuba's tyranny would come crumbling down if that were to happen. It almost happened in 1980 with the Mariel, and I can tell you, because I lived there at the time, that the government ONLY regained momentum after Jimmy Carter reassured that NOT ALL would be admitted and blocked the Cuban-American yatchs from going to Cuba to keep picking up people.
One of the non publicized stories of the Mariel was how the Cuban Coast Guard was overwhelmed by private boats picking up Cubans wherever, other than Havana or the Mariel Port. The help came from the US, when the American Coast Guard interdicted all boats making the trip down to Cuba. Then, and only then, Kasstro gained the needed momentum to recover grounds and to save his tyranny.
By the way, the Mariel was the direct result of the trips to Cuba from the exiles. People had the image of a land that saved their connationals, and gave them the chance to live in freedom parading amongst themselves. It changed Cuba, forever. Dissidents start sprouting like wild flowers everywhere.
One of the solutions that we have proposed at KillCastro is to overwhelm the tyranny flooding Cuba with Cubans and Americans arriving at the same time at all ports of call and at all airports. A civilian invasion which will cause the government of Cuba to collapse, because they would not be able to control the unknown numbers of Americans and Cuban Americans mingling with the local and the police would not dare to touch a hair of anybody because the fear of a confrontation with the United States.
There has not been a single instance where one smuggler has been tied to the castro government by any American court.
There's no documented instance in which they have killed their human cargo, given it to kasstro, or abandoned them in the hi-seas, or thrown them overboard. So, this makes me say that they are the underground railroad of the Straits of Death for a while.
At the same time, I understand that they might have various motivations, one is to free Cubans, another one is adventure, and another one is money. Let's see, the fact that they go to Cuba and they risk it all to free Cubans is enough to elevate those men to the ranks of secret fighters.
The love for adventure, nothing wrong with that, while used to oppose tyranny: they risk what people who also own boats don't risk: their lives when they go to Cuba and pick Cubans from a beach. Money, yes, money: All patriotic enterprises have been at least in part fueled by money, if we have to pay them to get Cubans out of there in a safer way, so be it.
Oh, let's say that people don't like smugglers...
Well, there's the dry foot wet foot which gurantees the existence of smugglers. Because is the American Coast Guard was nearer Cuba saving men, women, and children from the waters, and the US government were not in cahoots with the tyranny to send them back or to put them indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay, there would not be a reason for these smugglers to exist. Period.
How is that the communists can have all the resources of the word to keep the slaves enslaved and we cannot even buy their freedom, not from the commies, mind you, but from men who are adventurers -and anticastro adventureres- to spirit them to freedom?
In the meantime, rich American men are bribing the biCoastal Guard to have their luxury yatchs moored at the Marina Hemingway. This happened years ago when I lived in Cuba, and it still happens today. One can see huge yatchs, some with helicopter decks, and most of them roll off luxury cars on arrival. And tell me that these people don't pay to stay in Cuba. But no, the smugglers are the spawn of kasstro, according to some. I have a word for the traitors: Rome despised the traitors it used, usually executing them once the dirty work was done.
We have said many times that people who own yatchs or more modest seafaring vessels should go to Cuba en masse and pick up their relatives, defying the laws of Cuba. The US government would have to explain to the world why they are trying to block them from liberating their relatives, and from liberating Cuba, because we all know that Cuba's tyranny would come crumbling down if that were to happen. It almost happened in 1980 with the Mariel, and I can tell you, because I lived there at the time, that the government ONLY regained momentum after Jimmy Carter reassured that NOT ALL would be admitted and blocked the Cuban-American yatchs from going to Cuba to keep picking up people.
One of the non publicized stories of the Mariel was how the Cuban Coast Guard was overwhelmed by private boats picking up Cubans wherever, other than Havana or the Mariel Port. The help came from the US, when the American Coast Guard interdicted all boats making the trip down to Cuba. Then, and only then, Kasstro gained the needed momentum to recover grounds and to save his tyranny.
By the way, the Mariel was the direct result of the trips to Cuba from the exiles. People had the image of a land that saved their connationals, and gave them the chance to live in freedom parading amongst themselves. It changed Cuba, forever. Dissidents start sprouting like wild flowers everywhere.
One of the solutions that we have proposed at KillCastro is to overwhelm the tyranny flooding Cuba with Cubans and Americans arriving at the same time at all ports of call and at all airports. A civilian invasion which will cause the government of Cuba to collapse, because they would not be able to control the unknown numbers of Americans and Cuban Americans mingling with the local and the police would not dare to touch a hair of anybody because the fear of a confrontation with the United States.
6 Comments:
Charlie:
Every time you guys talk of a civilian invasion, it makes me just want to go, but with the law that only allows us to visit every three years, well it makes it impossible, why do you think Bush came up with it? of course you know it was done and thought of with our very own politicos, who think it hurts kaggastro, it only hurts our brethen, if only the next president would lift it, then it may be possible do do as you advice, ah if only we had the power, if the USA would just live us alone, to visit and do for our homeland what is right.
A smuggler is one who transports people, goods or ideas when it cannot be done freely. CB is an idea smuggler...hell, me too! The time for the invasion south will not be to take Cubans out but to help them regain their nation and their lives. Just continue to smuggle in ideas and smuggle out the reality of Cuba to the outside world and they are sure to collapse fast. Listen how they cry and plead now for olive branch dialog. I believe we are in the beginning of the end right now. It's too bad their is not some legislation granting us humanitarian travel rights when the fall happens. Islanders need help right now. That is only going to get worse. In case of total social collapse I can't see how the Coast Guard can stop thousands of boaters all at once who would be bringing food, medicine and supplies to desperate people in need of a break from 48 years of stupidity. TO THE FALL!!!
CB,
I must disagree with you on this one. Most of these smugglers are making upwards of 10K per head they smuggle off the island. If these folks were only charging for the fuel and supplies necessary to get Cubans to freedom, I would support them 100 percent but, many times it feels like these folks are simply exploiting Cuban misery in order to rake in a bunch of cash - something I cannot agree with out moral principle.
Any smuggler who is truly doing this dangerous work and not collecting cash above and beyond what's necessary to carry out the operation has be blessing and indeed, my gratitude - as for the others. I wouldn't touch 'em with a ten-foot pole.
Best,
-Anatasio
Anatasio, we for real don't know if all of them charge that much. We tend to forget that money moves and fuels the world, and that those people are risking jail for a long period of time. Smuggling has always have a very murky line between patriotism and profiteering, the point is, there would not be smugglers if we didn't have dry foot wet foot, we would not be finding anything of value in them if Cubans were given the help that the law prescribes from the part of the Coast Guard as per the Cuban Adjustment Act. After all, the dry foot wet foot is not even a law, it's a presidential act of ordering a policy, and those steps were taken without congressional approval. To me Clinton the author and enforcer, and Bush the enforcer, are as guilty as kasstro in this one. Thanks to the three of them and their policies there are smugglers.
I don't agree with that exploitation either, Anatasio, but that's what we have been left to cope with, that's the only option we have been left with. To pay for freedom.
What if everyone who owned a boat in Florida went to Cuba and picked up their relatives and friends? There would not be any smuggling, either.
I know at least of a case of people who were brought here by relatives, which are not "pro-smugglers" and they brought a bunch of people to the States for free some and some others for a nominal fee (the ones who were not related to them)
My thing is, if there's no evidence that they are part of a castroite conspiracy, well, we can use their services and we can certainly question their motivations -profit, adventure, if you will- but the end result of their actions is freedom for Cubans.
No, we don't have to agree.... we are just seeing this from different perspectives.
Charlie:
I hope the smugglers have Babalunians as their agents, because over the last two weeks they have raised the price of rescuing Cubans from $6,000 to $8,000 and now $10,000. Still, if the cost were $100,000 it would still be worth it. Who can put a price on freedom? What is your freedom worth to you, Anatasio?
If the smuggler is caught and convicted, he faces 12 years in prison. Which amounts to what? Less than $1000 per year? Who the hell would sell 10 years of his life for that? The smuggler risks losing many times that amount if his boat is seized and $10,000 would be consumed in one month's legal fees if a middling lawyer is all he could afford.
Manuel, as I have said many times: what if all the Cuban Americans who are boating enthusiasts in Florida went to Cuba to pick their relatives in a civilian invasion?
That idea has been also expressed by the Democracy Movement in Miami and has fallen flat on its belly in a hot and hard concrete surface and silence is the only response that has been heard.
Freedom is not free, as one of my favourite monuments in Washington DC puts it (the Korean War Memorial) and for some Cubans, it comes at a high price in money, for others, they pay with their own lives. And the most fortunate -like me, for example- can escape through other means.
Freedom is not only not free, freedom is priceless.
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