Peter Polack
Cuba has been the subject of an embargo for most of it’s post-revolutionary life but the recent, almost absolute ban on fuel and other imports by their near neighbour, the USA, is a new reality that appears to have not led to political change for a people, long used to deprivation, yet.
The Cuban leadership has tried to project Patria o Muerte, Homeland or Death, to the Americans, a sign prominently displayed for the benefit of Cuban soldiers trapped in the Angolan town of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988 before a later peace treaty. The Cubans then left Angola with their nearly 2,500 or more dead soldiers in refrigerated containers that had accumulated over the conflict. They were buried in multiple cemeteries in many provinces of that island to limit any potential outcry by family and friends. The veterans of that war have seen little or no compensation except a ventilador or fan bought before departure from meagre funds allowed by their government who received thousands for each soldier, every month, from the oil rich Angolan government.
Many Cubans received combat experience on their internationalist missions to Angola and elsewhere. Those aged soldiers are either unwilling, incapable, sick or dead today. That sacrifice generation no longer exists.
History may prove a useful guide to what can be expected if the Cuban military decide to defend their territory, or not.
A brief canvass of the February 1961 memorandum of February 1961 from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense before the Bay of Pigs invasion debacle would reveal that proposed action as having a fair chance of ultimate success that could contribute to the overthrow of the Castro regime.
They were completely wrong but that was then and this is now.
The Grenada invasion by America in 1983 saw only 24 of the nearly 1,000 Cubans stationed there, killed. The recent commander of those forces, Colonel Pedro Tortolo, fled to the Soviet embassy with 42 others before being evacuated back to a hero’s welcome in Havana. This later turned sour on the easy loss of Grenada, before he and others were despatched to anonymity on the Angola front as mere soldiers, having failed to die to the last man. That inherited Soviet battlefield strategy has now been discarded on a field of social networks that promise a better life outside of war and death.
What do the United States and the Caribbean leadership assess the Cuban military and resistance to be, should there be an invasion?
The migrants, refugees, family members of those abroad, entitled Cubans and others with any available opportunity including sport figures, have fled the island post-revolution for almost a century. They want a future, better economic conditions and an openness to speak. The expatriate Cuban resistance in Florida are as strong today as they ever were, especially with local developments. Exile groups like Alpha 66 may no longer be active under previous administrations, but their roots remain strong.
The older Cubans wish every year on New Year’s Eve, next year in Havana.
The aged military Cuban leadership have been a good preventative during peace time against a restricted, unarmed population. The big question is whether younger Cuban troops will follow their gerontocracy into battle or turn on their generals and middle managers.
If the Cuban elite do not offer up a sacrificial lamb then the unwilling Colonel Tortolo may provide a better read for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The jaded slogan Patria o Muerte could become Patria con Plata or Homeland with Money.
No one is prepared to die for an unsuccessful, obsolete ideology also known as you pretend to lead and I will pretend to follow.
That is the Venezuelan paradigm.
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@Writer. This isn’t the first time the Cuban regime has appeared to be on its last leg. We just have to wait and see how things turn out. They surely have been planning for this day for a very long time.
Let’s just hope that the operation turns out to be a Venezuela instead of an Iran.
CARICOM collaborates with the communist CUBA GOVERNMENT to oppress and enslave its people by contributing to this SCAM.
Sister of Cuban military conglomerate chief arrested in Florida.
CBS News 21 MAY 2026.
The sister of the head of a company that is accused of having close ties to Cuban government operations has been arrested in Miami, Florida, federal authorities announced Thursday.
Adys Lastres Morera, the sister of Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera — who is the executive president of Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., or GAESA — was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations agents in Miami, the agency said in a news release.
ICE said that Lastres Morera’s permanent residency status had been revoked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday.
In a social media post Thursday, Rubio said he revoked Lastres Morera’s green card because she “was managing real estate assets and living in Florida, while also aiding Havana’s communist regime.”
Rubio said that GAESA is a “Cuban military-controlled financial conglomerate that steals millions in aid for the Cuban people at the behest of the regime.”
Rubio has previously alleged GAESA has $18 billion in assets and controls 70% of the economy.
“They profit from hotels, construction, banks, stores and even from the money your relatives send you from the U.S. Everything, everything passes through their hands,” Rubio said Wednesday in a video recorded in Spanish that he said was directed at the Cuban people. “From those remittances, they retain a percentage, but from GAESA’s profits nothing reaches you.”
According to ICE, Lastres Morera entered the U.S. as a permanent resident on Jan. 13, 2023. But on Wednesday, it was determined she was eligible to be deported under Section 237 of the Immigration and Nationality Act because her continued presence in the U.S. undermined its “foreign policy objectives toward Cuba.”
Section 237 of the INA outlines criteria under which foreign nationals can be deported. It is the same authority under which Rubio and the Trump administration are attempting to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University activist who was arrested following his participation in pro-Palestinian protests.
Lastres Morera will remain in ICE custody as she awaits removal proceedings, ICE said. Neither Rubio nor ICE have said if Lastres Morera has been or will be charged with any crimes.
The arrest comes one day after former Cuban leader Raúl Castro and five others were federally indicted in connection with the Cuban military’s fatal downing of two civilian planes in 1996 that killed four people.
The Trump administration has sought to put pressure on Cuba’s communist regime in recent months through tough sanctions and a blockade that have prevented oil and gas from reaching the island nation. That has prompted an energy crisis and several major blackouts. The U.S. recently offered Cuba $100 million in relief supplies, but said it must be distributed to the Cuban people through authorized charities.
Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana to meet with senior Cuban official.
CARICOM countries that support the COMMUNIST CUBA GOVERNMENT ought to be ASHAMED.CARICOM leaders need to bury their faces in the Bay of Pigs SHIT.
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