Today the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtenin, floated a bill in the committee that aims to deter the planned oil drilling off the coast of Cuba. It has seven co-sponsors, five of which are from Florida and one from New Jersey. If it were to become law, it prevents anyone investing at least 1 million dollars in Cuba's offshore drilling from being able to obtain a U.S. visa and it makes it illegal for Americans from helping in any way the oil exploration there. She said that "It is in our national security interests to deter others from participating in these reckless schemes." To this I must imagine that to the extremists in Miami, Cuba attempting to show that under their system it is possible to be more productive and offers a friendly environment for foreign investors is their idea of a threat. That would leave these hard-headed extremists who like to argue that Cuba's system is backwards and can't be productive, with having to live with the fact that their arguments have become even more irrational than they have been, and even farther from reality. She went on to say that "We cannot allow the Castro regime to become the oil tycoons of the Caribbean. I will continue to work with my Congressional colleagues to prevent oil drilling by the Cuban regime, which poses a national security and environmental threat to the United States.” Quite simply this is more of the useless propaganda. First of all, she certainly isn't opposed to there being tycoons in this world. Secondly, the suggestion that the Castro's would be the beneficiaries of this is ridiculous. They have shown none of the characteristics of the tycoons who are on quite good terms with the U.S. They don't have fancy palaces like our friends in the Middle East, nor do they have suits embroidered with their names like our former friend who was thrown out of power in Egypt recently. The truth of the matter is that this group of people are personally disgruntled by the fact that the Cuban Revolution threw Batista out of power, and along with him, their entire ruling class that exploited the people of Cuba as they enjoyed the life of luxury (like co-sponsor Mario Diaz Balart's family). They don't mind trying to make the people of Cuba suffer since that was what they were accustomed to doing when they were in charge of the island. What threat to our national security is she referring to? The threat of an oil spill? How many of those co-sponsors are opposed to drilling for oil? Pure rhetorical garbage is what she offered as an explanation for this bill. Is it any wonder that the delegates from Florida and the one from New Jersey, which are two of the states with the largest populations of extremists(and some terrorists!) are supporting this bill? And to think that there are some people who say that Florida's politicians and politics don't get in the way of a rational, respectable relationship between the two countries.
The reason I believe that this bill, as I said in the title, will float away is that the oil lobby carries alot more weight in the "Halls of our Democracy" than the dwindiling, splintered, and fading group of loud mouth extremists from South Florida. Along with that, the American people are ready and willing to move forward, not backwards, on the issue of Cuba. The high interest in travel and cultural exchanges that are going on right now is proof of this.
Reckless schemes are the ones being dreamed up in Miami as they are still some circles hell bent on violent provocations against the Cuban people. That is probably one of the reasons that Washington bureaucrats, although sympathetic to the idea of ending the Cuban Revolution, are looking for different "representatives" to instigate situations on the island. No longer are the Posada Carriles types the darlings in the American government's efforts to subvert the Cuban state. They are busy attempting to create new international star "dissidents" in a futile effort to garner international support for pressuring Cuba. If these efforts mattered to the rest of the world, these types of bills wouldn't need to be "floated" in the first place. Instead Rep. Ros-Lehtenin feels the need to further restrict the rights of Americans and blackmale international investors by witholding U.S. visas. She is on the losing side of a long and unfortunate battle that the Batista crowd has insisted on waging for way too long. Her frustration is obvious.
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