Today, on the occasion of the 124th anniversary of Cuba’s 1902 “liberation” from the United States, of which it became a protectorate in late 1898 at the end of the Spanish American War, President Donald Trump issued a threatening statement suggesting that regime change on the island may not be long off.
He repeated Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s constant claim that the island’s communist regime has destroyed the country and the economy and caused untold suffering of the people, while allegedly raking in billions of dollars for themselves and their “lavish lifestyle.”
The regime, he said, is focused only on “maintaining control and [its] raison d’etre of violently exporting communism and despotism abroad.”
Not coincidentally, Miami was today the site of the splashy event orchestrated by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida to indict the 95-year-old former President Raul Castro on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. This involved the 1996 shooting down of two civilian aircraft belonging to the Cuban-exile-run Brothers to the Rescue “humanitarian” group, which has a well-documented history of provocations against the Castro government, including repeatedly violating Cuban air space allegedly to seek out Cubans trying to escape the island on rafts.
There was no disguising Trump’s message that the Cuban regime is ripe for takeover, even suggesting that there may be other targets: “I am taking decisive action on behalf of this long-suffering corner of our hemisphere, and to address threats to our national security emanating from the region,” he said. “Under my leadership, our Nation is severing the financial lifelines that, for too long, have sustained brutal regimes across Central and South America and funded their trans-national criminal and terrorist operations that threaten the United States.”
Trump praised last January’s assault on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro, as “one of the boldest, most impressive special operations in generations.” The indictment and removal of Maduro “sent a clear message to his socialist allies in Havana: this is our Hemisphere and those that destabilize it and threaten the United States will face consequences.”
America, he warned, will not tolerate a rogue state harboring hostile foreign military, intelligence and terror operations just ninety miles from the American homeland, and “we will not rest until the people of Cuba once again have the freedom their forefathers fought so valiantly to establish over 100 years ago.”
Never fear, he predicted, a “new Golden Age” for Cuba will be coming soon.
