Putin Robbed Blind in Cuba

Putin Robbed Blind in Cuba
Humberto Fontova | Jul 25, 2014

Russian president Vladimir "Teflon" Putin is on a roll—or so we're led
to believe by the media. The Russian president combines the slick
machismo of James Bond, the cojones of George Patton and the craftiness
of Cardinal Richelieu.

Actually, in his dealings with Cuba, Putin looks more like Barney Fife.
We're not accustomed to seeing Mr Macho-Cool Vladimir Putin made an
international jackass. But many Cuba-watchers snickered as the hapless
Russian President met with the Castro brothers on July 11th and "wrote
off" their $32 billion debt to the Soviet Union.

"That old thing? I never liked it anyway," Cuba-watchers easily imagine
Putin hissing through gritted teeth. "We will provide support to our
Cuban friends to overcome the illegal blockade of Cuba," is what Putin
actually hissed for the record.

Vladimir Putin rose to the rank of Lieut. Colonel in an organization
that tortured and murdered at roughly TWICE the rate of the Nazi SS. So
his offense at the "illegal" U.S. embargo of a KGB-founded,
terror-sponsoring regime should provoke only chortling and snorting.
Instead it's probably causing a fit of the vapors at the State Dept. and
in faculty lounges nationwide.

Not that Putin left Cuba completely empty-handed. Instead the Russians
reclaimed the Evil Empire's largest foreign spying base, located in
Lourdes just south of Havana. The Soviets built this complex-- capable
of electronic spying on everything from the U.S. Military's Central and
Southern command to NASA facilities-- in 1967 and manned it until 2001.
That year financial problems and pressure from the U.S. forced the
Russians to close and abandon it. Interestingly it was (then) Russian
President Vladimir Putin who felt compelled to lock it up and scurry out.

This re-colonization by the Russians of a spy base on our very borders
is obviously important, but surely a true Russian Richelieu could have
reclaimed the base for less than $32 billion, especially with an Obama
in the White House.

Putin's visit to the colonial outpost his "old" outfit (the KGB) helped
convert from a vibrant capitalist nation swamped with European
immigrants into a vast sewer, slum and prison that repels even
impoverished Haitians disgusted most Cuban dissidents. The loathing of
most Cubans (including many communists) for Che Guevara owed much to
Guevara's groupie-like devotion to the Soviets who infested Cuba and
roundly repelled almost all Cubans.

Putin's fleecing by the Castro brothers provides more proof (if we
actually needed any) that rarely in modern history has any item of U.S.
foreign policy triumphed as patently (or hilariously) as the so-called
U.S. embargo of Castro's Stalinist kleptocracy. Here's a glittering gem
amidst the rubble of so much recent U.S. foreign policy.

Actually the Castros stuck it to Russia years ago, claiming they owed
only an outfit named The Soviet Union, which no longer existed--so
neither did this outfit's invoices. Putin, faced with an offer he
couldn't refuse, simply ratified the rooking. The Castros stuck it to
Mexico just last year, when its state development Bank Bancomex wrote
off almost $500 million Cuba owed them from 15 years back. The Castros
stuck it to Europe back in 1986, defaulting on most of their debt to the
Paris Club. Fifteen years later the Castros stuck it to French taxpayers
again for $175 million.

In 2011 the Castros stuck it even to their old "friends" Nelson
Mandela's South Africa. "The Cuban regime has a long track record of
failing to pay back our loans," lamented South Africa's Deputy Minister
of Trade & Industry as he wrote off almost 2 billion Rand in Cuban debt.

In sharp contrast, thanks to the so-called U.S. embargo of Cuba, the
U.S. taxpayer remains unfleeced (at least at the hands of the Castros,)
even after almost $4 billion in trade over the past dozen years with
Cuba, the world's most notorious deadbeat. "Wanna trade?" says the
current version of the U.S. embargo. "No problemo, Mr Castro. Cash up
front, buddy. The American taxpayer will NOT extend you credit. Comprende?

Enacted by the Bush team in 2001 this cash-up-front policy has kept the
U.S. taxpayer snickering on the sidelines, much as we snickered at
Oliver Douglas dealings with Mr Haney or Steven Spielberg and Larry
King's with Bernie Madoff.

"The problem with Socialism," famously quipped Margaret Thatcher, "is
that you eventually run out of other peoples' money." True enough. But
when the communist Castros run out of one sugar-daddy's money, there's
always another suitor waiting in line. From the Soviets to the Europeans
to the Mexicans to the Venezuelans, etc. the Castro brothers—unlike,
say, Bernie Madoff—possess a singular talent for keeping their scam
running longer than the Energizer Bunny. One born every minute, Mr P.T.
Barnum? Ask the Castro brothers. They'll tell you that ten are born
every second.

Alas, an extremely well-funded campaign to include us among P.T Barnum's
cherished customers (i.e. lift the Cuba embargo) is building steam in
Washington. Fascinatingly, "libertarians"-- those self-described
defenders of the U.S. taxpayer, those self-described champions of
American sovereignty and pocket books against snooty, sneaky and
predatory supranational cabals and elites—these very libertarians now
serve as an echo-chamber for David Rockefeller's Council on Foreign
Relations and George Soros' Open Society Foundation, along with The
Trilateral Commission , the Davos Groups, the United Nations, The Arca
Foundation, former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, The Ford Foundation, a KGB
Lieut Colonel, The Brookings Institute, and the Carnegie Endowment for
International Piece (founded by Soviet spy Alger Hiss.)

Today's "libertarians" march arm in arm chanting the anti-Cuba embargo
mantra in perfect rhyme and cadence with every socialist elitist and
every secretive supranational outfit mentioned above. Bedfellows don't
get much stranger. Let's stand back and have a look:

All of the above clamor for an Imperial Democratic President to further
circumvent the U.S. Congress and nullify the work of legendary
conservative Republican legislators Dan Burton of Indiana and Jesse
Helms of North Carolina.

Another name for the Cuba embargo in its current form, after all, is the
Helms-Burton act of 1996, sponsored by these Red-State Republicans and
constitutionally voted upon and passed by U.S. legislative branch.

But today's "libertarian constitutionalists" have signed on to one of
David Rockefeller's longest-running and most cherished labors of love.
All the above clamor for a brazenly imperial President and disciple of
Saul Alinsky to further trash the congressional work of Jesse Helms and
Dan Burton (also a Tea Party stalwart until his recent retirement.) This
trashing would enable U.S. taxpayers to subsidize the Communist
terror-sponsoring regime that stole $7 billion from U.S. stockholders at
Soviet gunpoint and came within a hair of nuking us. This nuking was
barely foiled at the last second by the aghast Butcher of Budapest:

"What?!" Khrushchev gasped on Oct. 28th 1962, as recalled by his son
Sergei. "Is he (Fidel Castro) proposing that we launch missiles from
Cuba?....But that is insane!...Remove them (our missiles) as soon as
possible! Before it's too late. Before something terrible happens!"

Oh, I know…I know, Camelot's court scribes concocted a different version
of why the Russian missiles left Cuba. And naturally this version went
instantly viral in the MSM, Academia and Hollywood.

At any rate, too bad Rod Serling isn't around. This freak- show of
anti-"embargo" lobbying would make a great episode for The Twilight Zone.

Source: Putin Robbed Blind in Cuba - Humberto Fontova - Page full -
http://townhall.com/columnists/humbertofontova/2014/07/25/putin-robbed-blind-in-cuba-n1866263/page/full