Loose Canons. An Anti-Castro Fourth

Jed Babbin

What do Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos and the Communist Chinese have in common? No, the Chicoms are not lawyers, much as they may act like them. The short answer is that both have helped Fidel Castro return to the world stage as a big-league bad guy. Last year, when Angelos gratuitously announced he would refuse to hire defecting Cuban players, Fidel must have laughed. It's enough to make me wish the Curse of the Bambino on Baltimore (Boston has had it way too long).

The Chicom issue is much more serious. They are moving their people in and supplying military equipment to Cuba. They have set up at least two electronic intelligence stations on the island. Step by step, they're taking over the Soviets' abandoned role of propping up a Spanish-speaking version of Joe Stalin. They may be arming Cuba with weapons, including missile-borne biological weapons, that can easily reach the United States.

As we celebrate our freedom this Independence Day, it's a good time to reflect on the oppression our Cuban neighbors suffer. Ever since the Bay of Pigs our presidents have put the what to do about Castro question on the "too hard" pile and done nothing. It's time to reverse that course and push hard for Cuban freedom. This month, Dubya gets his chance to act on the Helms-Burton law, which provides a couple of big hammers to swing at Castro's head.

Thanks to tourist money pouring in from Europe and Asia, Cuba is making a strong recovery from the financial shock of losing all that Soviet money. Drug and tourist money is fueling Castro's reentry into the ranks of the big time bad guys.

He's working with FARC, the bloody-handed narco-terrorists who now rule a huge chunk of Colombia. He's in the drug business, and making a tidy profit at it. Like more and more of our enemies, he is using drugs as a weapon against us.

Castro is an enemy of the United States. Because of him, Cuba is an outlaw nation, an exporter of terrorism. It's on the State Department terrorist list ranking behind others like Iran and Iraq, which are more prolific exporters of violence only because they have more money to work with.

Taking on Fidel is the right thing for Dubya to do. More than that, it's good politics both here and abroad.

Politics has always been rough on the Cuban-American community. Congress finds them an embarrassment for speaking out when Fidel's appeasers take the field. The media are always picking on them because they are not a normal "deprived" minority. They came here, like so many immigrants, without a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of. But, on the whole, they have succeeded.

Media abuse of Cuban Americans in Miami fueled one of Janet Reno's two big triumphs. I'll never forget Elian Gonzalez. The picture of General Reno's assault troop reaching over his MP-5 to grab the screaming kid out of the arms of a friend made me ashamed of my government as I had never been before. Never mind that the guy had his trigger finger safely outside the trigger guard. His hand is reaching for the screaming child, and the subgun is pointed just to the side of the kid's gut.

Now Janet, Warrior Princess of Waco, may run for Florida governor. I can just see the editorial cartoon, her face in place of that trooper's. There's already a bumper sticker that says, "Janet: She'll get the kids out of your house." But that comes later. Helms-Burton is something to deal with now.

Many of us cigar-smoking old guys have not-too-seriously called for an end to JFK's Cuban trade embargo because, we thought, it accomplishes nothing more than depriving us of the best cigars in the world. We have been wrong for two fundamental reasons.

The first one is pretty simple. Once you've tasted the new Paul Garmirian Special Reserve cigars, you will no longer yearn for the Montecristos or Romeo y Julietas you've been smoking on your occasional overseas jaunts. The PG's are as good or better than anything coming out of Cuba. Take that, Fidel.

The other reason is also simple, and a whole lot more serious. It's easy to forget that Cuba is still Castro's police state built on the old Stalinist model, complete with its own mini-Gulag. Everyone who hasn't yet should read Against All Hope by Armando Valladares. Yeah, that means you, Marine, and you too, fly guy. It's an autobiographical account of twenty-two years as a political prisoner in Castro's Gulag. His only crimes were speaking against Communism and in favor of his religion. His memoir of the Isla de Pinos prison is The Gulag Archipelago with hotter weather.

I'm fortunate to count among my friends Dr. Jose Sorzano (former Deputy U.N. Ambassador serving with Jeane Kirkpatrick). On Cuba, Jose is the RSG I turn to.

Jose's picture of life in Cuba is compelling. If you're a tourist in Cuba, you can stay in swank hotels, and eat the finest foods. It's a Potemkin village with good food and better service. Naturally, ordinary Cubans are not permitted into the tourist hotels.

If you're a Cuban in Cuba, you live in the "no hay, no te toca" economy. "No hay." We don't have it. As in no meat, no milk for the kids. "No te toca." As in, it's not your turn. Come back later, or take the hint and don't come back at all. The disparity between what tourists have and what Cubans can't get is not lost on the average Cuban even though it may be to hard for the media to understand.

There are a lot of tough things we can do about Fidel short of telling the Marines at Gitmo to, "go west, young men." Dubya can hit the "on" button for parts of the Helms-Burton law. Under Helms-Burton, we can penalize the many foreign companies who use American property stolen by the Castro regime to do business in Cuba. Spanish hotel chains run hotels that used to wear American names like Hilton. American-owned factories and farms now sport signs with other familiar European and Japanese brands on them.

Helms-Burton can -- and should -- be used to restrict those companies from doing business in America. One part of it is within the president's reach this month: Dubya faces the choice of renewing, or letting expire the presidential ban on private lawsuits in American courts by those whose stolen property is being used by these companies. When L'il Billy signed Helms-Burton into law, he also suspended it. As usual, he wanted to fake doing something to take credit, and not actually do something to offend one of our enemies.

Now it's time to end the suspension. Turn the federal courts loose on Castro. I'd love to see the pricey legal talent now chasing the tobacco industry turn its energies against Fidel.

While we're at it we should indict Fidel for murder. Remember the shoot down of the civilian plane near Cuba a few years ago? The fliers were trying to spot people fleeing Cuba in small boats in order to send rescue ships their way. The fighters who shot them down were reportedly acting on direct orders from Castro himself. Sounds like Murder 1 to me. Why not ask the "International Court of Justice" to indict him like Milosevic has been? Book him, Dan-o.

What's more, we have to maintain the embargo. I'm no fan of trade sanctions. They normally don't do anything more than inconvenience American consumers. But this one clearly keeps big money out of the hands of the bad guys.

Castro has been trying to get Cuba back into the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank simply to get the financial aid that stopped when the Evil Empire went tango uniform. American influence in these organizations has prevented Castro from getting that help. There is no reason to ease up now.

Nothing President Bush does to keep up the pressure on Castro will be supported by the media, the U.N., or the liberals who make a hobby out of cozying up to obsolete commies like Fidel. If Dubya does the right thing, he's in for some whipping by the press.

Jose Sorzano dismisses media criticism of anti-Castro policies. He's fond of reminding me of Cervantes's words. "Ladran señal de que cavalgamos." The dogs bark because we gallop. Exactly.

Jed Babbin is a former deputy undersecretary of defense and author of the new novel, Legacy of Valor. Posted in http://www.spectator.org