The Cold War never quite ended. At least two countries still sport that old-fashioned “Second World” status of ostensibly communist, definitely totalitarian, and utterly crazed leadership: North Korea and Cuba.
Alan Gross, age 65, was convicted of un-Cuban activities in 2011, and has since been serving a 15-year prison sentence. He was a subcontractor, working in Cuba, for the U.S. Agency for International Development. What, precisely, did he do “wrong”?
U.S. officials said Gross was merely trying to help Cubans bypass the island’s stringent restrictions on Internet access. But Cuban authorities say Gross was part of a plot to create “a Cuban spring” and destabilize the island’s single-party communist government.
The two interpretations are not exactly at odds with one another. Sure, he was trying to bring the Internet to Cuba. And that’s why the communist government was suspicious: free information would likely bolster opposition to the commie way of stasis.
Which just goes to show how awful single-party states are, how mind-crushingly awful communism is: restrictive; vindictive; paranoid; cowardly.
These qualities are supposed to be absent from New Socialist Man, of course, qualities found only — at least, in ultra-left theory — under capitalism and democracy.
But, instead, they serve as hallmarks of governments that cannot trust their subjects with even a smidgeon of freedom.
Gross is now reportedly weak, and has given up on life. Prison life in a prison society is not worth it, he says.
We can hope for a prisoner exchange. But really, what’s needed is a change of government in Cuba.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
8 replies on “Cold War Casualty”
Hopefully google will push forward with this global internet initiative. And hopefully the balloons won’t get shot down by despots:
http://www.google.com/loon/
But as close as Cuba is, i don’t understand why the US can’t beam internet to Cuba or Venezuela for that matter. Probably an engineering problem beyond my grasp.
What you say about the Cuban government is true, but once again we find our government or its NGO interfering in another country’s affairs, trying to destabilize the government. What would you say if China or Russia (or Cuba) did the same in this country?
I have no sympathy for Mr. Gross. I’m surprised he didn’t claim he was merely hiking through Cuba as other of our agents have done in other enemy countries.
What’s wrong is the imbecilic U.S. policy toward Cuba. Normalize relations and things will change.
Against the REPUBLIKOOK mantra!
“ — -” Spring is only supported by the US government when it makes way for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Of course regime change in Cuba is long overdue and Alan is to be pitied and helped where we can. I am actually surprised that no pardon is forthcoming. Communist or dictatorial rulers often have tried to endear themselves to the world by pardoning (foreigner) convicts. However, the US has little moral leeway after the treatment of Snowden and Manning who exposed crimes that Cuba could not even perpetrate due to lack of funds …
Sheldon: How would bringing additional information to the American people “destabilize” our government? How is it legitimate for Cuba to keep their people in the dark?
Paul Jacob: Because you’re not using Disqus on your site, rather than whatever this is, I can’t reply directly to Sheldon. If he doesn’t happen to check, he’ll never even know I’m criticizing his position.
Even if he does respond, I’ll never know unless I periodically check. Without a proper program, you’ll almost never get real discussions going.
Mark,
Isn’t it obvious? Do you believe that Snowden’s “additional information” helped or hurt our fascist government? Why do you think that Obama’s administration which was going to be the most transparent in history turns out to be the least transparent? The latest revelation about the CIA’s torture (which the government tried to hide) is embarrassing to the government say the least. All the news we read on the internet which the MSM hides is embarrassing and destabilizing to the government.
No, it is not legitimate for the Cuban government to keep its people in the dark, just as it’s not for our government to keep us in the dark, as they do. But it is none of our business what goes on in Cuba. Haven’t we learned anything all these years of interfering in other countries? We just destroyed the most prosperous country in Africa (Libya) by interfering. We interfered in Iran, overthrowing a legitimately elected government and installed the evil Shah. We interfered in Chile overthrowing the democratically elected Allende and installed Dictator Pinochet. We destroyed Iraq for no reason. It goes on and on as we create more and more enemies. Our interference in Ukraine is the latest interference which has reignited the Cold War and brings us to the brink of a very hot war.
We are not smarter than anyone else in other countries concerning their problems. Follow Ron Paul’s advice: Talk and trade. Let other countries take care of themselves. We have more than enough to worry about in our own country.
The US government often uses aid organizations by implanting spies in them to do spy work.
If you’re going to a non-free country, you should make sure what you’re doing is legal there first.
However, I agree that what he was doing shouldn’t be illegal. But that’s the way it is in unfree nations. If you’re going to fight against them (using only words, not arms) they will fight back with arms. Not right, but that’s government.