Take Five

The so called "Five".

Do you know about the Cuban Five? They are not a mambo band (although maybe a quintet should pick up the name). They are a group of Cuban spies, imprisoned in the United States. And they are a big, big cause on the left. I mention them in my “Oslo Journal” today – because some leafleters were leafleting for them. The Cuban Five are much leafleted.

They were convicted of espionage and conspiracy to commit murder. And, needless to say, they were afforded all of the rights, privileges, and advantages of our system: including multiple appeals. One of the five was convicted for his role in the Castro government’s shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996. Those planes were in international airspace. The attack killed three U.S. citizens and one permanent resident.

But whatever, you know? No need to get all right-wing about it.

Recently, Jimmy Carter called for the release of the Cuban Five. He was on Cuban soil. That’s our 39th president. Luckily, he did not call for the five to join the Gaza flotilla.

Anyway, I received a letter from a reader, which I now share:

"I live in Basel, Switzerland . . . I was walking around on May 1st at the Basel jazzfest and saw a booth that was advocating the release of these “Cuban Five.” I thought it was strange that a group was trying to get only five political prisoners out of the Castros’ jails. When I went up to the booth to ask why so few, they quickly informed me that they were protesting the “illegal” holding of five Cuban nationals by the U.S. government.

Because I was somewhat fearful for my safety, I did not ask them about the Cuban political prisoners being held by the Cuban dictatorship. I’m disappointed in myself for not speaking up, but I have learned that the Left, especially in Europe, does not take kindly to dissent.
It really amazes me how some people’s hatred of the U.S. can twist their logic. . . ."

Yeah, kind of amazing. Allow me to quote from my journal today: “Wouldn’t it be nice if ‘progressives,’ for once in their lives, leafleted about Cuban prisoners of conscience — the political prisoners of the Castro brothers and their dictatorship? First, pigs will fly, to the moon.”

No, I was not channeling Ralph Kramden, consciously.

by Jay Nordlinger 

Source: National Review Online

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Jimmy Carter travels to Cuba, kisses up to “old friend” Fidel Castro

…because even mass-murdering thugs need a hug every now and then.

All I can say is somebody's gotta make a movie about this guy's life — except who could they ever get to play Carter now that Charlton Heston is dead?

Heston would have been perfect for the role. You know, just like in The Ten Commandments when he stepped over the enslaved Israelites to sup with Pharaoh, pose for photos, fawn over his "beautiful" palace, and then beat it on home to report on Pharaoh's "health" and brag about how they "welcomed each other as old friends" — building of course, to a soul-stirring climax where he raises his staff and bellows, "Let the Cuban 5 go!"

It kind of makes me feel sorry for President Reagan, serving as he did in the long shadow of such a great man. It's not that he didn't try, but he just didn't get it. I mean, who can forget that cringe-inducing moment when he stood at the Brandenburg Gate and commanded, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" I'm sure that gruel-spraying hoots rang out in political prison cells all over the Eastern Bloc after that – especially from the families of those shot trying to escape through that very same wall.

So, yeah, it's a cinch nobody's going to make a movie about that.

Whew. I feel better. Sometimes you just need to get the snark out. I apologize, but it's Jimmy Carter, and I'm only human. Being as nobody's figured out how to pull his passport yet, our elder Useful Idiot set out once again this week to service his tyrant fetish and convince his "old friends," the Castro brothers, to release Alan Gross, an American sentenced to 15 years for bringing Internet equipment and satellite phones to Cuban citizens.

And by all accounts, it was a lovely visit, except for the part where Carter went home alone because his "old friends" were unconvinced by his pledge that Gross was "innocent of any serious threat" to the "Cuban people."

For the best commentary on that remarkable statement, I defer to Real Cuba. (Hat tip to Gateway Pundit)

"No, socotroco, he [Gross] is not in jail for being a threat to the Cuban people, he is in jail for being a threat to the brutal dictator in Cuba, who is scared to death of the Internet and is trying to prevent the Cuban people from having access to news of what is happening in their own country and around the world.

The only threat to the Cuban people comes from the Castro brothers, and the useful idiots like Jimmy Carter who are always finding excuses for the Castros' genocide against the Cuban people.

Carter also met with Cuba's walking corpse and "retired" dictator, who he called an "old friend."
It is hard to comprehend that this idiot was at one time president of this great country."

Carter also assured his "old friends" that he didn't support the U.S. trade restrictions and the continued incarceration of five Cuban spies in the U.S. because, I presume, we all have sins to atone for.

For example the Castro dictators might imprison 11 million of their own countryman and an American who threatened the Cuban people — but not "seriously" — with satellite phones, but we're not exactly pure as the wind-driven snow either. That's because we're holding the Cuban 5: Castro operatives — or "Cuban patriots" according to Carter — who infiltrated the Miami-based Cuban humanitarian group, Brothers to the Rescue, making it possible for Castro shoot down one of their mercy missions to those dehydrated, sunburned, half-drowned Cuban families that tend to bob about on inner tubes in the Caribbean. (Why do they do that, anyway?) And that constitutes moral equivalence in Carter's view.

Honestly, Carter's usefulness is anybody's call, but… what an idiot.

by Elena


From: Thinklets

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