CUBA-USA:
IN THE END, HE DID NOT HAVE WHAT HE NEEDED TO HAVE.
By: Dr. Néstor García Iturbe
September 11, 2015.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Historical coincidences are always interesting and especially in connection with September 11 there are quite a few.
Today, the Nobel Peace Prize Winner signed a “Presidential Determination” exercising his authority to keep Cuba, until September 14, 2016, under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
In doing so, he makes a mockery of his Secretary of State, John Kerry, who recently said in Havana that the United States and Cuba were not enemies or rivals, but neighbors. It also gives a sample of little political acumen by signing this determination on 11 September, when he could have signed it on the10th, or the 12th, to avoid coinciding with other events that occurred on September 11th, in which the United States has been involved.
On a September 11, another US President, from the same oval office where the Nobel Peace Prize Awarded works, took the Presidential Determination to launch a coup d’etat against the constitutional government of Chile. This resulted in the death of thousands of Chileans, including President Salvador Allende, and thousands of others who suffered humiliation and torture. The United States never described all those atrocities as human rights violations by the perpetrators of the coup; because, of course, it participated in their commission.
On another September 11, the events that resulted in the destruction of the World Trade Center, known as the Twin Towers, occurred. The then-President was at that moment visiting a school and when he heard the news, took the Presidential Determination to spend more time talking to the children and going over their notebooks, as if he had been prepared for what was taking place. We all know the story that has been spinned around these events, including the plane that struck the Pentagon, the remains of which were never seen, and the one that was going to attack the White House that disappeared without further explanation.
Also on a September 11, in New York City, terrorists who were residents in the US shot dead the Cuban diplomat Felix Garcia. The terrorist who was accused and convicted of the crime is already free; perhaps as a result of another Presidential Determination.
Mr. Obama, history judges men by the determinations they make at a given moment. If they act rightly and courageously according to justice, or if they act wrongly and capriciously, as if justice and the world were meaningless to them.
In the context we are describing, it is impossible not to remember Comandante Juan Almeida, who died on a September 11 and who –in the middle of a fierce battle against the forces of the Batista dictatorship, indeed supported by US determination– famously shouted: “Nobody here surrenders, cojones”.
Mr. Obama, our national poet Nicolas Guillen, in one of his famous and well-known poems, repeated something very consistent with the Cuban Revolution, when he wrote that “I now have what I had to have.”
In your case, by taking this Presidential Determination to keep Cuba under the Trading with the Enemy Act until September 14, 2016, you have shown that you do not have what you needed to have.
TEXT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release September 11, 2015
September 11, 2015
Presidential Determination
No. 2015-11
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE
THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
SUBJECT: Continuation of the Exercise of Certain Authorities Under the Trading With the Enemy Act
Under section 101(b) of Public Law 95-223 (91 Stat. 1625; 50 U.S.C. App. 5(b) note), and a previous determination on September 5, 2014 (79 FR 54183, September 10, 2014), the exercise of certain authorities under the Trading With the Enemy Act is scheduled to terminate on September 14, 2015.
I hereby determine that the continuation for 1 year of the exercise of those authorities with respect to Cuba is in the national interest of the United States.
Therefore, consistent with the authority vested in me by section 101(b) of Public Law 95-223, I continue for 1 year, until September 14, 2016, the exercise of those authorities with respect to Cuba, as implemented by the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 515.
The Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and directed to publish this determination in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA