Cuba accused of blocking U.S. satellite feeds to Iran

[Mika]

The _{Bush, the lesser} administration is grasping at straws for another distraction.

The bold Miami-Herald headline accusation, intended to whip the Miamicuban community into a frenzy, reads..


Cuba accused of blocking U.S. satellite feeds to Iran
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/6304655.htm

WASHINGTON - Transmitters in Cuba are jamming the signals of at least four U.S.-based television stations owned by Iranian Americans who are critical of the Tehran regime and use satellites to transmit programs to Iran, according to broadcasters and a private U.S. firm that has pinpointed the source of the interference.

Then comes this quote that essentially negates the whole story..

''We simply don't know if our signals are being jammed,'' said Joe O'Connell, a spokesman for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is in charge of the U.S.-funded VOA broadcasts.

The pattern continues.

[David__77]

1. Cuba would be justified.

The US is always beaming propaganda into Cuba. Why shouldn't Cuba black US propaganda aimed at others?

[Mika]

3. cost per listener

Here are the numbers from the Miami Herald article,

News of the Cuban jamming came as U.S. authorities revealed they have been studying ways to enhance TV Martí broadcasts to Cuba by using analog satellite transmissions -- rather than digital transmissions currently being used -- that are more difficult to jam and more easily captured by the estimated 10,000 to 15,000 satellite dishes on rooftops across the island.


--

TV Martí costs about $11 million a year. About another $15 million goes to Radio Martí.

Do the math.

(Keep in mind that Cubans recognize Radio and TV marti for what it is.. an "exile" run propaganda network, so VERY few listen to R&TV Marti. Cubans can pickup all of the anti Castro programming they want to by tuning in any of the commercial Miami radio and TV broacasts.)

Is this a proper use of over $26,000,000 per year of American taxpayer monies?

[Poll_Blind]

2. I think there's a chance Bush may actually be going for Cuba as dessert.

They're a small enough country and they won't likely shoot us in the streets ...after we make them our chattle. Our troops are spread so thin I think the only thing we might be able to do, militarily, is invade Cuba. It's a shambles financially since their sugar industry collapsed. Castro's been trying to retool the economy for years, but it's been a difficult path.

The media boon from this would make Iraq look like nothing by the way, because there are so many active Cuban-Americans who are chomping at the bit in Miami to have a Bay of Pigs redux, this time with all the support they need. To reiterate, this would be a freaking, deaking, HUGEb media thing. The reunion stories, alone, would be enough to fill up it's own channel.

I can't imagine any loftier goals for doing it that taking another tropical paradise complete with dark-skinned help to serve us rum-and-cokes as our fat wives and mistresses and kids trample and shit on the place. But if I read our country's climate correctly that's enough, right there.

PB

[Mika]

4. They will get a wake up call, if so

"They're a small enough country and they won't likely shoot us in the streets ...after we make them our chattle. "

Cubans had been American chattle prior to 1959. Been there, done that.

Never again!

Cubans fought hard and long to establish their sovereignty, and they won't just give it up either. Though Cubans don't hold any grudges against the Amercan people - they welcome American tourists, businesses, and student exchanges - BUT they will fight to repel any US invasion.

[PeanutOne]

8. They're saving Cuba for Jeb, our next "war-time" pResident

Cuba will either be used to help get Fat Jeb elected, or it will be his initiation into his role as a mass murderer/war-time pResident.

imho

[Judi Lynn]

9. Oh, noooooooo!

That doesn't sound too far fetched, does it? Jeez. He is literally immersed in Cuban "exile" business, and has been for many years.

You'd actually gag reading his actual history with some notorious Cuban "exile" criminals. One, Miguel Ricarey pulled off the largest Medicare scam in U.S. history, went on the lam, and remains free in another country (either Spain or Venezuela, I think.) (It's checkable on the internet.)

Also Santo Trafficante, old Cuban mafia boss.

[Judi Lynn]

5. I thought I was seeing things, at first

Could NOT believe they tried to sneak in that old slimey trick State Department John Bolton gibbered to the Heritage Foundation the Friday night before Jimmy Carter made his Sunday trip to Cuba:

(snip) Cuba has long been friendly with the equally anti-American Iranian regime, even selling biotechnology used to manufacture medical products to Tehran in the late 1990s that a Cuban defector alleged in 2001 could be used to produce biochemical weapons. (snip)

Do you remember that pathetic round of charges the State Department launched, trying to insist that Cuba was selling dual-use medicines to other countries which could be used to make mass weapons of destruction.

They simply never give up. The first time I ever heard of this was when Cuban "exile" Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen tried to tell Colin Powell they were doing this, in a committee meeting, and he told her he had never heard of it. Creepy, isn't it?

[Mika]

11. An infinite loop

From the Herald article (bold mine)

Cuba has long been friendly with the equally anti-American Iranian regime, even selling biotechnology used to manufacture medical products to Tehran in the late 1990s that a Cuban defector alleged in 2001 could be used to produce biochemical weapons.

OMFingG! Even selling biotechnology used to manufacture medical products? How capitalist and anti communista is Cuba becoming?
<sarcasm off>


I remember that on his trip to Cuba, Jimmy Carter praised Cuba's biomedical facilities for manufacturing anti malarials and typhoid innoculations that Cuba sells, trades, and gives away to other poor countries.

Just about any boimed lab anywhere could make crude bio 'weapons'.

[donsu]

6. chem-trails by Key West to improve communications

I had thought it was to improve comm. between here and Gitmo, not knowing this other stuff was going on too.

it's amazing the things that go back and forth over the 90 miles of water between Cuba and Key West. Key West is also known as the Isle of Bones.

[Mika]

10. Very interesting

I've heard this from some other people too.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Here's a good look at what has been happening behind the backs

of U.S. taxpayers. This story concerns a great Democratic Representative from Colorado, and the rough stuff he encountered from the Cuban "exile" Congressbeasts when he attempted to remove TV Marti from our national budget, due to its pointlessness:

(snip)
Last week voters in Colorado’s Second Congressional District elected a new representative to replace David Skaggs, a respected Democrat who is retiring after serving twelve years in the House of Representatives. Ordinarily the departure of a congressman whose district is more than 1500 miles away would pass without much notice in Miami. That would be unfortunate.

Skaggs deserves notice and credit for doing something no member of Congress from South Florida, from either party, has had the courage to do: publicly declare that TV Martí is a farce and that funding for it should cease. “It is, by any fair and objective analysis, a joke,” Skaggs offers during a recent interview. “And it is all the more hilarious — or offensive — because of the high soberness of those who attempt to defend it.”

Those defenders of TV Martí, and of its sister operation Radio Martí, have been at odds with Skaggs since 1993. That was the year Skaggs, as a newly appointed member of the House Appropriations Committee, was snooping around in hopes of cutting wasteful government spending and stumbled upon the budgets for both the Martís. “I was looking for places to save some money that wasn’t being spent well in order to shift it to areas that seemed to be of greater need,” he recalls.

At the time, Radio Martí’s signal was not only weak and ineffective, but Skaggs says he had serious concerns that the station’s hiring practices and programming were being controlled by Cuban exiles in Miami, most notably the late Jorge Mas Canosa, head of the influential Cuban American National Foundation and chairman of the presidential advisory board overseeing both stations. So in 1993 Skaggs set out to eliminate funding for the Martís and walked right into the buzz saw of the Cuban-American lobby, which marshalled its forces to maintain funding for the stations. And as a warning to Skaggs and any other representatives who might try to mess with the Martís in the future, the stations’ supporters attempted to cut from the federal budget projects in Skaggs’s Colorado district. Leading the charge was Miami’s Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who had just been elected to the House.

Skaggs was astonished by the onslaught; he commented at the time: “It’s a set of tactics I have not encountered in politics before. I have encountered my share of hardball, but it’s a little more brazen than I have seen.” Time has not changed that view.
(snip/...)

http://www.westword.com/extra/defede1.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He's lucky he didn't end up with a bomb under his car!

[Judi Lynn]

12. An article on closing down American licensed trips to Cuba

A lively D.U. poster saw this one a couple of days ago and shared it on another message board:

(snip) U.S. tourists rush to Cuba as White House tightens travel
Published July 14, 2003


HAVANA -- Sure, she knew the tour was a bit skewed, perhaps too rah-rah. Nevertheless, Margo McAuliffe came away from her 10-day trip through Cuba "a fan."

"I'm the reason they want the travel ban kept," said the California retiree, referring to the Bush administration.
"I came here somewhat under the influence that Castro is a bad guy," said McAuliffe, sitting in a Havana hotel lobby. "I felt this was one place I wasn't hearing the truth. I feel our government has an ax to grind."

With a packed itinerary focused on sustainable development, McAuliffe's group, organized by San Francisco-based Global Exchange, learned about Cuba's organic gardens and herbal healing. They visited a rehabilitation center for disabled children and talked with a family physician. In total they logged more than 1,000 miles from Havana to the eastern port city of Santiago and back.

McAuliffe had wanted to see Cuba for years in the hope of sifting through some of the rhetoric on both sides of the Florida Strait. News that the U.S. government is phasing out popular educational and cultural-exchange trips such as the one McAuliffe booked finally brought an end to her procrastination. (snip)

(snip) "The institutions are making a big marketing point of the fact that after January 1 there will be no more trips of this nature to Cuba," said Janet Moore, president of Distant Horizons, a California-based tour operator. "All the groups are full, with waiting lists." (snip)

(snip) Meanwhile, the Bush administration has relaxed travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans, the bulk of licensed travelers to Cuba, making it easier for them to visit relatives. It also increased the amount of cash they can take to their families, from $300 to $3,000 each quarter. (snip/...)


http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-asecbauza14071403jul14xx.story

[Judi Lynn]

13. Very stupid action by Bush's admin. on a 75 yr. old Cuba traveler

This story has also been contributed by a D.U. poster on another message board, and simply must be heard. It's sooooo obnoxious:

(snip) San Diegan Fined $10,000 For Bicycle Tour Of Cuba
Woman Part Of Canadian Touring Company

POSTED: 7:31 a.m. PDT July 15, 2003
UPDATED: 7:32 a.m. PDT July 15, 2003

SAN DIEGO -- A 75-year-old San Diego woman who went with a Canadian company on a bicycle tour of Cuba is fighting the U.S. government's decision to fine her nearly $10,000 for violating the U.S. ban on travel there.

Joan Slote said she made the trip three years ago only because the tour's Canadian organizer assured her in writing that she could legally visit Cuba as long as she traveled through a third country, such as Canada.

When she returned to the United States, the retired medical worker reported that she spent $18 in souvenirs and $20 in airport tax in Cuba and was fined $7,600. Penalties that have accrued while she has fought the fine have increased the toll to $9,871.75.


Slote has been invited to speak Tuesday in Washington at a forum on the U.S. travel ban. Her supporters also hope to arrange a hearing with the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. They also hope to enlist the support of Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who supports lifting the travel restrictions to Cuba.

Barry Piatt, a spokesman for Dorgan, called prosecution of Slote "an absurd use of resources by the Department of Treasury." (snip/...)

http://www.thesandiegochannel.com/news/2333017/detail.html

I really hope that Democratic Senator Dorgan can get some kind of help for this poor lady. This is outrageous.

Our Cuba travel policy, which allows the very same people who sit on their behinds in Miami, and raise hell about Cuba, to stagger right back there, and whoop it up once a year, visiting relatives, officially. I have heard from people living in Miami that it's just about impossible for the government to check them all out every time they travel there, and that it's common knowledge Cuban "exiles" are actually free to come and go from and to Cuba at will.

[guajira]

14. Repukes Claim to Be Fiscally Conservative - Give Millions to Special Inter

Miami Batistianos get millions of US tax dollars in their pockets every year - thanks to pandering politicians (including Dems like Bob Graham and Bill Nelson).

All the "exiles" have to do is form an anti-Castro group and vote Republican, and give some of the $$$ back into campaign coffers!!

We American taxpayers are paying these hate-motivated banana republicans millions so they can lobby congress and keep American travelers from going to Cuba, and keep American businesses from trading with Cuba!

We're paying to have our own freedoms taken away!! This is one of the many reasons the Dems are losing respect from the American citizens, especially the younger voters. We've had years to end the 40+ year embargo and travel ban - but apparently Democrats don't care!