Lies and Slanders of the Washington Post Against the Cuban 5

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it" (Goebbels)  

On December 31, 2011, the Editorial Board of the Washington Post published an editorial entitled "Cuba should finally release Alan Gross." The editorial of the Post is an insult to anybody's intelligence and is full of unsubstantiated lies. 

The Post laments the universal support that the cause for the freedom of the Cuban 5 enjoys, and what they do not say is that this support, sustained for more than a decade, grows everyday in direct relationship to the amount of injustice that the US is committing against the Five Cuban antiterrorists. The Post's end of the year editorial openly exposes its right wing and ultra conservative view. 

The glaring omission in the editorial is that it never mentions that the reason the Cuban 5 came to the United States in the first place was to monitor anti-Cuba terrorists groups based in Miami. The only thing the Post did not do in this editorial was to turn admitted anti-Cuba terrorist Posada Carriles and his partners into victims. With their silence they have remained consistent in their sheltering of these violent groups and individuals. The Post has had no problem repeating over and over again what journalists paid by the US government have said to demonize the Five to sway public opinion. In addition it also lies about the reasons why Alan Gross was arrested and convicted.

Their editorial piece dismisses the opinion of artists, intellectuals, Nobel Prize recipients and even Jimmy Carter who asked for the freedom of the Five and a solution to the case of Gross. And with absolute arrogance the article ends by advising President Barack Obama to impede the solution of both cases.

The Post, instead of informing their readers continues to perpetuate the myths against the Cuban 5 antiterrorists and calls for the punishment to continue against them and their families as it has for the past 13 years. With this deceit they also block any solution in the case of Alan Gross whom they feign concern for. (See article at the end)

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READ THE ARTICLE  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cuba-should-finally-release-alan-gross/2011/12/29/gIQAGB10SP_story.html


Cuba should finally release Alan Gross

By Editorial Board, Published: December 31, 2011

TWO LEADERS of Cuba's Jewish community have visited American Alan Gross at the maximum-security military hospital in Havana where he has been confined since Dec. 3, 2009. They lighted Hanukkah candles with him, emerging later to pronounce him healthy and hopeful. But for Mr. Gross's family in Bethesda, this report was cold comfort. Gaunt and depressed, the 62-year-old was not among nearly 3,000 prisoners granted amnesty by President Raul Castro on Dec. 23; though an ailing mother and daughter await back home, Mr. Gross remains under a 15-year sentence for "acts to undermine the integrity and independence" of Cuba.

Cuba's accusations stem from Mr. Gross's humanitarian work, on behalf of a company that operates with U.S. democracy-promotion funds, to support his fellow Jews on the island. Specifically, he helped them establish an intranet and improve their access to the Internet.

Much has been made of the fact that Mr. Gross brought computer and cellphone equipment with him when he came to the island, but on at least one occasion, Cuban authorities searched his bags and let him bring the equipment into the country after paying a tax. "I did nothing in Cuba that is not done on a daily basis in millions of homes and offices around the world," Mr. Gross told the court that found him guilty last March. Alas, that's just the point: In Cuba, helping people communicate freely can be a crime. 

The Castro government sees Mr. Gross as a potential bargaining chip in its campaign to win the return of five Cuban spies from the United States. This effort has unfortunately received support from Hollywood celebrities, Nobelists and even, after a fashion, former president Jimmy Carter, who called for the spies' release when he visited Havana in March (while saying their fate should be "separate" from that of Mr. Gross). 

There is no equivalence, moral or otherwise, between the illegal espionage of the Cubans and the conduct of Mr. Gross. The five Cubans were sentenced to long prison terms in 2001 for, among other things, operating as undeclared foreign agents and infiltrating U.S. military installations in South Florida. All are acknowledged intelligence officers, unlike Mr. Gross, a would-be humanitarian who got himself caught up in the U.S.-Cuban dispute over U.S. efforts to promote civil society on the island. Yet Cuban officials now link the cases. Referring to the five intelligence agents, the president of Cuba's parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, has cynically called on "the Jewish community in the U.S." to "persuade American politicians that it's time to put an end to this injustice and, in the process, find other humanitarian solutions."

Though the Obama administration is working diplomatic channels for Mr. Gross's release, it has wisely refused to entertain swapping the Cuban spies for him. At most, once Mr. Gross is free, the administration might consider asking the federal court in Florida to permit the exit to Cuba of the one convicted spy who has finished his prison time. A dual U.S.-Cuban citizen, he is now serving three years of parole.

But former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson floated that idea during his visit to Havana in October, and the Cubans turned him down flat. Such are the vagaries of the Communist state, whose long list of victims has tragically grown to include Alan Gross. The U.S. government should keep trying to bring him home - without yielding to Cuban extortion. 

International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
International Committee Advisory Board
For more information visit:  www.thecuban5.org