while the orange man leads the assault, the russians are quietly backing the cubans so it should be an interesting time; 

 

As the White House threatens war against Cuba, I am reminded of the charming evenings my parents and I spent at Havana’s venerable ‘Floridita Bar, sipping a newly invented cocktail, the Margarita, with the renowned writer, Ernest Hemingway.

`Papa’ Hemingway, who then lived in Cuba, loved this island with a great passion and wrote about it often. I feel the same way. I’ve been visiting Cuba since before Castro took over and feel at home in this socialist nation, no matter how threadbare or destitute.

 Cubans, whom I call ‘the aristocrats of the West Indies’, have managed to survive efforts by the mighty US to starve, isolate, and attack them for the past five decades. I’ve even been twice in battle against Cuban troops in Angola, Africa. They were valiant and competent soldiers.

Few Americans or Canadians know that Havana is even older than my native New York City. Sadly, today once gorgeous, sultry Havana is falling into ruins after seven generations of crushing embargo by the United States. Cuba’s revolutionary strongman, Fidel Castro, refused to bow to US pressure or take orders from Washington.

The US sought to sabotage Cuba’s sugar-based economy, mounting an amazingly inept invasion in 1961. Cuba became a highly repressive communist regime, thanks to important help from the Soviet Union. Anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Florida kept up a half century effort to get Washington to continue efforts to overthrow the Castro regime...........more........