The failure of the Cuban exiles is nearly complete

With news that Castro is stepping down, it's well to note what his adversaries have achieved in 50 years of opposition. They've made themselves obnoxious to two countries. They've wagged the dog as a lobby, distorting and damaging US foreign policy, squandering our goodwill, resources, and opportunities for trade. They've kept Cuban families apart, brought violence and terror into the exile community, placed a wedge between generations, stifled remittances and stimulated deaths at sea from crossings made illegal by the US refusal to grant visas. They've stymied cultural and professional exchanges, and weakened human rights on both sides: therough the travel ban stateside, and by stimulating and helping justify repression in Cuba. More than anything they've impoverished Cuba by the useless blockade. They even had their role in priming the world for a World War III that nearly commenced during the Missle Crisis.

In exchange for all this loss, they've managed to promote a few bigshots, place Miami's other ethnic groups under a corrupt exile regime, and make Miami an international haven for terrorists, generals and dictators from the whole hemisphere.

But Castro, he was never weakened. He is more lionized now in the Americas than ever. The success of his regime in converting masses of poor farmers into skilled but underpaid professionals, while holding off a superpower just offshore, and intervening to decolonialize Africa, hence keeping the island afloat, exporting hope and rocketing national pride, has earned him a permanent place in the pantheon of heroes for the Western and Southern hemispheres. He has survived, perservered, prospered, and lived to see the Continent flourishing with figures like Chavez, Morales, Lula, and Ortega in most of the Americas. Colombia and Paraguay are virtually alone standing against the trend. Castro retires without having been assassinated or captured.

The point is: not what the exiles in Miami intended. So their message today is, we have to keep up our efforts because nothing has changed. Logical if the policies had succeeded so far. Utterly delusional in reality. For 50 years policies intended to oust Castro, end Castroism, and reverse the Cuban Revolution have done nothing of the sort. Maybe 2059, when we mark its centennial, they will reassess.