Marco Rubio shames himself by crying wolf

MIAMI – In 2003, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa visited Cuba and asked the government to free 75 prisoners, and early in 2014 he revisited. He understands that Cuba is a poor country and at a press conference in Washington declared that the infant mortality rate is lower than that of the U.S. and life expectancy even higher than ours.

Marco Rubio became upset about Cuba’s accomplishments, like the low infant mortality rate, free education and medical attention. So he decided to waste congress’s time by expressing his obsessive disbelief with Cuba’s infant mortality rate.

Of course, he kept true to tradition and made nostalgic references in praise of Batista’s regime. Not only is it cynical, but also in bad taste, to boast that the United States can offer Cuban Doctors the economic prosperity they deserve. To ask why it is that American baseball players don’t defect to Cuba is not only a cheap rhetorical question that doesn’t deserve an answer, but again emanates arrogance since Cuba is a very poor country and should never be set to compete with the economic grandeur of such a powerful union of 50 states.

Instead of proposing that politicians visit the island to communicate and establish conversations with real people, he practically advertises the typical dissident groups.

Why the favoritism? Well it is after all expected, since most distinguished dissidents are indeed sponsored and financed by federal aid and thus they will convey to any foreign visitor the point of view Marco Rubio and similar politicians approve of. They have their blessing, and are thus promoted. This is an already established and tested marketing habit that entrepreneurs swear by.

According to him, a sure sign that Cubans are being censored is that they can’t read The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. The fact is that at least The New York Times was received in Cuba daily – until the U.S. government made it difficult to deliver the newspaper there during the W. Bush administration.

Marco Rubio crosses the line when he resorts to even more propaganda by declaring at the top of his voice that Cuba is a state that sponsors terrorism. This is not true, and as an elected U.S. senator, a position of supposed prestige and respect, you’d suppose he wouldn’t lie and rather focus on problems the real population of Florida faces.

Without any real evidence, Marco Rubio accuses Cuba of exporting its “repression” to Venezuela. To say that the Venezuelan government is a puppet of Cuba, infiltrated by Cuban agents, is not only defamation, but classic meddling. I wasn’t aware that the United States government existed to enforce “punishment” on other nations who uphold democratic elections.

Not only is it extremely irresponsible to carelessly talk trash about two sovereign countries where many South Floridians are from, but it harms even further the reputation of this country. It is well know what many outside of our borders say about the U.S.’s external policies, but most importantly, many Venezuelan and Cuban American citizens will not accept the invasive interference of a Marco Rubio.

Rubio may try to win at the polls by helping to further prolong the hostilities against other countries, but Venezuela, contrary to what he has said, is not a communist state. They maintain state structures of classic representative democracies, complete with diverse political parties. Rubio is acting just like any right-winged politician would in times of crisis, invoking the dormant communist phantom like Augusto Pinochet did with the people of Chile for decades.

Being Cuban myself, I find it quite offensive that Marco Rubio has stood behind a podium in congress to say, and I quote, “Let me tell you what the Cubans are really good at…” and he goes on to mention horrible things, including repression. Maybe he doesn’t know how to distinguish between civilian populations and their government officials, but if we were to take his word for it, then I could say he is no different.

Why does Mr. Rubio waste such energies in crying wolf? Is it beneficial to us that our representatives divert the attention of congress to foreign countries like Cuba and Venezuela that pose no real threat to this great country? A true patriot of the United States would look to ways in mending foreign relations and not scheme to isolate it even more from the rest of the Americas.