Review the art of negotiation as soon as possible (+Español)

On television I see the extensive reports dedicated to the military exercise Bastion, with young people who are barely 20-years-old. I cannot help but remember that at that same age I was wielding a Kalashnikov or an FAI rifle in real conventional and irregular wars in Angola and Ethiopia.

Any veteran of a war no matter where he lives and whatever the reason for joining it, can assure me that one thing is theory and the other practice. To put it in good Cuban, it is not the same with the guitar as with the violin.

I do not know that the Argentine composer León Gieco has had such experience. Even so, when he sings “Only I Ask God” and tells us that war “is a big monster and stomps hard,” he is not wrong at all and manages to awaken old memories that are not at all pleasant.

I also note that many of the professional instructors, with high military ranks and a chest awash with insignia from multiple decorations, lack that medal from the Council of State with red, blue, white, and red stripes again that indicate the first class. That is, won in real combat.

It cannot be otherwise. Four decades have passed since the last military conflagration in which Cuba participated.

In his or her right mind, there will be no statesman who would not prefer to avoid a war. It is necessary to exhaust all possibilities to guarantee sovereignty and integrity before taking up an assault rifle.

With the gringos, the eternal enemy, and this is not a saying or a coined phrase, we will have to negotiate and do it well, with wisdom and vision of the future. Donald Trump, from what I can understand, is more about business than war. I hope I am never wrong. Let us wait to see the end of the Panama Canal issue as an example.

With a good negotiation we would win without firing a shot or activating a BM-21 multiple rocket launcher and suffering fatal casualties among the youth that we so need to build a country populated by the elderly.

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