Dean's World

Once again, I all but curse the memory of the two Kennedy brothers, John and Robert, for their cowardice in and treachery in withholding promised US Navy air support to their own recruited freedom fighters, La Brigada 2506, whom the CIA had landed in the Bay of Pigs, on the beaches near Playa Giron, Las Villas, Cuba, on April 17, 1961. Because of that act of the vilest treachery, I have never felt sorrow about the manner of their deaths.

The US government's treacherous handling of Brigada de Asalto 2506 at the Bay of Pigs was an infamy almost without parallel in the history of this country.

And if I support the policies of president Bush and his administration in Iraq and Afghanistan today, it is partially for reasons that have nothing to do with terrorism or islamofascism.
Instead, it has everything to do with maintaining the honor of the flag and name of the United States.

A commander who deserts his own soldiers in the face of an enemy has been considered worthy of death and immortal disgrace, throughout human history. A country that permits this loses much of its self-respect.

So I want no more treacherous bug-outs in the face of enemy attacks. I don't give a damn how much this war shall cost this country before it is over. I don't give a damn how much more fighting is involved. I don't give a damn what any other country thinks of us because of this war. I just never wish to witness the United States acquiescing in another national disgrace.

Such as the armistice in Korea rather than destroying the communist government that had started the war.

Such as the Bay of Pigs treachery in April 1961.

Such as the Saigon treachery in which we sold South Vietnam down the drain in the early 1970s.

Such as the Mogadishu disgrace in the early 1990s, in which the loss of a combat helicopter caused the United States to pull out its forces in the face of a raging islamic mob.

In these pages of commentary, I never have written kindly about Cuba, its people, its culture, or its history. Call it cultural prejudice, if you like. But I shall unsay nothing of what I ever have written.

But men and women who take up arms for their own freedom, and the Cuban patriots did shortly after Castro terrorized the country and took power in their unhappy country, are the highest and best example of all that I find worthy in the world.

I suppose that if the Kennedy brothers had kept their word so freely given to the Cuban freedom fighters, Casro's life would have ended in some Havana gutter, in the spring of 1961. If that had happened, there would be no great cuban diaspora in this country. I suppose south Florida would be the poorer for that. And you, too, Dean. Because you never would have had the company of Val Prieto as a friend. And I know his friendship for you has been significant in your life.

But I would prefer to lose -- or never to have gained -- the friendship of hundreds or thousands, rather than acquiese in a major act of national treachery such as the United States generated against the Cuban nation in April 1961, by the decision of the president of the United States at the urging of his younger brother.

So what is the Spanish word for "shame"? Because it should be incribed on their tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI