It seems that the Chick-fil-A-devouring, ever-expanding, do-as-little-as-possible-but-keep-raising-money-from-wealthy-out-of-state-donors carpetbagger Representative Alex Mooney (W. Va.) is at it again.
Apparently, he is going forward, alone, with a truly dingbat resolution that would authorize U.S. military force to establish a “safe zone” within Cuba in response to recent mass protests there.
Not since Miguel de Cervantes wrote Don Quixote has there been a knight-errant of Hispanic blood more drongo than Mooney, along with his enabler and sycophant chief of staff, the shoebill-emulating Mike Hough, the Sancho Panza of Maryland.
Why joust with windmills, thinks Don Alejandro, when I can get a resolution so ardent that it will never pass into law, but will make me a conservative darling. Think of all those rich donors down in Miami! And my first cousin Francis Suarez, the mayor, can introduce me!
That would work until some rich, grizzled, ex-Alpha 66 or Brigada 2506 veteran retorts:
“Hola, Alejandro El Gordo! Unlike your father, you never wore the uniform of the United States. You never saw combat.
“Why not set an example by sending your son Lucas Mooney, who is 18, to the United States Marines . . . given that they will likely be the ones fighting and dying to create your ‘safe zone’? I am sure that the West Virginians who mock you as a carpetbagger would then be happy to send their sons into harm’s way.”
Or there might be a question from a family member of the Alabama Air Guard’s 106th Bombardment Squadron. Those ballsy Alabama flyers were recruited by the CIA, and secretly trained the 2506th Brigade’s Cuban refugees to fly and fight in World War II-era B-26 Invaders from clandestine bases in Guatemala and Nicaragua for the Bay of Pigs invasion—the very same guys who then volunteered to fly the remaining B-26s into the teeth of Castro’s alerted Air Force, in a valiant, last-ditch effort to save the invasion. They died trying.
“Yo! Flounder! My granddad died trying to save the Cuban people, and we were forced to keep the secret for decades. What have you done except recklessly suggest more foolish adventurism for a safe zone in Cuba?”
In fact, there is already a safe zone in Cuba—kinda. The naval base at Guantanamo encompasses 45 square miles. But in the 1960s, the Cubans erected “the Cactus Curtain,” eight miles of dense cactus, plus minefields, barbed wire, and soldiers, to prevent movement in or out.
With that barrier already in place, contemporary Cuban Communists could do two things if they perceived Guantanamo as Mooney’s new “safe zone”: Stop or shoot any Cuban approaching, or conversely flood the base with anybody they considered undesirable.
That’s exactly what Fidel Castro did in 1980 in the chaos called the Mariel boatlift. The regime dumped 125,000 Cuban refugees into Florida, many directly from jails and mental institutions. Given the Biden Administration’s vertiginous approach to foreign policy, there is only more chaos to be had in allowing or disallowing the use of Gitmo as a “safe zone.”
The current Communist government surely would prohibit re-entry back into Cuba from a “safe zone.” They may be genuine Commie bastards but they are not stupid Commie bastards.
Meanwhile, as long as Mooney will lose his West Virginia seat next year due to redistricting, he might just want to use his time in Miami to carpetbag his way into Florida. And bring Shoebill Mike Hough with him. Think of the billing: El Gordo and Sancho: the desultory duo!