Category Archives: Miami

Here we go again. Looks as if Tropical Storm (and eventually Hurricane?) Chris has got us right in the cross-hairs:

So far, at least, the forecast doesn’t suggest the kind of things that strengthen it into a major hurricane … but even so-called not-major hurricanes have beat us up pretty badly in the past couple of years.

There’s nothing currently in the forecast to suggest it will turn either, but it’s not moving fast, so there’s plenty of time for everything to change. Meanwhile, though, the current forecast says there’s about a 10% chance it will hit here early in the weekend.

Following the announcement that Fidel Castro had ceded power (temporarily?) to his brother Raul, they were dancing in the streets of Miami last night, just on the chance that Fidel might be dead. It seems ghoulish to me, to dance on the grave (or would-be grave) of anyone, even a dictator who, however just some of the grievances that propelled his revolution, has since strangled his people and condemned them to needless economic, political, and cultural poverty (while improving health care and repelling a US invasion). But I am not an exile, or the (grand)child of an exile, cut off a stone’s throw from the ancestral land.

When I moved to Miami, one of the nightmare scenarios for civic authorities was that Fidel Castro would die and a couple of million Cubans would take a boat ride in order to resettle in Miami. The city had an entire master plan, with heavy police presence, near-martial law, a big command post, lots of shiny cop toys. In light of the number of people willing to come during the brief period that Castro had opened the gates, the scenario seemed plausible, even if the reaction seemed somewhat militaristic. Meanwhile, an important revanchist segment of the local Cuban exile power structure dreamed of returning to Cuba to take up the reigns of power that they or their fathers (always fathers) had been forced to surrender when Batista fell. I think they expected to be greeted with flowers, to reclaim their expropriated property, and to be acclaimed — or perhaps instantly elected — rulers. It all seemed rather Bourbon and unrealistic to me. Cuba might be stuck in an economic time warp, but socially and politically it had moved on since 1959. Plus the view from the more recent exiles — frequently drawn from the bottom of the economic and social ladder — sounded somewhat different than the view from the top. I foresaw disappointment at best, and more likely strife. These were, after all, the sons and brothers of Brigade 2506, and assorted other paramilitary groups that were still active up through at least the early 1990s.

But Fidel proved to be a tough old bird, and a decade and a half makes a difference. The exile generation is now mostly too old to dream of ruling, much less fighting, although not too old to seek back family property and dream of economic development … with a whiff of economic domination … a dream that seems congenial to the next, and entrepreneurial, generation. The US is home to many second and third generation exiles, and for many their quest in post-communist Cuba will be for investments, for second homes, for nannies and au pairs.

It’s unclear, though, whether the old fear of a mass exodus of Cubans to Miami, a ‘Mariel boatlift on steroids,’ still remains valid. Today’s papers don’t say much on the subject, other than to say that the county government has activated its Emergency Operations Center. The Herald reports that the feds are just standing by for now,

The U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are on standby until they receive official word to go on alert for their Cuba Plans.

”It’s a little too early,” said Zachary Mann, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this in the next day or two.

The Justice Department has a terrible track record of exaggeration when it comes to claiming that they’ve uncovered terrorist cells in the US. As the Carpetbagger reminds us,

By any reasonable measure, the Bush administration’s track record on exposing dangerous terrorist plots isn’t terribly impressive. When Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in March 2002, the president described him as al Queda’s chief of operations and emphasized the significance of his capture. Bush was wrong. The plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge wasn’t quite what it was cracked up to be. Jose Padilla was not actually prepared to detonate a dirty bomb in DC. Former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge eventually conceded that flimsy evidence led the administration to raise the threat level in 2004.

And then there’s the reconstruction from Unqualified Offerings, Money for Nothing,

Wild speculation: You don’t suppose the Seas of David Cell was just trying to scam their “al-Qaeda contact” (FBI informant) out of a lot of cool shit, do you? Reading the indictment (pdf) is suggestive.

…

Have you noticed that if explosives appeared on either wish list, the indictment hasn’t considered it worth mentioning? Have you noticed that $50,000 is a lot of money, vehicles you can drive and that you could probably find buyers for bullet proof vests and firearms in Liberty City without too much trouble?

They weren’t Muslims. They weren’t al-Qaeda. Could they just have been (incompetent) scam artists?

Back to the Carpetbagger (although there’s lots more in both posts for anyone interested in the case),

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that the capture of these lunatics is trivial. These people clearly wanted to kill innocent people and commit domestic terrorist attacks. Intelligence officials deserve kudos for infiltrating the group and stopping these would-be terrorists before they became dangerous.

That said, anyone who claims that the administration just broke up a plot to attack the Sears Tower is overstating what’s occurred here. The “Miami 7” could hardly attack a convenience store.

Moreover, this seems to be a pattern with the Bush gang. There’s a major announcement that receives blanket coverage about terrorist plots — which turns out to be far less significant than advertised. Dick Cheney said yesterday that this cult in Miami was “a very real threat.” Except, after scratching beneath the surface just a little, there’s ample reason to believe that’s not the case.

Just saying.