Eight days after urging President Obama to end the embargo on Cuba, the New York Times is giving credit where credit is due in the front lines of the fight against Ebola: with brave Cuban doctors and nurses. The leaders of the world's efforts to provide medical care to those who need it most are Cuban doctors and nurses. Now Cuban doctors and nurses are risking their lives to protect Ebola-stricken African nations.
The Times recognizes the significance of this risky business, but why not the U.S. in a clear and supportive manner?
It is a shame that Washington, the chief donor in the fight against Ebola, is diplomatically estranged from Havana, the boldest contributor. In this case the schism has life-or-death consequences, because American and Cuban officials are not equipped to coordinate global efforts at a high level. This should serve as an urgent reminder to the Obama administration that the benefits of moving swiftly to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba far outweigh the drawbacks.
The Cuban health care workers will be among the most exposed foreigners, and some could very well contract the virus. The World Health Organization is directing the team of Cuban doctors, but it remains unclear how it would treat and evacuate Cubans who become sick. Transporting quarantined patients requires sophisticated teams and specially configured aircraft. Most insurance companies that provide medical evacuation services have said they will not be flying Ebola patients.
Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday praised “the courage of any health care worker who is undertaking this challenge,” and made a brief acknowledgment of Cuba’s response. As a matter of good sense and compassion, the American military, which now has about 550 troops in West Africa, should commit to giving any sick Cuban access to the treatment center the Pentagon built in Monrovia and to assisting with evacuation.
We see an analogous shame in the U.S. coddling of Turkey regarding its support for Islamic State in the torturing and slaughtering of Syrian Kurds who happen to be committed leftists. (
http://www.dailykos.com/....) Syrian Kurds, many of them brave women soldiers, should not be isolated from solidarity and world support merely because of their socialist beliefs. For years the U.S. has been led by the nose by Turkey to wrongly list a left-wing Kurdish political party as a "terrorist group." Now, when Turkey refuses to allow Turkish Kurds to come to the mutual aid of their brothers and sisters in Rojava, the U.S. turns a blind eye.
For shame. In Syrian Kurdistan, and by extension the fight against IS, and in Cuba, and by extension the fight against Ebola, the U.S. should not put capitalist neoliberal bias above the needs of humanity. Terrorist support emanates from oil-rich "friends of the U.S." like Saudi Arabia who have the U.S.'s protection and allegiance. Aging Cuban ex-patriots with still enormous, but thankfully declining, political power still boss the U.S. politicians of both major parties around.
No mas.