By Humberto Fontova
On Aug. 2 the Council on Foreign Relations released a “Policy Innovation Memorandum” titled “A Strategy to Reduce Gun Trafficking and Violence in the Americas.” The memo was authored by the CFR’s “senior fellow for Latin American studies,” Julia F. Sweig.
According to Ms. Sweig, the “policy” that needs “innovation” is U.S. gun laws. Why?
In brief: because too many people are shooting each other in Latin America. “The flow of high-powered weaponry from the United States to Latin America and the Caribbean exacerbates soaring rates of gun-related violence in the region,” Sweig asserts in her memo.
“Although recent federal gun control measures have run aground on congressional opposition,” laments Ms. Sweig, “… though the Senate rejected measures to expand background checks on firearms sales, reinstate a federal assault-weapons ban, and make straw purchasing a federal crime, the Obama administration can still take executive action to reduce the availability and trafficking of assault weapons and ammunition in the Americas. …”
To foil Latin American criminals (many of whom cross the southern U.S. border essentially at will), the CFR urges the U.S. president to use every ounce of his executive power and privilege to further gut the constitutional self-defense rights of U.S. citizens. Our president needs to roll up his sleeves, spit on his hands and ram through regulations that have been repeated thwarted by the elected representatives of the American people.
“The White House should back state and local legislation, in Maryland and Connecticut, which ban the sale of assault rifles [actually semi-automatic deer-hunting rifles] and high-capacity magazines, broaden existing background check requirements for firearms purchases, and modernize gun-owner registries by requiring, among others, that buyers submit their fingerprints when applying for a gun license.” [emphasis added]
All of the above to show our “Latino” neighbors “that United States can be a legitimate partner in “combating transnational crime” and to “fulfill our shared responsibility for regional security.”
As seen, Senior Fellow Julia Sweig professes great concern for curbing “transnational crime” and enhancing “regional security.” But much of her career consists of lobbying for the interests of Castro’s Cuba, historically (and still) the top benefactor of Latin America’s most murderous gun-runners, drug gangs and terrorists, not to mention the regime that came closest to igniting a worldwide nuclear war.
“Thanks to Fidel Castro, we are now a powerful army, not a hit and run band,” boasted Tiro-Fijo the late commander of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). The FARC’s 50-year murder toll, by the way, far surpasses that of Hezbollah, Taliban and al-Qaida combined.
When Julia Sweig visited Cuba in 2010, accompanied by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, something caught Goldberg’s eye: “We shook hands,” he writes about the meeting with Fidel Castro. “Then he greeted Julia warmly. They (Castro and Sweig) have known each other for more than 20 years.”
Sweig’s promotional services for the Castro regime reached a level where the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency top Cuba spycatcher, Chris Simmons (now retired), named her a Cuban “agent of influence.” Some background:
In 25 years as a U.S. military counterintelligence officer, Lt. Col. Simmons helped end the operations of 80 enemy agents; some are today behind bars. One of these had managed the deepest penetration of the U.S. Department of Defense in U.S. history. The spy’s name is Ana Montes, known as “Castro’s “Queen Jewel” in the intelligence community. “Montes passed some of our most sensitive information about Cuba back to Havana,” said then Undersecretary for International Security John Bolton.
Today she serves a 25-year sentence in federal prison. She was convicted of “Conspiracy to Commit Espionage,” the same charge against Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, carrying the same potential death sentence for what is widely considered the most damaging espionage case since the “end” of the Cold War. Two years later, in 2003, Chris Simmons helped root out 14 Cuban spies who were promptly booted from the U.S.
Obviously, retired Lt. Col. Chris Simmons knows what he’s talking about.
Ms. Sweig indeed holds pre-eminence in one field. No “scholar” in modern American history thanks the “warm friendship” and “support” of six different communist spies and terrorists in the acknowledgments to her book, three of whom were expelled from the U.S. for terrorism and/or espionage, two for a bombing plot whose death toll would have dwarfed 9/11.
On Nov. 17, 1962, the FBI cracked a plot by Cuban agents that targeted Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Bloomingdale’s and Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal with a dozen incendiary devices and 500 kilos of TNT. The massive attack was set for the following week, the day after Thanksgiving. Macy’s get’s 50,000 shoppers that one day. Had those detonators gone off, 9/11’s death toll would have almost certainly taken second.
Here are pictures of some of the Cuban terrorists upon arrest. Note the names: Elsa Montero and Jose Gomez Abad.
Now here’s an excerpt from the acknowledgments in Julia Sweig’s book “Inside the Cuban Revolution,” written in collaboration with the Castro regime:
“In Cuba many people spent long hours with me, helped open doors I could not have pushed through myself, and offered friendship and warmth to myself during research trips to the island. … Elsa Montero and Jose Gomez Abad championed this project.”
In addition to these two KGB-trained terrorists, the CFR’s Julia Sweig thanks the “warm friendship and championship of” of Ramon Sanchez Parodi, Jose Antonio Arbesu, Fernando Miguel Garcia, Hugo Ernesto Yedra and Josefina Vidal for their “warmth, their friendship and their kindness in opening Cuban doors.”
All the above have been identified by Chris Simmons as veteran officers in Castro’s KGB-trained intelligence services.
Humberto Fontova is a columnist, public speaker and the author of five books including his latest, “The Longest Romance: The Mainstream Media and Fidel Castro.” Visit Fontova’s website.
