Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumFormer Prisoner Recalls Sanders Saying, 'I Don't Know What's So Wrong' With Cuba
American Alan Gross, a prisoner in Cuba for five years during the Obama administration, is accusing Sen. Bernie Sanders of commending the communist country when he came to visit him behind bars.
Sanders visited Cuba as part of a congressional delegation in 2014, along with Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and Jon Tester.
During the one-hour meeting, Sanders told the prisoner that he didn't understand why others criticized Cuba, Gross said in an interview with NPR.
"He said, quote: 'I don't know what's so wrong with this country,' " Gross recalled.
More: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/04/811729200/former-prisoner-recalls-sanders-saying-i-don-t-know-what-s-so-wrong-with-cuba
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
hlthe2b
(101,728 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Jose Garcia
(2,552 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
.99center
(1,237 posts)"How could he be so insensitive to make that remark to a political hostage me!" Gross told NPR
Gross spent 1,841 days in detention, losing five teeth and over 100 pounds. He also said interrogators threatened to pull out his fingernails and to hang him.
In prison pajamas, he met with the Congressional delegation. Sanders was mostly silent until he blurted out at the end.
Gross' claim - that Sanders commended Cuba to an American detained in a Cuban prison - follows other positive comments Sanders has made about dictatorial regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and the Soviet Union over the course of his decades-long political career
Gross said that he felt compelled to speak out about Sanders' comments now because of the interview that the senator gave to 60 Minutes that touched on Cuba, and Sanders' reference to the issue in the debates.
"I mean, it's relevant now. The guy's running for president of the United States," Gross said. "And for him to make those statements demonstrating a basic lack of a grasp on reality is problematic to me. I don't want to see this guy in the White House."
A source close to Heitkamp said she remembered that Sanders seemed to disregard the meeting with Gross and that an uncomfortable exchange occurred, but did not remember the exact remark.
Sanders' campaign declined to comment about the meeting with Gross
When Sanders visited Gross in a Cuban prison, he brought a copy of The Atlantic magazine.
Graeme posits what the cover of that magazine might have been based on the time:
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Jose Garcia
(2,552 posts)How is this different?
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
dalton99a
(81,068 posts)These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution. And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.
- Ernesto Ché Guevara
Che Guevara personally ordered 100 executions
http://cubaarchive.org/home/images/stories/truth%20and%20memory/victims_of_che_guevara_in_cuba_9.30.2009.pdf
(There were at least 3,615 documented firing squad executions after Castro took over)
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden