Cuba Lets U.S. Use Airspace

[dipsydoodle]

Source: CBS News

Cuba has agreed to let the United States military use restricted air space for the purposes of medical evacuations out of Haiti, Reuters reported Friday.

The deal shaves 90 minutes off the flight time it normally takes from Port-au-Prince to Miami.

Disaster relief teams from the U.S. military have been taken injured quake survivors to the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay. Some victims have then been taken to south Florida from Guantanamo.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/01/15/world/worldwatch/entry6099838.shtml

---

Just a convenient link. I'm sure there are many others.

[Twinguard]

1. Cool.

Thanks Cuba.

[Billy Burnett]

2. More proof that the US's hostility against Cuba must end now!

Cuba's emergency disaster response tems - the Henry Reeve Brigade - were the first to set up triage centers in Haiti.

15 thousand H.R.Brigade members (triage specialists) were at the ready within hours in Cuba, waiting to get to the scene of the disaster.

The US was preventing Cuba from landing more planes loaded with Brigade doctors and supplies at the now USAF controlled airport. Cuba used their airspace as a bargaining chip to get US permission to land Cuban Brigade relief.


Time to end the US/Cuba standoff NOW!

[dipsydoodle]

4. Less of an issue from over here

BA flys into Santo Domingo and is transporting Oxfam's stuff for them as a freebee. After that I guess its copter or road into Haiti.

In fairness, but as much as I hate to say it, the USAF needs to control the airport - the control tower is broke.

Yes - Time to end the US/Cuba standoff NOW!

[cali]

5. the airport was/is a fucking mess

got any independent source to confirm your story?

[Billy Burnett]

10. Just the word from some of the pilots returning from Haiti.

I've been shuttling goods to Miami and Tamiami airports.

Nothing from any media on this. Sorry.

[Thothmes]

16. The air port is only open during day light hours

had cannot refuel aircraft.

[Judi Lynn]

7. This reminds people of Cuba's immediate offer to George Bush after Sept. 11.

They offered to allow airplanes to land there which had to be diverted from New York. Refused.

On September 11, some Cuban musicians were in the US to appear in the Grammy Latin American music awards.

(The ceremony had been rescheduled for September in Los Angeles, after the original plan in Miami was cancelled due to the uproar following a decision to keep American Cuban hardliner "exile" protesters a block away from the auditorium. It was necessary to provide security for Cuban national artists trying to enter the building without being harmed, since previous concert dates were attended by a radical "exile" element in Miami which had firebombed other Cuban locations featuring Cuban artists, had threatened bombings and other mayhem, had congregated well in advance outside and hurled cans of soft drinks, D cell batteries, and baggies filled with excrement at the people trying to get inside, sending one person to the hospital immediately, injuring others.)

The Cuban musicians, like world famous Chucho Valdez remained in Los Angeles long enough after learning the concert had been cancelled again, to go to give blood, each one, before returing to Cuba.

Had _{George Bush} known about this he probably would have refused to allow them to do that, as well.

Hurricane Katrina: Cubans offered to help. Here's a thread from DU at the time:

cire4 (580 posts) Sat Sep-10-05 12:52 AM
Original message

Reuters: Cuban Doctors say politics blocked Katrina aid offer

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban doctors put on stand-by a week ago by President Fidel Castro to fly to the aid of the victims of Hurricane Katrina said on Friday they hoped the United States would put politics aside and accept their help.

So far, the word from Washington has been thanks, but no thanks. The White House snubbed Cuba's offer and said Castro would do better "freeing" his Communist-run country.

<snip>

Castro, calling a truce in Cuba's four-decade-old ideological war with the United States, offered on September 2 to fly the doctors to treat people in the New Orleans disaster.

<snip>

"When it comes to Cuba, we have one message for Fidel Castro: He needs to offer the people of Cuba their freedom," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said at a press briefing on Thursday.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1768847

http://www.finalcall.com.nyud.net:8090/artman/uploads/1/cuba06-05-2007.jpg

Cuban doctors listen to a speech by Cuban President Fidel Castro in Havana, Sept. 4, 2005, as he extends his offer to send 1,100 Cuban doctors with two backpacks of medicine each to help people affected by Hurricane Katrina in the southern US. Pres. Castro earlier said in a radio and television address that some 100 doctors would arrive in Houston, Texas by September 9, and 1,000 would arrive by the 10th and 11th. During his speech Castro said that US authorities had yet to inform the Cuban government of their decision yet. Photo: Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images

http://a-aprp-gc.org.nyud.net:8090/images/Cuban_doctors_put_on_stand-by_to_assist_Victims_of_Bush_Policies_after_Hurricane_Katrina.jpeg

Cuban doctors, waiting on stand-by to assist after Hurricane Katrina.

[lsewpershad]

11. Time to lift the embargo

for the benefit of all

[Jamastiene]

23. +1

[AlphaCentauri]

3. Cuba makes good use of their rational sense, good n/t

[winyanstaz]

6. That is a good thing...

Thank you Cuba :)

[cbgb2112]

8. I hope we don't blow this chance of good will...AGAIN.

We could really heal some wounds by being gracious leaders for a change.

[flamingdem]

14. +1

[existentialist]

22. I'm just trying to imagine

how the Bush administration would respond to such a gesture of good will.

Whatever disappointments I may have with Obama, I'm sure he will do substantially better than Bush on the point.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Glad to learn about this. Thanks for posting the information, dipsydoodle. n/t

[dipsydoodle]

12. It mis-loaded

so don't show in the normal place. I'm surprised but pleased that anyone found it. I'd picked it up on our TV news and then just searched for a suitable link.

:hi: and Happy New Year to you.

[bemildred]

13. Way to go Cuba.

:applause::applause:

[dipsydoodle]

15. Reuters reported Friday.

This was breaking news.x(

[FourScore]

17. Thank you, Cuba. n/t

[-..__...]

18. Now we just need to convince Fidel...

that U-2/SR-71 flights are part of the relief effort.

[malaise]

19. Cuba

A neighbor in every sense of the word. :grouphug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. We were talking about this earlier in the day

and how it was going to be the official we mutually agree to look the other way.

Perhaps this will open the way for some ahem... cooperation... would not be the first time a disaster helped melt the ice between two enemies... hell look at the Dominican Republic... and Haiti... they have not been in the best of terms for oh decades.

[kenny blankenship]

21. In a sane world we would be paying Cuba to provide security in Haiti for relief agencies

They can get there quickly - they could have been there today I would imagine. They'd have been operating on the edge of their logistics with no margin, but they could be there to see to orderly clearing and aid distribution. Our forces have to pack every fucking piece of gear known to man in order to mobilize and have to come from much further away and won't be there until MONDAY.

MONDAY.

But of course if it got out that there was a deal with Cuba to send 5 or 6 thousand troops to Haiti on a temp basis in exchange for trade credit, to assist the UN until our expeditionary force could arrive to relieve them, the fucking skies would fall and lava would flood the streets of Washington DC.