Lest we forget…

By Alberto de la Cruz


February 5, 2011,


Lest we forget, there is an American being held hostage by the Castro dictatorship for more than 13 months now. Alan Gross is still languishing in a Castro gulag with no charges yet filed against him. His only crime was attempting to provide Jewish organizations in Cuba with communications capabilities that the rest of the world considers commonplace.

The press and their go-to "Cuba Experts" may have forgotten Alan Gross, but our good friend Jay Nordlinger has not:

Do You Know Who Alan Gross Is?

In Impromptus today, I mention Alan P. Gross — the American prisoner in Cuba. He works, or worked, for a USAID contractor. For 13 months, he has been imprisoned by the Cuban dictatorship. Without trial. Without even charge. This is a scandal, an outrage, and a travesty. I believe that the Alan Gross matter should be a big deal — a cause — in our country.

Let me say something “right-wing” to you (and by “right-wing,” people often mean honest but not necessarily popular): If Gross were a prisoner of a government more disliked by our mainstream media, he would be a much bigger deal, a real story.
It’s one thing if Americans, or their elites, don’t care about Cuban political prisoners. But what about an American prisoner?

P.S. George W. Bush cared about Cuban political prisoners — which is why he gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Oscar Biscet, in prison even now. Obama gave the medal to Mary Robinson, the mistress of Durban: that festival of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate. Even Colin Powell, not necessarily a lion as secretary of state, pulled out of that one.

As I once argued in an NR essay, you can tell a lot about a president by the Medals of Freedom he gives.