15 November 2007

Moncada 07

Cuba just got pounded by Noel, a pesky little storm that killed a bunch of people all over the Caribbean. In Cuba, the regime says it killed one man and caused $500 Million in damages.

The eastern part of the island suffered terrible floods that destroyed homes and crops.

The armed forces were mobilized to evacuate and help the victims.

Incredibly, the regime is going to go ahead with an announced military exercise named Moncada 2007 to prepare for the unannounced enemy, (American), invasion from Nov. 19 to Nov. 23.

Cuba, because of the paranoia of its maximum leader, now cheerleader, Fidel, has 3 Armies:The Eastern, Central and Western with separate commands. They report to Raul, separately. (I’m not sure if they even interact with each other- Charlie Bravo?) The Eastern army will not participate in Moncada 2007 because it has its hands full with the Noel aftermath.

So?

Imagine how much this “military” exercise is going to cost? Wouldn’t those millions be better served helping with the reconstruction of the flood affected areas in the east?

And how ready can any army be against any American onslaught? Seriously. IF, the big bad bogeyman to the north decided to invade using its military might, it would take what? A few hours to take Havana?

An incredible waste of time, effort and money?

Not really. These military maneuvers serve two very important purposes. One, they are for domestic consumption, designed to show the Cuban people that any rebellion or mass protest will be dealt with swiftly and harshly with deadly modern weapons of destruction. Two, they taet the common conscripted miliciano by also warning them what is in store for them if don’t follow order. The MNIT is also exercising making sure that soldiers know they have a gun to their backs.

That’s well spent money for the regime whose only real purpose is to oppress and suppress the Cuban citizen into submission in order to perpetuate its power.

5 comments:

Tomás Estrada-Palma said...

You have to keep guys with guns busy too...

Anonymous said...

They interact with each other, and they brief Raul both individually and as a team.

Anonymous said...

In another comment -truncated and gone to hell-
I was explaining that the Western Army is the more important of the three.
Their structure coincides with the definition of "army" that's valid for the American Armed Forces.
The Navy -which includes marine infantry and sea demolition teams- and the Air Force- Anti-Aerial Defense are not subordinated to the command of these three armies.
The Eastern Army shares a lot of its work with the Tropas Guardafronteras (under the MININT command) and they are in charge of having meetings with the American commanding officers of Gtmo Bay, at the Posta 1 -Cuban side, near the town of Caimanera.
Also important are the para military posses designated for mountain combat, the militias, and teams for special designations.
The doctrine is closer to the American doctrine than to the Russian doctrine -which had nothing in common with the Cuban conditions and character.
There are op-forces, to play the role of the Americans (some press reports are mentioning that the exercise is designed to repell an American invasion) and the techniques of door to door combate and urban environment warfare and counterinsurgency are very close to what you can see is applied in Iraq by the American GIs.
There are reports that some elements of the Venezuelan Army will participate as observes and maybe they will have a very small participation in the exercises but they are going to be left out of the real interesting parts.

Gusano said...

thanks, CB. does MINIT have their own troops?

Anonymous said...

Yes, they have the Special Troops (commando stuff) and the equivalent of the Border Patrol (las tropas Guardafronteras)
The Navy has the equivalent of the Marines (marine infantry or infanteria de marina) and the sea demolition teams (frogmen). The Army has an equivalent of the Rangers, which are special designation troops. There's a secretive unit -which is kind of a Cuban version of the Delta Force. There are units trained in counterinsurgency -tested with success in Angola (jungle) and Ethiopia (urban, desert) that are very effective too.