Should He Stay or Should He Go?

Elian Gonzales was a 5 year old boy whose mother wanted him to have the opportunities that the United States could offer him. So his step dad, mother and Elian took their chances as well as 9 others and boarded a small homemade boat from Cuba and tried to cross the ocean to come to the United Sates. Unfortunately their boat capsized and Elian was the only survivor. On Thanksgiving Day 1999 two Boaters found him in the ocean clinging to an inner tube.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service also known as the INS took charge of Elian and contacted the Cuban government to locate his father. His great Uncle who was living in the United States was contacted and took temporary custody of Elian. The United Sales government along with the Attorney General at the time, Janet Reno, decided that it was only right that Elian be sent back to Cuba where his father lived. (His father didn’t know that Elian had gone anywhere) The Cuban community in Florida was outraged and there were mass demonstrations in the streets. Many Cuban immigrants believe that the Cuban regime is an oppressive communist country, and that Elian would be better off here the United States. Also it was argued that if his mother gave up her life for Elian to have a better one here, why he should be sent back to a country with vast poverty and no opportunities. The United States is what his mother wanted. Our country was strongly divided and rioting continued for 7 months while Elian’s case went through our justice system. His maternal and paternal grandmothers were flown in from Cuba to give testimony at hearings to decide Elian’s fate. His father was finally flown in from Cuba to be reunited with his son. Elian was asked if he would like asylum to stay in the United Sales. But He wanted to go back to his country. (it was said by some people that Fidel Castro threaten to murder the remaining relatives that were still in Cuba if he didn’t come back. ) The American relatives would not give Elian back saying that his mother gave up her life to bring Elian to America. Anti-Castro supporters formed a human chain around Elian’s great-uncle’s house in Miami’s Little Havana district, determined to stop the boy from being taken away.

Finally Janet Reno sent armed Federal Agents into the house to take Elian at gun point from his great Uncle and to reunite him with his father. Elian was frighten and was taken screaming and crying from the house.

After Elian was back with his father he was happy again and after all appeals were finished he and his family were allowed to go back to Cuba. Fidel Castro met them at the airport and Elian became a hero for Cuba. Castro took little Elian on a speaking tour for 2 months and used the incident for many politically charged speeches about the evil imperialistic United States.

Fidel Castro has followed the life of Elian very closely. He shows up to birthday parties, and school functions. Elian is now a man and is serving in the Cuban military. He considers Fidel Castro a personal friend. The people of Little Havana, Florida say Elian has been brain-washed by this revolutionary regime. Elian says someday he would like to be a member of Cuba’s National Assembly like his father. I feel that because of the tragedy of Elian’s family and that Fidel Castro could exploit this tragedy to forward his doctrine unto the people of Cuba, Elian may become one of the lucky ones in Cuba that will have a better life. This never would have been his fate if tragedy hadn’t struck. I also feel that Elian should have been allowed to stay with his extended family in Little Havana because this is what his mother died for. At least until he was 14 or 18 where he could make his own decision to where he wanted to live.

Munich Olympics Massacre 1972

Eight young Palestinian men calling themselves “The Black September” managed to avoid security and get inside the 1972 Olympic Village. Their intent was to expose weaknesses in government laws and the helplessness of governments in crisis. These young Palestinian men held nine Israeli athletes as hostages ultimately killing all. Their goal was to create maximum outrage. Because this incident was on the heels of the close of the Vietnam War, most people had watched Walter Cronkite and other news reporters on the front lines and thought they had been exposed to the worst of humanity against humanity. But they were wrong. The entire Olympic Village shoot out was shown on live TV. The slaughter of these young athletes was likened to Nazi Germany's extermination of the Jews during WW2. The demands of the terrorists were to have a plane fly them and their hostages back to any Arab country willing to accept them and the release of 200 Arab prisoners being held in Israeli prisons.
Golda Meir as prime minister of Israel chose not to negotiate at all with the terrorist and gave the German Chancellor Willy Brandt permission to handle the crisis as he saw fit. This put a lot of pressure on Germany to do what they thought was the right thing.

Chancellor Brandt thought that they best way to protect the hostages was not to let the terrorist leave the country as they had requested. Many of the Arab countries did not want to get involved, but Cairo agreed to accept the landing of the plane the terrorists requested. They possibly could have gotten many of the hostages back safely, but instead the hard line taken by the Chancellor forced the terrorists hand, and all the hostages were killed. This was the fatal mistake. I think the terrorists felt they had many supporters as they made their stance. But when the Middle Eastern countries did not act favorably to their actions by not getting involved, it showed them that they were on their own. After it was all over, Libya offered to send a plane to retrieve the bodies of the Palestinian dead and stated that the terrorists never intended to kill anyone. The tragedy was partly caused by the Germans trapping the terrorists and the Israelis not releasing prisoners that were requested in the “Black September’s” demands.

This incident caused the world to pay attention to the Palestinian cause which most people didn’t know existed. But on the other hand the backlash was severe. Israeli intelligence discovered that the “Black Septembers” plan was begun in Syria. So Israel retaliated by bombing Lebanon and Syria in the heaviest strikes since the 1967 war. During the Olympics the American Government warned American interests in Germany to be on the look out as they expected trouble all along. Also Germany insisted that the Olympics continue as planned. Because of that and their inability to negotiate the release of the hostages, Germany lost its hope to repair their reputation following the exposure of the WW2 war crimes. The security at the Olympic Village was much too lax and this may have been prevented if they had been more alert as to who was coming and going in the Village. The Palestinian cause for what they felt was injustice in their country received a huge black mark in the eyes of the world because civilians were killed and yet “the Black September” were honored as Martyrs to their cause. I think that most European and American people do not understand the Arab countries issues and because of their inability to see things from a different cultural perspective, there will never be a settlement of their issues that still stand in today’s times.

In the aftermath of all this, the question remains on hostage negotiation. When do you meet their demands in the hope of saving lives, and when do you stick to policy which terrorists may use to achieve their goals.

U.S. Mafia Alliance

How do we decide when we can sacrifice the morals and ethics of our legal system and social structure? One good study would be that of Lucky Luciano,a gangland thug who committed about every crime imaginable, only to work out a deal with the U.S. government to allow him to continue his criminal ways while in jail in exchange for favors to help with the war efforts during World War II.

Salvatore Lucania also known as Lucky Luciano was born November 24, 1897. He was one of the most famous Italian gangsters of the 20th century. He earned the name lucky during an incident in 1929 which left him with his throat slit, and he miraculously survived it. Luciano grew up in Lercara Friddi, Sicily and in 1906 at the age of ten immigrated with his family to New York.

As Luciano grew up he became involved in organized crime. He became associated and worked for some of the most famous mafia thugs of the time. He also was a member of the Five Points gang lead by John Torrio. Later Luciano became chairman of the board of an organized crime group called “the commission”. The commission was a group of professional hit men. Soon after the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an attorney named Thomas E. Dewey who had been investigating Luciano, took him to court for suspicion of running an extremely large prostitution ring in New York City. Luciano was found guilty and sent to prison for 30 to 50 years. While in prison Luciano was allowed by the authorities to remain active in the everyday running of his mafia business from his prison cell as a reward for his help during WWII.

During WWII, the Germans took advantage of their use of submarines. They ended up sinking more than 200 American ships off the East Coast of the United States. After the ship “Normandie” was destroyed in New York harbor, the U.S. Navy was suspicious that the Germans were involved and asked Luciano for his help. America moved him from the Clinton Prison in Dannemora, New York to the Great Meadows prison in New York. Lucky was able to convince a few of his associates to help with security at the New York Docks. This made it harder for the Germans to sink and sabotage American ships and easier for America’s allies to ship supplies back and forth. Later in time it was discovered that the Normandie’s destruction was caused by a fire which was started by accident. Shortly after the U.S. Navy asked Luciano to help with the protection of New York’s docks, they asked him for another favor. Knowing that Luciano still had good connections with the Italian and Sicilian mafias, America needed help with their allies’ quest to invade Sicily, this was called Operation Husky. Operation Husky took Benito Mussolini out of power. During this time the man that had put Luciano in jail, Thomas E. Dewey, had become governor of New York. Dewey decided that as a reward for all of his help he would let Luciano go free. Though Luciano was no longer held behind bars he still had one price to pay. He was deported and required to move back to Sicily forever. It was said that Luciano enjoyed giving back to his Country and during the time that he was still in United States he was approached and admired by many U.S. military men like he was a movie star.

What lengths will society go to achieve success in pursuit for what it believes is right and moral, and in some cases self serving. These days we hear about water boarding as a means of getting information from our enemies. We read terrorists their so called Miranda Rights, and we put them on trial in New York City for the entire world to see, rather than using a simple military procedure.

This is quite a change from the days of the Italian Mafia, and it's far reaching power over so much of our society.

The Greatest Fight of the Twentieth Century

When we think of sports, we pretty much think of “who won”, “what was the score”, or simply stated “what was the outcome.” But this match was not as much about boxing, as it was of German supremacy vs. America’s prejudice of blacks.

In Germany, Hitler did not want the fight to take place. If Schmeling lost to a black man, it was a major setback for his racial theories.

In America it would have been a devastating loss for not only Louis, but blacks in general. In a society where they were thought of as less than human, blacks felt as if this was a fight that might raise them in social acceptance and equality. If he lost, their race would be back to slavery and prejudice.

Joe Louis was 22 years old at the time of the first Schmeling fight in 1936. He was undefeated in 27 fights, and he had never even been knocked down. Most boxing fans thought he had the heavy weight title in the bag and it was only a matter of time.

Schmeling was an ex-champion from the 1930’s, and most people thought he was washed up. However, Schmeling did his homework and detected a flaw in Louis’ style which helped him defeat the mighty Joe Louis.

Hitler and Germany rejoiced. Schmeling was welcomed home with great celebration and Hitler even had a film of Schmeling’s victory made and had it shown across Germany. As for America’s black society, they would have to wait for a rematch.

From then on Schmeling was as a Nazi. His manager may have been Jewish, and Schmeling may not have worn the swastika on his arm, but he was branded. He was used by Hitler to support him and his ideas of a perfect country.

The rematch would come about in 1938. Joe Louis was determined to become the heavyweight champion, and ultimately did. But he felt he could not be the true champion until he defeated Schmeling.

In America, newspaper cartoons depicted Louis as somewhat of an animal. They used derogatory names for him, and exaggerated his features by drawing him with huge lips and using a broken dialect. They could never get past the fact that he was black.

Even though President Roosevelt personally gave Louis encouragement, America had a difficult time with a black man representing their great empire. Here was a man who could not drink from the same water fountain, eat in the same restaurants, sleep in the same hotels, and was made to ride in the back of a bus, representing America in what some called the greatest sports event of the 20th century.

When it came time for the second fight, Louis was prepared. This time Louis studied up on Schmeling and found his weaknesses. One weakness in particular that Louis noticed was Schmeling’s straight right. He had to prepare himself before he threw it. Louis used this discovery to his advantage and destroyed Schmeling. After a right roundhouse from Louis the event came to an end. Louis had broken two of Schmelding’s vertebrae and had him on the ropes. By that time Schmeling had had enough and his coach jumped in the ring to admit defeat.

Joe Lewis was as an undefeated boxer for a long time and was also a heavyweight champion. Even though Joe Lewis is considered to be one of the greatest boxers of all time, the one fight he could not win was that of prejudice in the U.S.

(582)

http://www.saddoboxing.com/boxing-article/Joe-Louis-v-Max-Schmeling.html
http://www.johnrosengren.net/fists.htm
http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/mainHTML.cfm?page=margolick.html