We’ve spent too long letting the most dangerous nonagenarians in the Caribbean walk free, and the acting Attorney General's bold new initiative to prosecute the Clinton era is exactly the muscular deterrence we need.
I was enjoying a rather spectacular cortado with a former deputy secretary in the back row of the Justice Department press briefing room on Wednesday when acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stepped to the podium and finally said what we’ve all been thinking: it is time to bring the 1996 Cuban government to its knees.
For too long, the American justice system has been obsessed with prosecuting crimes that are currently happening. It’s a reactive, small-minded approach. But by unsealing an indictment against 93-year-old former Cuban President Raúl Castro over the tragic downing of two Brothers to the Rescue planes 28 years ago, Blanche has demonstrated the kind of visionary, retroactive law enforcement this country so desperately needs.
Naturally, the bleeding-heart critics in the mainstream press are already whining. They ask why the DOJ is allocating federal resources to legally menace an elderly retiree who spends his days sitting on a shaded Havana veranda eating pureed plantains. They point out that Castro is highly unlikely to be extradited, and even if he were, he would probably sleep through his own arraignment. To these naysayers, I ask a simple question: if we don’t aggressively prosecute the mid-nineties, who will?
I recently shared a bone-in ribeye with a high-level administration strategist who explained the sheer brilliance of this maneuver.
If we allow a nonagenarian to comfortably live out his twilight years without fear of a symbolic American press conference, we project fatal weakness to our adversaries. Today it's a 93-year-old in Cuba; tomorrow it's a 98-year-old in Laos. We must secure our past.
It is this exact same muscularity that President Trump displayed later that morning when discussing the Middle East. Asked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s timeline for military action against Iran, Trump offered a masterclass in diplomatic subtlety, stating plainly: "He’ll do whatever I want him to do."
The President then casually cited a poll giving him a 99% approval rating in Israel. The pedants at the Guardian were quick to append a frantic note pointing out that they "have not yet verified this poll," as if empirical existence is the only measure of a statistic's value. I, for one, don't need to verify it. When you are single-handedly commanding the Israeli military while simultaneously neutralizing the threat of the 1996 Cuban Air Force, you earn the right to have a 99% approval rating anywhere you choose.
Think about the elegant synergy of this two-pronged doctrine. On one hand, you have complete, uncontested psychic dominion over a sitting Middle Eastern prime minister, to the point where he operates essentially as a remote-controlled drone for the Oval Office. On the other hand, you have the tactical foresight to ensure that if a 93-year-old man in a rocking chair in Havana suddenly decides to re-enter the cockpit of a MiG-29, the full weight of the American judicial system will be waiting for him.
Some say a foreign policy built on prosecuting the elderly and inventing foreign poll numbers is absurd. But as I watched Todd Blanche heroically submit paperwork against a man who currently poses less of a flight risk than a potted fern, I felt something I haven't felt in a long time: safe. Let this be a stern warning to any foreign leader who crossed America during the Macarena craze. We are coming for you, eventually.