Cuba kills four people in bizarre speedboat incident.

 

Havana Bay, Cuba. Politico/AP.

Cuban border forces have killed four people and captured six more in a bizarre speedboat incident. Politico. People on the speedboat fired at Cuban troops and lost a gunfight with the Cubans. A commander of one of the Cuban vessels involved in the incident was wounded as well. The United States has opened an investigation into the incident and said that the incident had no US involvement. Relations between the United States and Cuba are frosty with Cuba having been cut off from Venezuelan oil. The suspects in this incident are members of the Cuban exile community in Florida and have been accused by Cuba of being terrorists. 

My Comment:

This appears to be the Cuban exile community acting on their own. It was an extremely amateurish attempt to commit some kind of terrorist attack against the Cuban government. 10 guys with a boat and some rifles and Molotov Cocktails is not going to accomplish much more than that. 

I tend to believe the idea that the US government wasn't involved with this, mostly because of how incompetent it was. A US attempt wouldn't be 10 guys on a raid, it would be something a lot larger like the old Bay of Pigs invasion or, more likely, another Venezuela style raid. The United States would not be sending such a small force with such vague goals. 

Plus, this incident was clearly counterproductive. The Trump administration was working on a diplomatic solution towards the Cuban government. They had been cut off from Venezuelan oil and that had a massive economic impact. 

But that is going to be undone because of this incident? The Cuban government is spinning this as an American attack on Cuba. It doesn't matter that the scenario is pretty unlikely, people are going to feel like America is actually getting ready to attack Cuba. And it will give Cuba an excuse to crack down on Cuban resistance. 

I don't have a whole lot of respect for these men and what they tried to do. Attacking Cuba alone with 10 men alone is an act of madness. And like I said, it's very likely that the whole thing was counterproductive and would have been so even if they did accomplish anything. But they didn't even do that! They got intercepted before they even got to Cuba and four of them died and the rest got captured. 

So what was the goal here? I am guessing a small scale arson attack on some kind of Cuban government building. It was even possible they were trying to start some kind of larger campaign of terrorism. If so, that was a pretty stupid plan. I don't have a whole lot of respect for the Cuban military but they could and did easily handle this kind of raid.