> In a message dated 07/09/2002 9:06:49 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
> JCWisc at aol.com writes:
>
>
> > > what exactly has restrained the US government all this
> > > time and to this day from literally invading Cuba?
> >
> > > It occurs to me that it would be bloody to go in
> > > and actually take the island, and the probable US casualties could be
> > > unacceptable to the public here; would that be sufficient to hold the
> > govt.
> > > at bay?
> >
> > Yup. My guess is, you have most of your answer right there.
>
> The Cuban people are badass.
>
> stannard
The following is from Jon Lee Anderson, _Che: A Revolutionary Life_ (NY: Grove, 1997), pp. 506-9
Jacob
---------------
Just after midnight on April 17, the fifteen-hundred-man strong Cuban exile Liberation Army came ashore at Playa Giron on the Bay of Pigs. Days earlier, the units based in Guatemala had been transferred to Nicaragua's Caribbean port of Puerto Cabezas, where they had been seen off by Nicaragua's dictator, Luis Somoza, telling them to bring him back "a hair from Castro's beard." They had made the crossing to Cuba aboard ships lent them, as Che had forecast, probably jokingly, by the United Fruit Company, with U.S. naval destroyers as escorts....
Within hours of their landing, trumpeted loudly over the CIA's Radio Swan transmitter, Fidel had mobilized his forces for an attack on the invaders. Rather than push inland, the invaders dug into positions on the beach and awaited reinforcements. None came. By midmorning, the fighting had begun. But by dawn the next day, Dulles informed Kennedy that the exiles were bogged down; unless the United States intervened, they would be wiped out. Kennedy refused to give the order, authorizing only minimal air support...
Four months later, in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Che delivered a message of gratitude to President Kennedy through Richard Goodwin, his young White House aide: "Thank you for Playa Giron," he told Goodwin. "Before the invasion, the revolution was shaky. Now, it is stronger than ever."