Unrepentant Spy For An Unrepentant Regime: Traitor Ana Montes A Stark Reminder Of Cuba’s threat

 Jose R. Cardenas offers his take on Ana Montes in a piece in the Washington Times (where my On Crime column regularly appears). 

The release this month of former U.S. intelligence analyst and Cuba spy Ana Belen Montes from federal prison after serving an absurdly lenient 20-year sentence is a stark reminder of the ongoing threat the island’s regime poses to U.S. interests, not only regionally but globally.

Ms. Montes — a “true believer” — was unrepentant upon her release for her treachery on behalf of the Castro regime, just as the regime remains unrepentant about its six-decade record of human rights abuses and asymmetrical warfare against the U.S.

In a statement after her release, she said, in part: “I encourage those who wish to focus on me to focus instead on important issues, such as the serious problems facing the Puerto Rican people or the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba. “Who in the last 60 years has asked the Cuban people if they want the United States to impose a suffocating embargo that makes them suffer?” 

This from an individual who, in her espionage career, betrayed some 450 U.S. operatives, sabotaged a top-secret satellite program, undermined U.S. policy in Central America, distorted the U.S. government’s views on Cuba, and leaked U.S. military information that led to the 1987 death of Sgt. Gregory Fronius, a U.S. Green Beret killed in El Salvador. 

Now that Ms. Montes gets to spend the remainder of her life in freedom on the beaches of Puerto Rico, it is important to draw the right lessons from this whole sordid episode. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 Ana Belen Montes: Unrepentant spy for an unrepentant regime - Washington Times

You can also read below my Philadelphia Inquirer review of Scott W. Carmichael's True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba's Master Spy.

Cuban Spy Ana Montes Released From Prison

As reported by nearly every news outlet, Ana Montes, a former American intelligence official convicted and sent to prison for spying for Communist Cuba, was released from prison.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a Cuban American, offered his take on Montes.

You can read his comments below: 

Ana Belén Montes has been released from federal prison. The most notorious spy for Cuba’s communist regime in American history is now free. Sadly, the people she used as an excuse to betray her own nation remain anything but….
 
Montes was a U.S. citizen working in the Department of Justice when agents of the Castro brothers recruited her to be a spy. She rose through the ranks in the federal government and eventually became the leading Cuba analyst in the Defense Intelligence Agency….
 
Montes was no harmless informant. Her leaks broke the cover of 450 American agents working in Latin America. In 1996, her information also enabled the Castros to shoot down two U.S. planes carrying the heroes of Brothers to the Rescue. Montes also sabotaged a top-secret satellite program. New reporting also reveals that Montes was willing to undermine the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, even if it meant the death of her fellow Americans.
 
Her treason against the U.S. accomplished nothing for the Cuban people. On the contrary, by helping the criminal Castro regime, Montes strengthened the Cuban people’s worst enemy. 
 
That was always the case with the regime, but the last year-and-a-half have made it painfully obvious. In response to the anti-government protests that erupted across the island on July 11, 2021, Díaz-Canel has unjustly detained hundreds of ordinary men, women, and children. He now holds more than 1,000 political prisoners––and that number will only grow in the coming months.
 
Together with the regime’s incompetence and socialist policies, this tyranny has prompted a total economic collapse and a mass exodus from the island’s shores. The Obama-era holdovers in the Biden Administration, who are often regime sympathizers and apologists, should remember these facts the next time they attempt to defend Marxist governments in Latin America.
 
They should also remember that the regime is still actively working to undermine the U.S. and our interests worldwide. Americans should remember Ana Belén Montes, even though she has served her time in prison. If we forget her story, it will surely repeat itself.

Montes will be the subject of two upcoming books. I reviewed Scott Carmichael’s book on her, True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba’s Master Spy, for the Philadelphia Inquirer back in 2013. 

You can read the review below: