OPINION:
As enemies go, Cuba is a tiny one that has just about zero influence on any global issue but has, under successive U.S. presidents, served as a haven for terrorists, including airline hijackers and their ilk.
Cuba comes to mind only because it announced the death of Assata Shakur last week at age 78.
Shakur is better known as Joanne Chesimard; Assata Shakur is only one of her numerous aliases. Chesimard was a member of the Black Liberation Army, a vastly more violent offshoot of the Black Panther Party, which also held to Marxist-Leninist ideology. Already wanted by police for several crimes, including bank robbery, she murdered a New Jersey state trooper in 1973.
On May 2, 1973, Chesimard and her two accomplices were stopped by New Jersey Troopers James Harper and Werner Foerster for a motor vehicle violation. Chesimard fired the first shot, wounding Trooper Harper. As he moved for cover, she continued firing. Trooper Foerster was severely injured in his right arm and abdomen and then executed with his own service weapon on the roadside.
What that means is that Foerster was lying on the ground, incapable of resistance, when he was murdered in cold blood. Harper survived his wounds.
The FBI declared her one of its “Most Wanted Terrorists” in 2013, stating on the wanted poster that, “In 1977, Chesimard was found guilty of first degree murder, assault and battery of a police officer, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault with intent to kill, illegal possession of a weapon, and armed robbery. She was sentenced to life in prison. On Nov. 2, 1979, Ms. Chesimard escaped from prison and lived underground before being located in Cuba in 1984. She is thought to currently still be living in Cuba.” She had lived in Cuba for more than two decades, immune from American justice.
After her death, Chesimard was lavishly praised by the Chicago Teachers Union. We have become inured to the left’s acceptance and praise of political violence, but this, like the left’s praise for the Charlie Kirk assassination, should be a warning to everyone.
In a post on X last Friday, the CTU praised Assata Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard. The post said, “Rest in Power, Rest in Peace, Assata Shakur.” The CTU’s post went on to read, “Today we honor the life and legacy of a revolutionary fighter, a fierce writer, a revered elder of Black liberation, and a leader of freedom whose spirit continues to live in our struggle. Assata refused to be silenced. She taught us that ‘It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.’”
It’s difficult to even place that rhetoric in context. Whoever wrote it was apparently carried away with his or her own ideological nonsense. The CTU has yet to disavow or explain it, although it is not explainable.
To “remember” Chesimard is to endorse her crimes. It has nothing to do with a remembrance. It is another example of how radical the left has become. There has been no condemnation of the CTU from any lefty politicians. They’re too busy trying to blame President Trump for the government shutdown, which is entirely their fault. (They’re demanding, among other things, a continuation of the Obamacare subsidies and Medicaid for illegal aliens, which amount to about $1.2 trillion. Republicans managed to end those subsidies and payments in the recent budget reconciliation act.)
So what do the CTU’s members think about the “remembrance” of Chesimard? So far, they have been silent, and silence is an endorsement.
Conservatives must condemn this sort of rhetoric regardless of whether it comes from a union boss, a leftie politician or Hollywood. We cannot remain silent about it because it is a commonplace these days, and it cannot remain so. We must answer their radicalism because, as Chairman Mao Zedong said, a lie repeated a hundred times becomes the truth.
We can do so by writing and speaking out against it. It’s our duty to do so. So let it be spoken and let it be written and let the left’s violent rhetoric be buried by it.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and a contributing editor for The American Spectator.
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