The heartless kidnapping of six year-old Elian Gonzales is the worst attack on Cuba since the 1962 Bay of Pigs military invasion. At least that's the thinking in Cuba, according to a source close to the highest levels of the revolutionary government.

But it doesn't take a well-placed source to see that it's true. After all, the mass mobilizations in Cuba --huge and nearly-daily outpourings of humanity for some two months-- are the greatest since the early days of the Revolution itself.

Or to see that the Cubans --once again-- are right.. Elian's near-tortuous detention is precisely a profound attack on Cuba. It's a Mob-style leg-breaking demonstration that nothing will constrain Washington's efforts to destroy the revolutionary island -- not international law, not domestic law, not treaties, not common human decency, not public opinion ... not the life of a child.

Elian's kidnapping is Washington's raised-ante re-declaration of war against Cuba. After all, if law, decency and public opinion are meaningless (the message goes), what's left to stop the U.S. from sinking every ship bound for Cuba? Or from just dropping nukes?

It's Washington's response to the growing international--and domestic--isolation of its forty-year effort to blockade Cuba and overthrow the Cuban people's revolution and all that it represents.

Washington's bellicose, inhuman treatment of Elian also gives a calcula ted charge to its aging and increasingly-marginalized counter-revolutionary puppets in Miami. Washington is using their zealous protests --and their violent intimidation of most U.S. Cuban immigrants-- to tar Cuba as so vile that even small children can't live there ... even if they must be torn from their family.

Washington is also using its Miami contras to take the heat for its own demonstrative public abuse of Elian. Already it's trying to lay blame on THEM for no returning the child. And when the price for that kidnapping gets high enough -- and its point well-made enough-- the U.S. will drop its detention and leave its Miami allies holding the bag entirely (a la the Bay of Pigs.)

Meanwhile, Washington is using both its counter-revolutionaries and its own kept media (especially television) to broadcast a 'save-the-child' hue-and-cry that gives everyone the impression that --wherever they think Elian belongs-- there must be something terrible about Cuba. Nobody can miss (or is allowed to dispute) the propaganda: 'the damned place is a Communist dictatorship.'

No wonder Washington seized Elian. He's useful for serving notice on Cuba that no weapon is off-limits if the Revolution doesn't capitulate. He's useful for serving notice on the rest of the world --and domestic opponents of current policy-- that Washington would brook no disagreements with its forty-year hard-line course. He's useful for smearing Cuba as a totalitarian nightmare. And it's all for free ... politically, its Miami stooges pay for everything.

But seizing Elian has another up-side, too -- it's enormously offensiv= e to a people which has made respect for both children and law its top priorities, priorities stuck to despite decades of punishment for embracing humanity instead of capitalism.

Especially for Cubans, Elian's endless detention is like a gang-rape of a child in front of her parents house.

It's a provocation.

Its purpose is draw Cuba into actions that will destroy the burgeoning support in the U.S. --from the governor of Illinois to the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce-- for normalizing U.S. / Cuba relations.

But the Cubans' leadership is not about to be tricked like that. Instead they're fighting back by unleashing the organized force of the Cuban people to defend Elian --and themselves-- from the U.S. attack. And it's doing so without political pre-conditions (no "Viva la Revolucion" posters required), organizing people on the simplest and broadest basis of demanding Elian's return to his family. Everyone outside Cuba should organize on the same basis ... and emulate that out-pouring of protesting humanity as well.

At the same time, Cuba --which is literally under the gun-- is diplomatically giving the most generous interpretation to Washington's very best statements. Cuba's trying to drive wedges into any cracks it can find in the hostile Yankee monolith -- welcoming the INS ruling for Elian's return while excoriating the contra extremists in Miami, inviting dialogue with certain Democrats while blasting certain Republicans, and engaging one branch of government while scorning another..

It's a political strategy -- offering open arms to one facet of Washington and a closed fist to another-- designed to force each component to either break with the other ... or reveal themselves as a single, vile entity.

But this is one maneuver that people outside Cuba should NOT emulate. Since we don't face a crushing blockade or super-power military forces, we can--and must--reject targeting all of Washington's decoys. It's not Miami counter-revolutionaries, Congressional Republicans, presidential candidates, south Florida courts, electoral votes, well-connected lobbyists, fat campaign contributions, or anything else that's to blame for Elian's kidnapping. It's the government of the United States ... period. After all, the notion that the world's only super-power can deploy 500,000 troops to the Middle East in a few months, can flatten Yugoslavia without losing a soldier, and can send 439 Haitian refugees back to a gruesome future in less than 24 hours ... but CAN'T obey U.S. and international law and return a six year-old to his family beyond absurd.

No, the most powerful government in world history is not cowering before a band of aging, no-hope counter-revolutionaries in Miami. That's why it's critical that all protests demanding Elian's return --and the normalization of relations with Cuba-- aim squarely at Washington D.C. We have to make the U.S. government pay the price for what --and it alone-- is doing. Otherwise neither Elian nor Cuba will ever enjoy peace.

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