The U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment against former Cuban President Raúl Castro, over him allegedly ordering the 1996 shoot-down of the Brothers to the Rescue planes that left four men dead. This is a good thing, right? Justice will finally be served. Before you agree, you may want to dig beyond what the mainstream media is pushing out, and also contemplate why the U.S. chose to do this 30 years after the fact. The media paints a picture of Cuba needlessly shooting down two planes belonging to a Miami-based non-profit organization. A group that was known for its humanitarian search-and-rescue flights across the Florida Straits, where they attempted to find and assist Cubans trying to sail to the U.S. End of story… full stop. There’s actually more to this story, though, and the Cuban Embassy shed some light on this: “Cuba acted in legitimate self-defense within its jurisdictional waters, following repeated and dangerous violations of our airspace by notorious terrorists,” and “the U.S. government distorts other historical truths about the event it uses as a pretext.” What are these historical truths? The Brothers to the Rescue leader, José Basulto, had a long history of anti-Cuban militant crimes and was a former CIA-trained Cuban political dissident. The group repeatedly violated Cuban airspace, as well as dropped anti-government leaflets over Havana. The bottom line is that they were flying U.S. planes into restricted airspace and were viewed as a threat. It’s clear that Cuba didn’t shoot them down on the fly. Between 1994 and 1996, the group reportedly committed 25 deliberate violations of Cuban airspace. Before the incident, Cuba repeatedly attempted to resolve the matter through diplomatic channels, notifying U.S. officials who held the responsibility to stop the flights, including the U.S. State Department, the FAA, and the ICAO. Just four weeks before the planes were shot down, an FAA worker warned her superiors that another unauthorized overflight occurred, and that it was “seen as further taunting of the Cuban Government.” She also noted that the State Department was “asking from the FAA what is this agency doing to prevent/deter these actions.” Also stating, “Worst case scenario is that one of these days the Cubans will shoot-down one of these planes and the FAA better have all its ducks in a row.” Cuba continually reported what it felt were threatening violations, and Washington did nothing. So who was really in the wrong here then? And now, decades later, Raúl Castro, at 94 years old, is being indicted for this incident. So, why now? Many believe the timing is tied to the United States’ current playbook for manufacturing a “regime change” in Cuba. And it looks like they might be making their next move, laying the groundwork for a similar operation to the January 3 abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The post What Really Happened in 1996 appeared first on Redacted.