What lies across the water

the long version

This book recounts the events leading up to the 1998 arrest of the Cuban Five, five Cuban intelligence agents convicted of conspiring to commit espionage against the United States. The five agents -- Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González -- had been sent to Florida to infiltrate and report on the activities of Miami-based, anti-Cuban terrorist groups, which were carrying out deadly terrorist attacks against Cuba. Cuba even passed on information their agents learned about those illegal attacks to the FBI. Instead of arresting the terrorists, the FBI arrested the the five men. While the men remain in jail today -- one serving a double-life-plus-fifteen-year sentence -- the terrorists they tried to stop remain free. The story of the Cuban Five illustrates the injustice and hypocrisy of the U.S. government's supposed post-9/11 zero tolerance policy toward countries harbouring terrorists. Why were men who tried to prevent terrorist attacks against Cuba charged with espionage against the U.S? And why does the U.S. continue to protect and harbour known terrorists?