Cuba (merged thread)

[TristanAbbey]

Hey Folks, we did some Q&A with Army War College research professor COL Alex Crowther, who argues in the latest SSI op-ed that we should nix the embargo on Cuba. May be of interest to some:

http://bellum.stanfordreview.org/?p=250

Tristan

[Ken White]

All we've done since then is keep the 'Revolution' humming...

[Bill Moore]

Wholeheartedly agree, all we accomplished with our embargo was keeping Castro in power (until his health failed) and facilitated increased Soviet influence in the region, not to mention fueling the fire of radical left rhetoric throughout Latin America that continues to plague the region to this day.

The best way to subvert communism is to engage their populace economically and socially. Communism cannot survive in an open society where it is exposed to the truth. If we engaged Cuba economically, the people would have been exposed to another America, one that benefited their country and livlihoods; on the other hand, it is easy for the Cuban people to hate America and develop a sense of nationalistic pride when our nation takes offensive action (embargo) against the people.

Unfortunately our policy towards Cuba was hijacked by a few thousand reactionary Cubans in Florida who found they had influence over our ultra right politicians at the time. These are the folks who conveniently seemed to have forgoten that Bastista was ousted from power for a reason, and that a populist insurgency is more democratic than an election where there is only one candidate (Bastita). We didn't put Castro in power, but we sure as heck kept him there.

While on one can tell, I suspect that if we stayed engaged with Cuba, Castro would have seen us as a grave threat and would have barred us from working in Cuba, and the results of ths bar would devastate the economy, thus making Castro the bad guy, not us, then we could support the uprising that follows. All speculation of course, but the revolution I imagined would have been a dream come true for Special Forces. Instead we get dealt the manufactured revolution and the resulting failure with the tragic Bay of Pigs episode.

[John T. Fishel]

our Cuba policy as rational is to accept the truth of Tip O'Neill's comment that, "All politics is local." Our policy was driven by the perception that the Miami Cuban-American community was implacably opposed to an opening to Cuba.

Over a decade ago, while teaching at Leavenworth, I had a Cuban-American student in my Latin American elective. Bright young officer, he was in no way blinded by the then prevailing view of the Cuban-American National Foundation. In this way, he foreshadowed the changes we see in Cuban-American attitudes today.

Final note: Well said, Alex! Hooah!

Cheers

JohnT

[TristanAbbey]

Part two is up!

http://bellum.stanfordreview.org/?p=305