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Fidel Castro Resigns
Smordnys s'regrepsA writes "Fidel Castro, the leader of the island nation of Cuba has declined the possibility of keeping his seat as President, after the February 24th National Assembly election. "I neither will aspire to nor will I accept — I repeat — I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief," Castro wrote almost 19 months after a severe illness caused him to hand power temporarily to his brother Raul."
Now maybe I can get good cigars legally.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion finally draws to a successful conclusion, a mere 47 years behind schedule.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
"I neither will aspire to nor will I accept -- I repeat -- I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief"
Funny... he said something very similar when he and his revolutionaries kicked out Batista in the first place.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
It means the return if the Cuban Bride business. We no longer have to suffer with the long shipping delays of the Russian bride business and now can get women to marry us sight un-seen in a few hours instead of a few months.
Nerds everywhere are that much closer to being possibly able to touch a boobie.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The U.S. should make aggressive postures towards Cuba so that they are too scared to open their society and will look to a strong man for defense. Great idea, huh?
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
...we can finally end this sad old Cold War charade and finally end the damn embargo?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Fidel Castro is already dead. He's just resigning because his political duties get in the way of his lust for brains. BRAAAAAAAINS!!
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Before corporate America invades, and it's Wendys, Burger King, McDonalds and Starbucks on every street in Habana.
For those of you that have never been to Cuba, it really is a unique place.
Not for much longer, I fear.
is that the symbol for this story is a crown. or would that be goldy?
Good idea. While we're at it, let's pretend China doesn't exist, either. There shall be no discussion of any computer made there.
If you go now you will still be mostly confined to the "staged" Cuba, the Cuba presented to foreigners where the government needs to keep up appearances. If you want to see the real Cuba your going to either have to take risks or wait till the government collapses.
Castro and his ilk did far more damage to Cuba than any corporate entity could manage, let alone get away with. His country started falling apart once it was no longer propped up by the Soviets. He is a study in the strength of personality and use of tactics similar to East Germany to maintain power
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It looks as though Father Time will finally accomplish what exploding cigars, poison pills, and even a skin disease-causing fungus could not.
From the article: "Castro...turned tiny Cuba into a thorn in the paw of the mighty capitalist United States."
Bay of Pigs was really the fault of Kennedy. So other than the Cuban Missile Crisis, I don't recall Cuba doing anything significantly irritating. I don't think one incident qualifies Cuba for "thorn in paw" status. Perhaps someone more historically enlightened could explain this to me?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
Did you mean to use the plural there?
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
You can't be elected by Florida without the Cuban-American vote. You won't get that vote by dropping the embargo on the nation those people fled.
As someone who has actually lived in Cuba for more than a year, I thought I should inform some of you that, while it is of some historical importance, this news changes very little politically. His brother Raul is as much of a communist as Fidel. It is highly unlikely that any Cuban policies will change due to this development. I think what we are all waiting for is for both Fidel and Raul to actually die. When that happens there is at least some possibility of real change. And since Bush didn't change his position wrt cuba when Fidel 'temporarily' stepped down due to illness I doubt if he will do so now that the change has been made permanent.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Political prisoners: Guantanamo is inexcusable, but I'd hardly call those guys political prisoners, especially not the kind that Castro locks up. Press: And you can choose sources outside of Murdoch. Imagine that! Criticism of the State: Are you serious? Yeah, look at all those presidential candidates getting lynched! Look at most of the country getting lynched! You're an imbecile. The government will not doing anything other than call you names if you criticize Iraq. That's all within the realm of free speech. Quit your utterly baseless whining. Other political parties: Yeah, two parties sucks, but guess what? There is no legal restriction to two parties. Anyone can run. If the people choose to vote for two parties, then that's what they do. It's still a republic (we're not a democracy), so quit bitching. Free elections: Your previous post did nothing to address that. Idiot. I don't know why I bothered responding to an AC, but this kind of ignorant crap just pisses me off. Things aren't so hot in the US right now, but it's far, FAR better than Cuba.
Does this mean the expat's in Miami will finally shut up and I can visit Havana soon (legally).
The Miami crowd has too much to lose to allow that to happen. And they have enough political influence to prevent someone from dismissing them any time soon, despite a willingness by the American public to adopt a new perspective, keen interest by big business, and numerous attempts over the years by legislators and other interested parties who consider the current policy a long and drawn out failure to change the situation.
Besides, who in Cuba do you think is, or is going to be, running things?
On a side note, the term "expats" (no "s" needed, thankyou) I would reserve for someone like the English hanging out in the bars of Santa Monica, CA, watching football and drinking Guiness. The Miami crowd, on the other hand, will carry their memories, resentments and feelings forward for generations to come. Think of the Kurds in Iraq, the Palestinians in Israel, and both the Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo, among countless other examples, and you'll get the idea.
Tourists, cigar afficionados and late 50's model car enthusiasts will have to wait.
OK, let's discuss the computers made in Cuba. You go first.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Nerds are interested in many a subject. I am an education/tech nerd. I'm pretty damn sure there's quite a few politics and history nerds in here, too.
Beyond that, why complain when genuine news hits the front page? Did you complain when Slashdot was holding up the internets when the towers fell?
It's important to note that, if it weren't for the embargo to blame all of Cuba's economic troubles on, Fidel Castro likely wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as he did.
The political lobbying by the Cubans in Florida had the exact opposite affect from the one the wanted.
Link please.
No really, please.
Ohh god...I want to know a woman before I die....
*whipmer*
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
For all his faults, in some ways Castro valued human life more than you'd expect from all the propaganda in the U.S. about "communism." He kept his people from starving in the 1990's after the collapse of the Soviet Union cut off a lot of Cuba's oil supply (unlike North Korea's Kim, who clearly doesn't give a crap about the starving people under his heel); at least Cubans don't have to eat dirt, literally, like their neighbors on Haiti. He's kept up a basic healthcare system and invested his country's meager resources into finding treatments for tropical poor people's diseases ignored by Western pharmaceutical companies. He had moved his country's population out of harm's way when the inevitable hurricanes rake across the island. And he even offered to send medical help to the U.S. for Hurricane Katrina's victims. So in some nontrivial respects he wasn't a totally bad guy.
Although I agree with your point that US relations with Cuba isn't exactly news for nerds, news about Brad and Angelina isn't news for ANYBODY. They're just actors. Nothing thay doe will affect the world, let alone MY world. Castro resigning does, in fact, affect me.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Ironically, the end of the embargo will probably make it harder for Americans to get genuine Habanos, at least for a while. As of now, it isn't difficult to have Cubans cigars delivered to the USA from an authorized Habanos SA retailer. However, the demand for Cuban cigars already exceeds the supply (unless you're interested in the infamous Glass Top Cohibas), so the influx of Americans interested in trying these forbidden cigars will result in shortages around the world. The newly-legal cigars will also be met by large numbers of fakes, making it even more difficult to get the real thing.
I do not defend Castro's dictatorship, but for many he seems to have been a 'benevolent' dictator. This is something of an oxymoron, so what I mean is this: For many working class Cubans, Castro's government has established a strong safety net and an egalitarian society. There is no question that Castro was also ruthless in dealing with political adversaries and I would not have liked to live in such a closed society. But like any other government, his was neither purely good nor purely evil. What did he do well and what did he do poorly? He did work hard to address the needs of 'his' people. A controlled economy with a strong safety net does result in an economy with a lower average income, but how strongly does is affect the median income? Is it better to be an average Cuban or an average Mexican? Both seem to be willing to take great risks to get out. GDP per capita, the standard measure of a nation's economy, doesn't address income distribution: The average income of Bill Gates and 9 Slashdotters is simply 10% of Bill Gates income + round off error. I would like to see economic analysis of developing nations that is measured by percent of population living below a locally adjusted poverty line. Does anyone know of such a study?
Think global, act loco
The US should stay the hell away from the internal affairs of other sovereign countries.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Er, no.
The Cubans who migrated to Florida are absolutely nothing like the Kurds, Palestinians or Albanians. The latter were all either invaded, occupied or attacked by an external force and currently live under occupation. The Cubans who fled after the revolution were by and large supporters of the corrupt Batista Government, wealthy and couldn't handle the idea of a socialist Cuba so they ran away to the United States where they could indulge in capitalism to their hearts content.
They, unlike the Kurds or Palestinians, don't face constant military harassment, shellings, occupations, interventions, assassinations or kidnappings. They relax in their condo's and bitch about how bad Cuba has gone while sipping on mojito's.
I bet candid beach photos of Angelina get a LOT more downloads than candid beach photos of Castro...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
for a country, with a large poor population, going radically socialist, at the detriment to some freedoms, in order to force a large part of the population out of poverty. for example venezuela's hugo chavez is using petrodollar-funded socialism to aid venezuela's poor (those petrodollars, ironically, considering chavez's hot air about evil america, are coming from american soccer moms refilling their suvs)
however, also consider the recent vote a few months back in venezuela. chavez, to his credit, asked the venezuelan people if they would let him alter the constitution to dramatically extend his powers. rather than just take those powers by force, like we hear about time and time again in the world. the venezuelan people rejected his power grab, even in the poor parts of venezuela that enthusiastically support chavez otherwise. and chavez, again to his credit, accepted their decision
however, in cuba, you have those authoritarian despotic powers that castro weild. does he have that right? no, he certainly does not. and i think if you asked the average cuban, who benefitted the most from the enforced socialist policies that castro enacted, why they couldn't also have more democratic freedoms, i think that cuban would probably have the same opinion of castro as those poor venezuelans do about chavez: yes to castro's policy, no to castro's absolute power
so socialism for the poor: yes. despotic autocracy: no. in such a way, you can criticize castro without rejecting the policies that benefitted the cuban poor
and btw, frankly, as an american, hugo chavez can talk about constant phantom cia threats on his life, how the evil imperialistic america is about to invade caracas at any moment, etc., blah blah blah. zzz. be as big a fearmongering demagogue gas bag as he wants, i don't care. as long as he uses petrodollars to aid venezuelan poor, and he doesn't abuse his powers and destroy venezuelan democracy, chavez has my support 100%
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Allow for tourism and trade, let the economic ramifications encourage a change of policy.
(ie: people enjoying $$$ influx, will demand that it continues)
Of course... You've grown up enjoying the freedoms that cubans under castro don't have, so it's hard for you to recognize them.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I don't think the U.S. could do it if they tried. The old money in the U.S. has too much political clout and personal interest in carving up Cuba for themselves. Cubans would be worse off than the Florida ghettos if the U.S. touched them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution
Cuba needs communism. They should probably follow China's lead and open up the borders culturally and keep a tight stranglehold on passports, but the land is the property of the people, managed by the government.
Poor Cuba. I hope they get a good leader. Else they're screwed.
I second that. USA is not the worlds policeman.
as to your sig:
"Hold on Dad, I'll go." - Jesus
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
MOD THE CHILD UP!
No evidence of limb chopping to a casual search.
... it is legitimate to raise questions about possible crimes against humanity in Cuba."[141]
.[142]
Lots of executions but mainly during the first 15 years of his rule. Since then it seems to mostly be arbitrary prison terms and allowing the prisoners to be abused (physically and sexually). However, this also happens in American Prisons and America incarcerates its own citizens at a higher rate- we just make everything illegal so we do not have to use bogus crimes like "insulting the president" to put someone away for seven years. OTH, you better not say anything mildly threatening or your fate will be similar. Of course, America has become a lot more of a fascist dictatorship than it was in 1960. And, of course, any good discussion needs to point out that Cuba was a dictatorship and 3/4 of it's property was not owned by its own citizens (conditions ripe for revolution by *someone* and a lot of revolutions were occuring- castro was just the successful one).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro#Human_rights_record
Human rights record
Main article: Human rights in Cuba
Thousands of political opponents to the Castro regime have been killed, primarily during the first decade of his leadership.[135][136] Some Cubans labeled "counterrevolutionaries", "fascists", or "CIA operatives" were also imprisoned in poor conditions without trial.[137][138] Military Units to Aid Production, or UMAPs, were labor camps established in 1965 to confine "social deviants" including homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses to work "counter-revolutionary" influences out of certain segments of the population.[139] The camps were closed in 1967 in response to international outcries.[140] Professor Marifeli Pérez Stable, a Cuban immigrant and former Castro supporter has said that "There were thousands of executions, forty, fifty thousand political prisoners. The treatment of political prisoners, with what we today know about human rights and the international norms governing human rights
Castro acknowledges that Cuba holds political prisoners, but argues that Cuba is justified because these prisoners are not jailed because of their political beliefs, but have been convicted of "counter-revolutionary" crimes, including bombings. Castro portrays opposition to the Cuban government as illegitimate, and the result of an ongoing conspiracy fostered by Cuban exiles with ties to the United States or the CIA.
http://www.hrw.org/wr2k2/americas5.html
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Do not be Gorbachev, be Den Xiao Ping.
Do not start with political freedoms, start with economic ones...
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
No, I don't think the left argues that Cuba is some kind of paragon of liberty. They argue that the policy towards Cuba should be something like that towards China, one of engagement that will encourage them to move towards free market reforms, which will lead to individual freedoms.
Stating that "the left" has some rosy idea about Cuba makes people say, well, nobody has the right answer, both sides are equally bad. That isn't the case.
Do you have any idea what your government does with its foreign policy?? How about assasinating democratically elected leaders (Iran, most of central America, etc), providing weapons to terrorists (to the Taliban in Afghanistan against USSR, Iran against Iraq, Iraq against Iran, etc), setting up puppet governments (Panama, Cuba, etc), and keeping detainees on foreign soil for years without trial or any charges (Guantanamo, facilities in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc). Shall I go on?
In short - clean up your own crap before you go finger pointing at other countries.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
I'm pretty sure the Germans were against those actions, whereas the Cubans are largely happy with the way their country works.
Sure, the dual economy is wrecking them on an international market, but hopefully the increased presence globally will help with that. As a building technologist who has worked in Cuba (Canada and Cuba get along great, I can actually buy Cuban cigars at the Hasty Mart down the street from my house) I can tell you that Cuba is doing the best they can with a bad starting position, and it's really quite pleasant down there. A poor economy != unhappy population.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
... because I've talked to them?
But you're right, you have no reason to believe me. Having two sides to a story just muddles things up.
But I have to ask.... do you need electricity to have a good life? Or do you, maybe, just need a different routine? They don't watch much TV down there. The families I talked to all spent time with eachother. They played sports. They did laundry with hand-operated machines, or at laundromats. They danced to music on the radio. Above all, they were smiling through all these "hardships" and in spite of their poor "standard of living".
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
*whipmer*
That costs extra...
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
I don't recall saying "all", but your pedantry has been noted.
I talked to several, notably skilled engineers, lawyers, and the "poor people" the water treatment plant was going to be supplying water to. Better?
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Effecting lasting vestment by the people is a matter of a functioning ongoing system more so than a matter of initial distribution. You bring up the Russian example. Russia actually had one of the most successful programs ever instituted to privatize their industry by giving it to the people.
Look at section 1.2.2 here and at this article from Reason.
Russia gave every citizen a voucher that could be used in auctions to bid upon state enterprises being privatized. There was a free market in these vouchers. Any group of people could band together to pool their vouchers to buy their portion of previously state-run industry and own it privately. Or they could sell their vouchers and get significant real value for them, and use that for whatever they needed it for. Either way, everyone got their share. The division of state run enterprises went very well for a while. Sure, too many enterprises were dolled out directly to the powerful and connected and bypassed the voucher auctions, but otherwise, it was a pretty good system.
The reason it didn't end up working was due to a lack of rule of law and to corruption, not a failure to give the property to the Russian population. Many foreign investors flocked to Russia to capitalize on their underpaid but highly educated population. Many people used their voucher money to start their own small businesses. Groups of people who pooled their vouchers tried to run the industries they bought.
But people in power took it all away; from the foreign investors, and from the local Russian population. If you wanted to get your raw materials imported, or keep your electricity on, or get work permits, or pass inspections, or have access to markets- it all required too many bribes to stay in business. In some instances, people with guns just came in and took everything. You can't have functioning capitalism if you don't have free competition, but instead have thugs come and take the profits from anyone who's successful.
A fair initial distribution of property in the privatization process is important, but as Russia has shown us, it is far from sufficient to ensure any kind of equality or lasting vestment for the people. The most important thing for giving people a fair shot is to weed out the corruption and follow rule of law.
You can hire any reputable consulting firm to have a bunch of economists and MBA's draw up a relatively efficient and equitable market based allocation program for privatizing state resources to the people. Unfortunately, it is much harder to take a system riddled with endemic corruption and full of powerful people used to ruling like czars and transform that into a system dominated by honesty and law. There is no easy prescription for this transformation; weeding out corruption is riddled with tricky political, psychological, social, and economic dilemmas to which there is no straight-forward solution.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
That only requires changes in our local laws, not that we interfere inside their country.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
It *would* have become a free, democratic nation if we hadn't originally spruned Castro's overtures of friendship. Then he was, essentially, forced to turn to either Russia or China...and Russia offered him more. (Remember Castro was a graduate of, I believe, Harvard. He *expected* to normalize relations with the US quickly. But he was also a pragmatist, and looked for support where he could get it after we rebuffed him.)
As to Batista's friends who held that property...they deserved much worse. Land grants by a dictator are a poor basis for claims to recompense when someone else comes to power. (Is Castro a dictator? I don't know. Definitely not to the same extent that Batista was. Batista was vile.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The US did the same thing to China when Mao attempted to make overtures. Instead of admitting that Chang Kai-shek's Kuomintang had been routed and turned into a Formosan rump, and dealing with the guys that actually controlled China, the US cemented this bizarre Nationalist China theory for three decades, forcing China to turn to the USSR (not that that turned out all that great for the Soviets in the end) and leading to three decades of isolation.
As bad as Communism was, and as necessary as I think Containment was, the US was never sophisticated enough to realize that it wasn't fighting an ideology, it was fighting an expansionist imperial power. They bought into the Leninist-Marxist line just as much as the Russians did, and didn't recognize the historical trends that had been taking place ever since the Muscovite princes had cast of the Tatars and had began building a Eurasian empire. Just because the top bananas that replaced the Romanovs liked to spout nonsensical political theory didn't fundamentally mean that their goals were one iota different.
That's the problem with the US. I think it suffers from a case of pathological idealism. Because it was founded on high ideals, it tends to assume that its enemies and allies must be of a similar vein, that somehow revolution always represents some vast dividing line between past, present and future. In reality, the Russian and Chinese revolutions (the latter of which was really a century-long conflict to boot out the Great Powers) made huge changes, but ultimately created new governments that in many ways simply modeled themselves on old ones.
In Russia, the leadership moved into the Kremlin, the gentry were replaced by Communist party members, and Peter the Great's revolution to modernize and industrialized Russia continued, every bit as recklessly as it ever had been. In China, Mao took on the airs of the emperors of old, behaving in many ways like them, isolating himself and creating a god-like aura that invoked, without coming out and saying it, the Mandate of Heaven. In fact, after Mao's authority began slipping, and ever since then, the old court ideals of Confucianism have been reborn as the new generation of leaders attempts to combat the age-old Chinese problem of a corrupt bureaucracy.
Communism is simply a state religion. Every once in a while, someone like Mao or Lenin will come along and actually take them seriously, but for the most part it's simply a ritual, a sort of cross in the sky that the faithful are supposed to follow, while in reality it's just the same old empire-building and power centralization that has dominated human affairs since we settled down to form civilizations. If the US had understood this during the Cold War, it would have been much more likely to co-operate with Communist China and Cuba, recognizing that guys like Mao and Castro were just the same-ol' with a different jive talk. Imagine the world today if Latin America and China, who had long had respect for the United States and its earlier, more neutral position, had been embraced, regardless of the political stripes of their leadership. Imagine if Mao and Castro hadn't had to fling themselves at the Soviets, or a Latin America where there weren't tragedies like Chile? The short-sighted and mistaken goals of Containment continue to haunt the US to this day.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sorry 'assassinated' was probably too strong a word - should have been 'illegally overthrown'.
In 1953 the US government helped overthrow the democratically elected leader of Iran, setting up the previous pro-American monarch the Shaw. He was then eventually overthrown in 1979 and you get the middle-east mess you get now with religious nutbars ruling the country.
How about 1989 when the CIA invaded panama to overthrow Noriega who dictator of Panama and on the CIA payroll since the early 70's. The CIA backing likely helped his rise to power and his defacto takeover of the Panamanian government.
And what about Regan funding the anti-government Contras in Nicaragua, funding it through drug trade and illegal weapons deals with Iran?
Lets not forget the funding and training of the anti-government Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan (now the Taliban) against the Soviet government.
Basically point to any trouble spot today and you can find US meddling in the recent past.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
This is not about being a policeman or not. USA is actually a policeman of the world in many ways, and that's why things are the way they are. I think more stable, but then whatever.
*but* US should say out of Cuban politics for *many* reasons that have nothing to do with policeman of the world.
1. Cold War is over
2. Communism is not a "threat" - it is a political/economic system that doesn't work
3. Cuba's communism is not as bad as many gov'ts that US has put in place because the countries in question had *democratically* *elected* socialist governments. Peru is an example. Panama. Nicaragua. The perpetual war in Colombia largely because of the "no talk with FARC" bullshit (and now FARC is very radicalized because of that policy over the last few decades).
4. China? China's communism and nationalism is a much larger threat than Cuba ever was
5. Don't bring up the "Cuban Missile Crises" - was it OK for US to put missiles in Turkey on USSR border first? Does US really keep grudges for half a century?
6. Batista was a corrupt ass and US in fifties were bunch of racists - Cuba's revolution was the natural outcome of US's corrupt influence there at the time.
7. Castro wasn't a commie from the get go - US stance to support Batista during the revolt and even after it alienated Castro and USSR took the opportunity.
8. Iraq? - lesson to stay out of internal affairs of other countries
9. Priorities?? see Darfur/Sudan, Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Zionist/Palestine insanity, China, Global Warming, scientific research, space, etc. All more important than Cuba *ever* was.
I can't believe you are saying this with a straight face. Sure, many Cubans have attempted to leave Cuba for the US. That's because Cuba is comparatively poorer than the US (and is the subject of an economic embargo to boot). But people who bring up Cubans trying to leave Cuba seem to conveniently forget the never ending tidal wave of illegal economic migrants from supposedly "free" countries like Mexico and the rest of Latin America, who far outnumber the Cuban migrants. People from poor countries will try to get into rich countries. There's nothing interesting or controversial about that.
The Cubans do a pretty decent job with not many resources, and they still find the means to send a bunch of doctors to help even poorer people. I'd rather be poor in Cuba than in any other Latin American country. At least in Cuba someone would be looking out for me when I couldn't help myself.
What many in the US cannot understand is that most Cubans genuinely like Fidel. They don't necessarily look at the US and wonder why they aren't like them, but rather look at countries like Mexico, Jamaica and Colombia and thank God that they aren't like them.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
I can quite believe that Mao and Lenin resembled the Tsars and Emperors they replaced and that Communism was a state religion.
But that doesn't mean that the US should treat them in the same way. New religions intolerant religions like Communism have a need to spread. And Communism was a much worse system than the ones it replaced. E.g. Russia before the revolution had secret police and prison camps, this is true. But after the revolution the death rate due to political violence rose astronomically. Someone worked out that the Tsar killed a few hundred people for political crimes. But the Russian communists killed many millions. And the old regimes in Russia and China were not expansionist in the sense that they wanted to spread their system around the world. E.g. Russian communism came very close to engulfing all of the US's allies in Western Europe as well as Eastern Europe. Communism in Asia actually managed it. The whole world could quite easily have ended up resembling Orwell's 1984. This is something which US foreign policy, like its UK counterpart absolutely cannot let happen because of the danger of being completely surrounded by countries which are essentially hostile slave states.
The old state religions in China and Russia were also not monotheistic - they each tolerated Buddhism and Christianity (and Islam in places) in their empires. Lastly, both of them had started to liberalise. If the Communists hadn't hijacked the process, it's quite possible that they would have ended up as something much more liberal.
So whilst it's true to say that their is a degree of continuity the post revolutionary powers were a lot more threatening than the pre revolutionary ones. And it seems like US foreign policy should be about strangling new murderous monotheisms if possible, not accepting them as a permanent fixture.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
My point isn't that Containment was in and of itself a bad policy, but rather that it was an unnuanced policy. Its application was oversimplified; dividing the world into the infamous three; the First, Second and Third Worlds. From a strategic point of view it was a blunder. China was not naturally the USSR's ally. Yes, Stalin had ingratiated himself in a big way with the Communists in the 1930s, but Mao was no more interested in China being a Soviet satellite than he wanted it to be a Western satellite. He did reach out to the US after the defeat of the Nationalists, mainly because he was a bright enough guy to know that he didn't want any enemies. The US, in a growing anti-Communist paranoia, backed the Nationalists instead, despite the fact that the Nationalists had completely lost the mainland and were doing nothing more than playing at being the government of China.
I don't think China and the US would ever have been fast friends. China was too bruised by a century of domination by foreign powers (including the US) for that. But the US completely fucked it up by rejecting Mao and hanging their socks on a washed up tyrant; Chang Kai-shek and his utterly routed Nationalists. It forced Mao completely into the Soviet sphere (though that lasted a little over a decade), because Mao needed someone's help.
The fact is that Chinese Communism was not the same as Stalinism, though in the 1950s, with the disasterous Great Leap Forward, it certainly became much worse. Maybe the US could have done nothing about that even if it had built ties with Mao, but by essentially treating the PRC as some sort of alien inhabiting government, it lost all capability. It also violated one of the key notions of international diplomacy, that one must remain pragmatic in all things. It was a reality-defying leap of stupidity that only made sense within the context of domestic US politics at the time. It certainly made no sense within the contexts of diplomacy, international relations, international law and within the long-term interests of the US in the Far East, and ultimately the world. Nixon's normalization, while the right thing to do, has put the US in an even trickier situation as per Taiwan, which it treats as a defacto state, while all the while trying to play it with the PRC. If the US had simply admitted that Chang Kai-shek was a spent force and recognized Mao, this awkard position could have been avoided.
As to Cuba, rejecting Castro is only a lesser blunder because Cuba is a smaller and less important nation. Still, once again, the Red Fever created a situation in which reality was denied and a Communist government was forced into bed with the Soviets.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
> Kennedy [...] took care of the Missile problem with the USSR directly by more or less
> saying if you place nukes there we will consider it an act of war and respond in kind
actually, it was more like Kennedy said "OK, you've called our bluff. We'll remove our missiles from Turkey like you want, and you give up on putting yours in Cuba. And we'll get our newspapers to report it as if we forced you to back down, and you can get your newspapers to do the same for you".
>But when Castro was in power, he was a threat to the security of the US
don't be ridiculous. Castro was never any kind of a threat to U.S. security. He's just an embarrassment because he kicked out Batista and the other U.S.-backed gangsters in the fifties and took away the playground where U.S. Senators and Congressmen and businessmen could mingle with Mafia figures outside of the public eye. He's also an embarrassment because Cuba actually functions reasonably well as a socialist state, even despite the U.S. trade embargoes and other sanctions, and the assassination attempts and the various failed invasions. Castro never broke no matter what they did to him and to Cuba....that, they'll never forgive.
Worst of all, Castro committed the crime of demonstrating that a South American state could exist without the malicious influence of the U.S. propping up dictators, backing fascists, and overthrowing democratically-elected socialist or socialist-leaning governments as they've done repeatedly for many decades - e.g. in Chile in the 70s or Nicaragua in the 80s, and as they'd like to do to Chavez now.