Credit Where Credit is Due, But What's This "Enemies" BS?
By Dave Lindorff
President Obama deserves credit for breaking the half-century-long
taboo in American politics of dealing with Cuba, and meeting with Raul
Castro, Cuba’s current leader. He also deserves credit for dealing in a
friendly manner with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela.
But what is this crap about “talking with” our enemies or with countries that have been “hostile” towards us?
It is certainly be true that America doesn’t like Communism, and
doesn’t like having properties owned by its citizens taken over, which
happened in the wake of the Cuban revolution, but nationalization is a
right that many sovereign nations have exercised in their national
interest, and besides that, what has Cuba ever done that would show it
to be an enemy of the US?
Oh, there were those missiles that Castro was allowing the former
Soviet Union to set up on Cuba’s shores back in 1962, but then that was
only a tit for tat, because the US had already put nuclear-tipped
Jupiter missiles in Turkey, aimed at the Soviet Union, and arguably the
purpose of the missiles going to Cuba was to force the US to remove the
Turkish-based missiles. In any event, Castro was acting less than two
years after the US had backed an invasion of his island by soldiers who
were seeking to overthrow his government.
Cuba has never attacked the US, never threatened the US, and never
in fact was an enemy of the US, nor is it an enemy today. You want
hostile? How about the role the US played in helping to fund the
backers of a coup against the elected government of President Chavez,
and the Bush administration’s hasty recognition of the coup leaders as
the new government after they captured and arrested President Chavez,
in an embarrassing incident that eventually collapsed, with the popular
restoration of Chavez to the Presidential Palace when rank and file
soldiers refused to follow their right-wing leaders.
These are “enemies” or “hostile powers”?
What planet do our leaders, including President Obama, live on?
Even Nicaragua, against which the US fought a proxy war, using
Nicaraguan Contra forces based in Honduras and Costa Rica, was only an
enemy of the US in the sense that the US was hell-bent in the 1980s on
overthrowing its elected government. Nicaragua, except in the fevered
minds of loopy right-wingers like Gen. John Singlaub and his
Anti-Communist League, was never a threat to the US.
I’m happy that President Obama is willing to talk and make nice
with the leaders of these three countries, but he hardly deserves much
credit for doing what his predecessors should have done all along.
There is a hostile power in the Americas, but it is the
US, which has a centuries-long history of meddling in and even
overthrowing the elected governments of South American countries
(Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Guatemala, Brazil, Haiti, etc.), of
propping up brutal fascist dictatorships like that of Augusto Pinochet
in Chile, and of training vicious soldiers and police in the fine arts
of torture and assassination at the School of the Americas.
Obama should drop the term “enemy” and “hostile power” from his lexicon. It just makes him look ridiculous.
_________________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is
“The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is
available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
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And the rest of the story
And the rest of the story is, that beginning with Eisenhower, and lasting through several subsequent administrations, the threat of spreading Marxist dictatorial Communism, which was being built on the ashes of WWII, was the overriding concern which directed US foreign relations. That was the basis for the Cold War, and the fear and concern was shared by a majority of Americans, Western Europeans, and other free nations around the world.
That there arose brutal Communist-inspired dictatorships throughout South America (and elsewhere) is undeniable. Was the US response commensurate to the perceived threat, or even the best response? The answer to those questions may never be fully known, but the possibility of a Communist-dominated continent of countries located in our hemisphere, along with the Asian/European bloc of dictatorial Communist countries already in existence, resulted in a very scary scenario for the Free World, and its Democratic values. As it turned out (either with our help, or in spite of it) with the fall of the Soviet Union, the "Domino Theory" threat of the spread of dictatorial Communism never came to full fruition.
To say that these countries (and especially Cuba) at the time were not our "enemies," and posed no threat to the USA is, at best, a half-truth. Against that backdrop, President Obama is attempting to reverse decades of failed "embargo diplomacy," and CIA interference, while realizing that the threat of Communist/Socialist-leaning "Banana Republic" dictatorships, and rogue anti-West regimes, still exists.
For more information about Fidel Castro, his rise to power through direct involvement in multiple murders, his use of "re-education" concentration camps, his many other atrocities against his own people (all in the name of "nationalism"), and how the USA ended up with over one million Cuban refugees -- along with Castro's anti-USA stances (beginning with our defense of South Korea) -- see this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro
I agree,Bill.
To deny the existence of threats against the US,
from past to present, is at best naive.
I personally think President Obama took a big
step in the right direction and disagree with
this statement,
"but he hardly deserves much
credit for doing what his predecessors should have done all along."
Yes, he does deserved credit.
These diplomatic gestures did not come without
a major backlash from the Rabid Repugs, including
reporters from the MSM.
Give credit where credit is due.