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Cuba: It’s the Morality, Stupid
I was nine when the Bay of Pigs fiasco occurred. We lived in Miami. There were a lot of Cubans in our parish. The Ortega brothers, my friends down the block, were typical. Their father refused to learn much English because (a) he would be going back soon when Castro was gone and (b) it was not macho to look weak by speaking a language that you had not mastered. English was for wives and kids. The boys took judo and were otherwise told to prepare for some undefined moment of conflict that never came.
The Ortega boys had an uncle in training in the Brigade 2506 or whatever that anti-Castro invasion force was called. A lot of kids in Epiphany school knew somebody off in training then. I don’t think it was a very well-kept secret that something was in the works. We were told often in those days that we were “only 90 miles from Cuba” and thus well in range of the Soviet missiles there. Our nuclear attack drills were frequent. We saw all the required movies and training films. The Cuban Missile Crisis was still a year away.
When the invasion started, the news was good. We talked about it in school and included those guys in prayers. The force was supposedly moving inland. Two days later it was over and the invaders were crushed. My clearest memory of that time is of a Cuban third-grader yelling at every kid on the bus that morning that Americans were cowards and whatever other bad names he could think of because we left his father to die on the beach. Then he started crying and his sister and some older girl tried to comfort him. Nobody disagreed with him. It seemed, at the time, that he was right. Nobody spoke at all. Happily for that kid, his father was in the second wave that never left Venezuela or wherever it was they deployed from — but he did not know that his father was safe for a couple of days.
I have never understood defenders of Fidel Castro or his ridiculous sociopath sidekick Che Guevara. I get that feeling clever is a big part of being a leftist and that finding reasons to attack and feel superior to your own culture, country, history, religion etc. is a big part of the gnostic ego trip that is the whole left-wing-progressive-socialist-liberal-whatever experience, but why be so stupid to pretend that a malignant megalomaniac like Fidel Castro is anything other than a monster? Does that prove one’s nuanced geopolitical sophistication? Or just gullibility?
One-fifth of Cubans have fled their country since Castro took control. The only one Castro ever wanted back was Elian Gonzalez, because the kid’s popularity seemed threatening. Cubans are poor, abused, closely-watched, and readily imprisoned … but whatever, health care is free there so that level of political repression is OK, or so I’m told by terribly clever people. (Cuban health care is of such high quality that Fidel went to Europe for treatment when he got cancer.)
Cuba is an economic failure of massive proportions. It no longer has a Soviet sponsor and its current sponsor (Venezuela) has destroyed its own economy (with the help of Cuban expert guidance).
A competent American leader would see an opportunity to finally pressure the regime out of existence instead of giving some final vindication to a monster and propping up his regime a little longer. A lot of innocent people deserve vindication. Even a symbolic capitulation to Castro seems disgraceful, even if all the really enlightened people are applauding it.
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Great post, awful topic.
There are lots of immoral and amoral countries around the world that have not endured the same sorts of sanctions that the US has enforced against Cuba.
It’s not just about morality.
It’s also about proximity.
It’s also about ongoing covert hostile actions by the Cuban government against American interests in the Western hemisphere.
It’s also about the fact that the Castro regime stole property belonging to Americans. Americans who are still alive today.
Britain defended the Falkland Islands not because they are a property vital to Britain’s existence or prosperity, but because to abandon them would have been to tell the World that Britain does not keep its promises.
Giving in to the Castro regime sends the same message about America’s promises to democracies in Latin America, as well as about its commitment to the Monroe and Truman doctrines.
Amen.
Agreed.
This day is getting darker and darker.
What is going on?
As a friend of mine recently commented when we were discussing the President’s disgusting treatment of Israel, “And he is not finished.” That is what is going on.
Much of the talk about how “Isolation hasn’t worked” is disingenuous (which is why Obama repeats it so much). Isolation has worked. Sure, the regime is still around, but it has been so marginalized that it has no influence outside of their little island. Cuba was largely unimportant after the missle crisis ended, and has been a grubby non-entity since the fall of the Soviet Union. They found a resurgence with their Venezuelan sponsors, but (surprise, surprise!) their ideology is killing off that golden goose.
-E
I think we are right to be pessimistic about the real Obama emerging in these lame duck years. Maybe there should a prediction thread or contest as to what will be the most disgraceful thing Barrack Obama will do as he goes out the door. What will be the Obama policy equivalent of the Marc Rich pardon? He did make the Marc Rich bagman Attorney General so our expectations should be suitably low.
I’m too young to really have much of a notion of Cuba as anything other than the province of crankypants windbag dictators and amazing baseball players (viva Los Doyers, viva Puig!), and don’t have any connection to the Cuban refugee community so my credentials on this are suspect.
That disclaimer out of the way, it strikes me that ultimately one of the most powerful tools that authoritarians can use is information control. If you can convince or brainwash your populace that everyone outside of your borders is a blood-sucking vampire, the regime (and the ideology that supports it) is pretty secure. The North Koreans are geniuses at this stuff, and it’s why they’ve managed to hang around so long despite literally everyone else on earth finding them ridiculous. Dictators all over the world – from Caracas to Teheran to Pyongyang, to steal Marco Rubio’s phrasing – try to keep their citizens in the dark and dominate the media. It seems to me that we should be trying to do the exact opposite. The Castros and their shopworn Marxist twaddle aren’t just evil, they’re buffoons who’ve been left so far behind that choking on our dust is a noble condition to which they can only aspire. Opening the island up to the fruits of the modern world can only give the Cuban people a glimpse of how badly they have been ruled and how prosperous they could otherwise be. Sure in the short term it’ll enrich the Castros, and sure other totalitarian states – China, principally – have demonstrated a talent for reaping the benefits of modernity but still keeping a boot on the populace’s neck. But do we really think that the ramshackle Castro machine is going to be as adroit at handling an overnight thaw as the Chinese were when they had twenty years to slowly ramp up? Blue jeans, and the Beatles did their part to break the Soviet Union…what chance does Cuba stand in the face of iPads and Google?
The regime will not permit the level of exchange you describe which would indeed have the positive effects you predict. Obama will establish an embassy to give imprimatur to the regime & then allow more tourists to go the areas where tourists are permitted to go. The regime gets face-saving and hard currency, the people get squadoosh. They already know things are better elsewhere as do the NorKors. They just don’t have any hope of obtaining it. Helping the existing regime does not foster that hope.
The rest of the planet does not have an embargo against Cuba.
If the Castro regime wanted the Cuban people to have modern cars, modern technology, and modern opportunities, it’s people would have them.
When I look at photos of Cuban streets, I don’t see very many automobiles of Japanese, German, Italian, Korean, French, Russian, etc, origin.
Heck, Volkswagon manufactured the original Beetle in Mexico up until 2003, and sold them at very low prices, so why isn’t Cuba crawling with Beetles?
The answer is that the Castro regime BENEFITS from the image of a nation isolated by American sanctions. In a global economy, Cuba doesn’t really NEED trade with the United States, which is why lifting the embargo with have zero substantive effect, other than to bolster the Castro regime’s influence.
Another thought: Anybody want to wager that the ownership of Guantanamo will be on the table before the end of Obama’s tenure as President?
I take your point. But if Cuba benefits off of the idea that it’s the poor little underdog being squashed by the big mean gringo, why not take that benefit away? I guess I just don’t see the benefit of keeping the embargo up and letting the Cubans play martyr, and don’t see how a few extra tourists running around Cuban potemkin villages would really do anything to make things worse. It’s not like Cuba is going to suddenly be a huge threat to the United States as soon as they get recognition from us…
I think so. He could do a Presidential order that claims to rescind the 1903 Treaty/Platt Amendment or more simply order the Navy to evacuate and not enforce US rights after Cuba seizes it. Detainees would be released or left behind for the Cuban regime and the whole mess would be left for President ____ to deal with. That would be très Obama, would it not?
Lifting the emabrgo gives other countries the political cover they need to start trading with Cuba freely without fear of tongue-clacking from the US.
Here’s the scenario I’m imagining:
You’re very possibly correct, and of course I have no idea what the Obama administration will actually do. But I hardly think it could be worse than what we have, which is a regime which gains international cred from playing up all the anti-Americanism it can – as Misthiocracy pointed out above. In fact, Cuba has played a big role in developing anti-American movements all across Latin America. It strikes me that if we were to normalize relations Cuba would certainly benefit in the short term, but their anti-gringo cred would probably suffer rather severely in the medium-long term. Further, let’s say the Castros are as effective as the Chinese have been at riding the tiger…the greatest decrease in poverty in human history has happened in China over the past half century. Even if opening up doesn’t lead to the Castro’s fall, I hope the Cuban people at least can get some prosperity out of the deal. They haven’t done anything wrong other than have the rotten luck to be born in the wrong place and time. Just my two cents, anyway.
Well, the idea that they’ll have “broken the imperialist pig’s back” will be patently false, as anyone with half a brain will recognize. And the Cuban people get a higher standard of living, which as we’re seeing in China now (and Korea before) correlates with an increase in demand for political and social rights. It may not benefit us directly in the short term, you’re right. But it’s not worse than what we have now, is it?
I believe we lease it for $1/yr.
No. It’s around $4,000 but Cuba refuses to accept payment because they have repudiated the Treaty so it’s free.
The regime would be anti-Yankee in any event. The embargo is a response not a cause. Your desire for a break for the Cuban people is a correct point of emphasis. The disagreement here is that I don’t see how a unilateral concession to the regime that oppresses them will benefit those people in any way. If it were to actually open up Cuba that would be wonderful but that won’t happen without a dismantling of the police state and ideological enforcement required to keep monsters in power and Obama is not doing anything to effect that particular change.
Great post. Spot on.
I’ve thought that too.
Then the Castros can turn it into the place the Democrats say it is now. Perfect for the Castros. Off and away, they can create their own gulag.
He already has a gulag. (the video links in the article get 404 errors)
Everybody seen this?
Line of the week,. by the way. Maybe the month. Heck, maybe even the line of the year!
It is Obama’s F… Y.. to us, and he is a man in search of a legacy.
Yes.
One of the things that made Leftist arguments persuasive to me as a youngster is that I assumed that no one would ever be biased against their own country. Why would anyone believe such horrible things about their own country, and by extension about themselves, if they weren’t true? I had no idea.
I don’t see much upside to keeping the embargo and I don’t see much downside to lifting it.
President Obama has proposed a variety of changes, but not an allowance for tourists. Enabling trade with Americans (as Cuba already enjoys with our allies) at least will afford our intelligence agencies more opportunities for planting ideas of insurrection… particularly among Cuban officials who can imagine themselves becoming richer by seizing control and mimicking China.
Cuba isn’t particularly “isolated” while it trades with other Western economies. It’s strange to hear its supposed isolation mentioned in the same breath as its supposed influence among South and Central American countries.
But I agree that now is a strange time to reconsider the embargo, while Cuba’s ally nations struggle.
Also, we could always try assassinating the Castros again (if a Republican succeeds President Obama).
Obama is seeking vindication. Just, not for the victims of communism, but for the “victims” of Yanqui Imperialism.
I agree that the “embargo” doesn’t actually hurt the Cubans all that much. They can trade with everyone else in the world with no problems.
On the other hand, it is about the morality of it.
Ultimately, I think this is more or less the joint effort of the neo-Marxist Pope Francis, and a Leftist Obama who like all Leftists, simply doesn’t understand what the fuss about Cuba is all about.
The Cubans, of course, probably did promise all sorts of reforms (realistically they have been reforming ever so slightly in the last few years), given that they have nowhere else to turn.
So this could be spun either way, both as a “failure” and as a “success”. Only time will tell if Cuba does reform (unlikely).
But the morality of it, still stinks.
I had a very interesting conversation today with a biz acquaintance I consider one of the most astute investors I know. He bought land in Cuba in the 50s and it is now worth 300% what he paid for it. Even as a capitalist *enemy* of the State, he was able to hold on to it because he pays some hefty property taxes.
His take? There are plenty of American investors who, like him, may be encouraged to build and develop businesses because the Castro bros have run out of options. This could be a great thing for the residents of Cuba if we could open up industries and tourist trade that would provide jobs. Some legal stipulations need to be put into place to keep profits out of Castro’s hands, but I think the time is right.
The free market could end up staging a successful revolution.
Therein lies the problem.
Maybe, but even China was forced to make some concessions to attract investment.
The Castros are in far worse shape financially and due to the physical proximity to the U.S., I’d like to hear some suggestions from economic leaders in this country. Mitt Romney? Marco Rubio? Koch Bros? Silicon Valley? Marriot Hotels?
This should and could be a no-brainer.