Cuba: Notes on a History of Best Intentions

[Judi Lynn]

September 28, 2015
Cuba: Notes on a History of Best Intentions

by Robert Sandels - Nelson P. Valdés

The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship….every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.

-Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lester D. Mallory.

In his Dec. 17, 2014 statement calling for normalization of diplomatic relations with Cuba, President Barak Obama paused to speak directly to the Cuban people. “We believe that you should be empowered to live with dignity and self-determination,” he said. No mention was made of Lester D. Mallory. [1]

Even while strenuously working to destroy the Cuban revolution, US presidents like to say that Cubans should decide their own future. But what if the Cuban people decided to choose communism?

Alluding to the sordid history of US efforts to dissuade Cubans from choosing communism, Obama said that it was all “rooted in the best of intentions.” Here is an example of one of those best intentions.

The Cuban project

From the early 1960s, sabotage and terrorist attacks against Cuba were carried out as direct action by the US government such as the guerrilla offensive in the Escambray Mountains in 1960 organized by the CIA. When it failed, the Eisenhower administration decided to arm and train an exile invasion force to land at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/28/cuba-notes-on-a-history-of-best-intentions/

[polly7]

1. Good article. Thank you, Judi Lynn. nt.