The U.S. has terrorized Cuba for over 50 years — Fidel Castro is right to be wary of Obama’s claims

[Judi Lynn]

Wednesday, Mar 30, 2016 11:15 AM CDT

The U.S. has terrorized Cuba for over 50 years — Fidel Castro is right to be wary of Obama’s claims

Since the 1959 revolution the U.S. has invaded Cuba, tried assassinations, imposed an embargo & harbored terrorists

Ben Norton

“We don’t need the empire to give us anything,” asserted revolutionary leader Fidel Castro in a recent article criticizing President Obama in the wake of his trip to Cuba.

Obama made history this month as the first standing U.S. president to visit the neighboring island nation in 88 years.The president was applauded for a speech in which he described Cuba as “family,” and called for easing tensions between the countries.

“It is time, now, for us to leave the past behind,” Obama insisted. The former Cuban president scoffed at the idea.

. . .

For the crimes — and there is no question that they are crimes — the U.S. has repeatedly and continuously committed against its sovereign neighbor over the past five decades include:

•a violent invasion that left hundreds dead

•more than 600 assassination attempts

•myriad covert campaigns dedicated to fomenting “hunger, desperation and overthrow of government”

•the unilateral imposition of a suffocating embargo

•and the harboring of CIA-trained admitted terrorists who murdered Cuban civilians in hopes of toppling the socialist state.

More:
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/30/the_u_s_has_menaced_cuba_for_over_50_years_fidel_castro_is_right_to_be_wary_of_obamas_claims/

[malthaussen]

1. Ah, once our corporate masters begin reaping the profits...

... they'll wonder why we supported the embargo of Cuba for so long. Pretty soon, there will be a Starbucks right next door to the government chambers. Once the dollars start to flow freely, the Revolution is done for, and all those "human rights violations" in Cuba will be sanctioned by the Leader of the Free World (tm).

-- Mal

[swilton]

2. Enlightening film

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0892255/?ref_=nmawd_awd_22


Enlightening amplification

[polly7]

6. Thanks for this, swilton. nt.

[Judi Lynn]

8. The video clip is interesting, by all means.

After listening to it, I remembered learning that John F. Kennedy had arranged secret meetings with Che Guevara and his own aide, and that the records have been released, in some part, of his remarks to the President about his impression of El Che.

Here's something released to the US public:

[center]Kennedy Sought Dialogue with Cuba

INITIATIVE WITH CASTRO ABORTED BY ASSASSINATION,
DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SHOW

Oval Office Tape Reveals Strategy to hold clandestine Meeting in Havana; Documents record role of ABC News correspondent Lisa Howard as secret intermediary in Rapprochement effort

Posted - November 24, 2003[/center]

Washington D.C. - On the 40th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the eve of the broadcast of a new documentary film on Kennedy and Castro, the National Security Archive today posted an audio tape of the President and his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, discussing the possibility of a secret meeting in Havana with Castro. The tape, dated only seventeen days before Kennedy was shot in Dallas, records a briefing from Bundy on Castro's invitation to a U.S. official at the United Nations, William Attwood, to come to Havana for secret talks on improving relations with Washington. The tape captures President Kennedy's approval if official U.S. involvement could be plausibly denied.

The possibility of a meeting in Havana evolved from a shift in the President's thinking on the possibility of what declassified White House records called "an accommodation with Castro" in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Proposals from Bundy's office in the spring of 1963 called for pursuing "the sweet approach…enticing Castro over to us," as a potentially more successful policy than CIA covert efforts to overthrow his regime. Top Secret White House memos record Kennedy's position that "we should start thinking along more flexible lines" and that "the president, himself, is very interested in [the prospect for negotiations]." Castro, too, appeared interested. In a May 1963 ABC News special on Cuba, Castro told correspondent Lisa Howard that he considered a rapprochement with Washington "possible if the United States government wishes it. In that case," he said, "we would be agreed to seek and find a basis" for improved relations.

The untold story of the Kennedy-Castro effort to seek an accommodation is the subject of a new documentary film, KENNEDY AND CASTRO: THE SECRET HISTORY, broadcast on the Discovery/Times cable channel on November 25 at 8pm. The documentary film, which focuses on Ms. Howard's role as a secret intermediary in the effort toward dialogue, was based on an article -- "JFK and Castro: The Secret Quest for Accommodation" -- written by Archive Senior Analyst Peter Kornbluh in the magazine, Cigar Aficionado. Kornbluh served as consulting producer and provided key declassified documents that are highlighted in the film. "The documents show that JFK clearly wanted to change the framework of hostile U.S. relations with Cuba," according to Kornbluh. "His assassination, at the very moment this initiative was coming to fruition, leaves a major 'what if' in the ensuing history of the U.S. conflict with Cuba."

Among the key documents relevant to this history:

•Oval Office audio tape, November 5, 1963. The tape records a conversation between the President and McGeorge Bundy regarding Castro's invitation to William Attwood, a deputy to UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, to come to Cuba for secret talks. The President responds that Attwood should be taken off the U.S. payroll prior to such a meeting so that the White House can plausibly deny that any official talks have taken place if the meeting leaks to the press.

•White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Mr. Donovan's Trip to Cuba," March 4, 1963. This document records President Kennedy's interest in negotiations with Castro and his instructions to his staff to "start thinking along more flexible lines" on conditions for a dialogue with Cuba.

•White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Cuba -- Policy," April 11, 1963. A detailed options paper from Gordon Chase, the Latin America specialist on the National Security Council, to McGeorge Bundy recommending "looking seriously at the other side of the coin-quietly enticing Castro over to us."

•CIA briefing paper, Secret, "Interview of U.S. Newswoman with Fidel Castro Indicating Possible Interest in Rapprochement with the United States," May 1, 1963. A debriefing of Lisa Howard by CIA deputy director Richard Helms, regarding her ABC news interview with Castro and her opinion that he is "ready to discuss rapprochement." The document contains a notation, "Psaw," meaning President Kennedy read the report on Howard and Castro.

•U.S. UN Mission memorandum, Secret, Chronology of events leading up Castro invitation to receive a U.S. official for talks in Cuba, November 8, 22, 1963. This chronology was written by William Attwood and records the evolution of the initiative set in motion by Lisa Howard for a dialogue with Cuba. The document describes the party at Howard's Manhattan apartment on September 23, 1963, where Attwood met with Cuban UN Ambassador Carlos Lechuga to discuss the potential for formal talks to improve relations. In an addendum, Attwood adds information on communications, using the Howard home as a base, leading up to the day the President was shot in Dallas.

•White House memorandum, Secret, November 12, 1963. McGeorge Bundy reports to William Attwood on Kennedy's opinion of the viability of a secret meeting with Havana. The president prefers that the meeting take place in New York at the UN where it will be less likely to be leaked to the press.

•White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Approach to Castro," November 19, 1963. A memo from Gordon Chase to McGeorge Bundy updating him on the status of arrangements for a secret meeting with the Cubans.

•White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Cuba -- Item of Presidential Interest," November 25, 1963. A strategy memo from Gordon Chase to McGeorge Bundy assessing the problems and potential for pursuing the secret talks with Castro in the aftermath of Kennedy's assassination.

•Message from Fidel Castro to Lyndon Johnson, "Verbal Message given to Miss Lisa Howard of ABC News on February 12, 1964, in Havana, Cuba." A private message carried by Howard to the White House in which Castro states that he would like the talks started with Kennedy to continue: "I seriously hope (and I cannot stress this too strongly) that Cuba and the United States can eventually sit down in an atmosphere of good will and of mutual respect and negotiate our differences."

•United Nations memorandum, Top Secret, from Adlai Stevenson to President Johnson, June 16, 1964. Stevenson sends the "verbal message" given to Lisa Howard to Johnson with a cover memo briefing him on the dialogue started under Kennedy and suggesting consideration of resumption of talks "on a low enough level to avoid any possible embarrassment."

•White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Adlai Stevenson and Lisa Howard," July 7, 1964. Gordon Chase reports to Bundy on his concerns that Howard's role as an intermediary has now escalated through her contact with Stevenson at the United Nations and the fact that a message has been sent back through her to Castro from the White House. Chase recommends trying "to remove Lisa from direct participation in the business of passing messages," and using Cuban Ambassador to the UN, Carlos Lechuga, instead.

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/

[center]

ABC's journalist, Lisa Howard, interview with Che Guevara.



ABC's journalist, Lisa Howard, interview with Fidel Castro.

(Strange story for anyone who didn't know, at the height of her career, popularity, Lisa Howard was said to have committed suicide.
Doesn't really seem completely plausable, actually.) [/center]

[MinM]

13. Lisa Howard

Perhaps like Dorothy Kilgallen, Manuel Buendia, Anibal Barrow or Anabel Flores Salazar, reporters that knew too much?

[MinM]

14. George Polk

too.

[Blue_Tires]

3. Norton? He's a tool...

There is some sick irony in the far left and far right both wanting to keep the old status quo in Cuba...

[Mika]

4. The far left and far right both wanting to keep the old status quo in Cuba?

How do you possibly arrive at that conclusion?
Cuba, and Cuba's allies, have always sought normalization.

[Judi Lynn]

5. The author is a tool? Would you point out any inaccuracies in this article?

You'd be doing anyone who reads it a real favor, of course.

[Blue_Tires]

9. Factually, it's accurate enough

It's his analysis that's deeply flawed and intellectually bankrupt. It adds nothing to his point to dredge up every single sin the U.S. has committed in 60 years, because no country has clean hands if you want to go back that far.

And while listing his encyclopedia of U.S. foreign policy sins, the author conveniently neglects to mention how many Cubans during those decades risked life and limb to emigrate here... Kind of odd they would make such a serious sacrifice to live in such an evil country, don't you think?

The rest of his non-think piece is full of meaningless strawmen, and insinuating in his conclusion that the U.S. has ulterior motives in trying to build bridges is beyond the pale. Just straight up purebred dudebroism.

For a thought exercise, you could make some slight tweaks to this story, insert "The West" for the U.S., and "East Germany" for Cuba, and rewind the clock back to 1989, because he would be making the same argument he is now -- And it would still be just as farcical...

So like I said, The Teabag Right and Emoprog Left both have vested interests in making sure Cuba remains closed, communist, and poor...It's funny how many issues they align on, despite being mortal enemies on the political scale...

[Judi Lynn]

10. There are thousands of human beings who have died in the effort to reach the US, across the desert,

rivers, canals, mountains, or, in the case of many Haitians, at least 900 miles of water to get to the US, all of them hardly ever mentioned in US corporate "news" media.

Hundreds perish every year, year after year. Some U.S. Americans even creep out into the desert, themselves, to destroy water way-stations some other US Americans have placed there as a last resource for people already in dire straights trying to make it across the desert.

All those thousands of people are NOT "fleeing" from Cuba.

What's more, of the ones who have made it in the last year or two, there are some already who have been deported to the US-supported regime in Honduras who have been murdered, just as they told US authorities they would be, when they were begging to find shelter here, away from a vicious regime known for assassinating political or simply undesirable Hondurans (environmental, GLBT, union activists, teachers, leftists, etc.).

It truly doesn't matter if "other countries do it, too" if what is done in the name of the US taxpayers is 100% opposite of everything the government claims to be true about itself, and would be unconscionable to ALL people of good will.

There are a lot of real Democrats, progressives, liberals who are this community, and have made real efforts to research and discover for themselves what has never been acknowledged by our designed corporate "news" handlers. Those who have made the effort know exactly what is real and what isn't, after learning to tell the difference for themselves.

[Blue_Tires]

12. "There are a lot of real Democrats, progressives, liberals who are this community,

and have made real efforts to research and discover for themselves what has never been acknowledged by our designed corporate "news" handlers. Those who have made the effort know exactly what is real and what isn't, after learning to tell the difference for themselves."


Norton ain't one of them... He's in so deep he's forgotten which way is up...

[polly7]

7. Great article, thanks, Judi Lynn. nt.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Hi, Polly7. Thank YOU. n/t

[hack89]

15. The pent up demand in Cuba is to great for even Castro to contain

Once the doors to Cuba swing open. History shows what happens to leaders that don't listen to their people