Reply #23: As you can see, too many Americans tend to swallow everything they hear, without thought, [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

or even a moment of conscious reflection.

The U.S. C.I.A. conducted horrendous waves of violence and destruction against not only Fidel Castro, which you mentioned, but also the Cuban people themselves, and that pattern has remained in place up to this moment. The C.I.A. moved back, and the Cuban "exiles" did the dirty, filthy work, and even started farming out some of the murdeous actions to poor people they recruited from Latin America, as testified by one of a group caught bombing hotels in Havana, which killed an Italian tourist, and injured many others.

Anyone wanting to check on one name which comes to mind, look for "Eduardo Arocena," who testitifed in his own murder trial in New York, after he among others slaughtered a Cuban diplomat to the United Nations in his car. During his trial he cofessed he had carried biological warfare items into Cuba for the C.I.A. Other "exiles" have testified to similar acts.

Anyone getting serious about finding out about over 40 years of terrorism against the Cuban people themselves, after a reign of terror by U.S.-suppported bloody dictator Fulgencio Batista, who TORTURED dissidents, some to death, and who used death squads, the most well known of them being "Masferrer's Tigers," and threw the bodies of their victims into the streets, or hung them from lampposts or from trees, or even had them quartered and hung from trees, as in Santiago de Cuba, can always feel welcome and encouraged to start doing his/her homework in order to speak from a base in reality about Cuba.

Here's something I found which could be useful for some DU'ers, perhaps:

U.S. Aggression & Propaganda Against Cuba
Why the unrelieved U.S. antagonism toward Cuba?
by Michael Parenti
Z magazine, September 2004

~snip~
The U.S. policy toward Cuba has been consistent with its longstanding policy of trying to subvert any country that pursues an alternative path in the use of its land, labor, capital, markets, and natural resources. Any nation or political movement that emphasizes self-development, egalitarian human services, and public ownership is condemned as an enemy and targeted for sanctions or other forms of attack. In contrast, the countries deemed "friendly toward America" and "pro-West" are those that leave themselves at the disposal of large U.S. investors on terms that are totally favorable to the moneyed corporate interests.

Of course, this is not what U.S. rulers tell the people of North America. As early as July 1960, the White House charged that Cuba was "hostile" to the United States (despite the Cuban government's repeated overtures for normal friendly relations). The Castro government, in Eisenhower's words, was "dominated by international communism." U.S. officials repeatedly charged that the island government was a cruel dictatorship and that the United States had no choice but to try "restoring" Cuban liberty.

U.S. rulers never explained why they were so suddenly concerned about the freedoms of the Cuban people. In the two decades before the Revolution, successive Administrations in Washington manifested no opposition to the brutally repressive autocracy headed by General Fulgencio Batista. Quite the contrary, they sent him military aid, did a vigorous business with him, and treated him well in every other way. The significant but unspoken difference between Castro and Batista was that Batista, a comprador ruler, left Cuba wide open to U.S. capital penetration. In contrast, Castro and his revolutionary movement did away with private corporate control of the economy, nationalized U.S. holdings, and renovated the class structure toward a more collectivized and egalitarian mode.

Needless to say, the U.S. method of mistreatment has been applied to other countries besides Cuba. Numerous potentially dissident regimes that have asked for friendly relations have been met with abuse and aggression from Washington: Vietnam, Chile (under Allende), Mozambique, Angola, Cambodia, Nicaragua (under the Sandinistas), Panama (under Torrijo), Grenada (under the New Jewel Movement), Yugoslavia (under Milosevic), Haiti (under Aristide), Venezuela (under Chavez), and numerous others.

The U.S. modus operandi is:
* heap criticism on the targeted government for imprisoning the butchers, assassins, terrorists, and torturers of the previous U.S.-backed reactionary regime
* denounce the revolutionary or reformist government as "totalitarian" for failing to immediately institute Western-style, electoral politics
* launch ad hominem attacks upon the leader, labeling him or her as fanatical, brutal, repressive, genocidal, power hungry, or even mentally imbalanced
* denounce the country as a threat to regional peace and stability
* harass, destabilize, and impose economic sanctions to cripple its economy
* attack it with surrogate forces, trained, equipped, and financed by the U.S. and led by members of the former regime, or even with regular U.S. armed forces

Manipulating Public Opinion
How the corporate-owned capitalist press has served in the crusade against Cuba tells us a lot about why the U.S. public is so misinformed about issues relating to that country. Following the official White House line, the corporate news media regularly denies that the United States harbors aggressive designs against Cuba or any other government. The stance taken against Cuba, it was said, was simply a defense against communist aggrandizement. Cuba was repeatedly condemned as a tool of Soviet aggression and expansionism. But now that the Soviet Union no longer exists, Cuba is still treated as a mortal enemy. U.S. acts of aggression-including armed invasion-continue to be magically transformed into acts of defense.

More:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Caribbean/US_Aggression_Cuba.html