Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Will Cuba Ever Be Free Again? (Part II)

Part II


I have already dedicated an essay to explaining why I believe there has been no internal insurrection in Cuba in the last 49 years. Fortunately for us, there doesn't have to be one for our country to regain her freedom because the Castro regime is not and has never been sustained by internal forces.

It is not the Cuban people who are the bulwark of Castro's anti-Cuban Revolution. On the contrary, it is their willingness to sabotage it at any and all moments that has kept it in a state of near collapse for almost 50 years, not just the monumental incompetence of Fidel Castro or the irredeemable insanity of Marxist economics. The Cuban people's spontaneous and near-unanimous resolve to do everything in their power to abet the failure of the revolutionary project would have toppled the regime long ago if the Revolution had ever relied on domestic sources for its survival. In fact, it never has. The Cuban Revolution is not nationalistic in origin or trajectory. It is and has always been an international enterprise sponsored and sustained by foreigners.

Left to its own resources, it would not have survived under any guise but crumbled under the weight of the collective incompetence of it leaders and the resistance of the people. But it was never alone. The U.S., which installed Castro in power, has maintained him there for 49 and counting. If its nominal opposition favored the regime, the U.S. was there to provide it. If it did not, the U.S. was ready to dispense with any opposition. When Castro said the embargo was meaningless and proclaimed loudly to the world that Cuba did not need the U.S. for anything, the U.S. obliged by maintaining the embargo. When Soviet subsidies stopped and Castro blamed all of Cuba's problems on the embargo, the U.S. relaxed and eventually gutted the embargo to oblige him.

At the most crucial moment in Cuban history, with Castro posed to obliterate the island in what amounted to the first recorded case of "suicide by cop," the U.S., again, blinked. Rather than undertake the removal of the cause of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Americans were content merely to barter for the withdrawal of the instrumentalities. The Kennedy-Khrushchev pact was purchased at the price of our country's perpetual oppression, for JFK, after betraying us at the Bay of Pigs, agreed to make the U.S. the guarantor of Communism in Cuba, in effect ceding our country to the Soviet Union much as Great Britain had ceded Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany in 1938. Yet the same act of betrayal, which is a source of shame for Britain today, has long been held to be the finest moment in U.S. statecraft. Some nations, it would appear, are more expendable than others.

The Soviet Union underwrote the Cuban Revolution for nearly 30 years, which no doubt contributed to its own economic collapse and hastened the end of Communism in Eastern Europe. It did not, however, bring freedom to the Cuban people. Others were ready and even anxious to take Russia's place. China and all the Western nations, in fact, did their bit to perpetuate Castro's rule. Canada and Spain, which with Mexico have always endeavored to undermine the interests of the U.S. by their support of Castro, resurrected Cuba's tourism industry as the panacea that would save the Cuban Revolution. Despite defaulting on all its foreign obligations and a more than 20-year hiatus on servicing its foreign debt, Communist Cuba was never cut off but continued to be the beneficiary of what amounted to subsidies from countries that periodically purported to deplore its human rights abuses but still underwrote Castro's rule. Even Third World countries have subsidized Castro by contracting for the services of his slaves. This would not have sufficed to sustain the regime if a historical anomaly called Hugo Chávez had not come to Castro's rescue in the hope of some day replacing him.

If Barack Obama is elected president, the Cuban Revolution shall have a new lease on life. The unnecessary sacrifices it has inflicted on the Cuban people will be rewarded in a measure that shall surpass Castro's fondest expectations. The wait has been long, but not a difficult one for the Cuban hierarchy, which always placed their creature comforts before the necessities of the Cuban people. Now they are to be confirmed in all their prerogatives by the United States and accorded not only recognition but vindication. The surrender of the U.S., without prior conditions, has always been Castro's goal and the only terms acceptable to him. Obama has announced that he will negotiate with Castro unconditionally. I am sure that this promise is the only thing that is keeping Fidel alive.

If instead of abetting Castro for nearly 50 years, the U.S. and the rest of the world had opposed his rule, the efforts of the Cuban people to undermine his regime by what amounts to the longest sustained period of passive resistance in history -- the only resistance open to Cubans -- would have liberated them without firing one shot. But that kind of worldwide effort was reserved for another pariah state, South Africa, which, incidentally, is now engaged in the systematic slaughter, almost amounting to genocide, of all foreigners in their country (no, not the whites, but 3 million blacks refugees from Zimbabwe and other African countries).

For Cuba to be free again, the world must not engage Cuba; it must quit Cuba. It is that simple. If in the last half-century the Cuban Revolution has proved anything other than its depravity, it has shown, beyond a doubt, that it is completely unequipped to survive on its own. The Cuban people have done everything in their power to contribute to their own liberation by undermining the system that oppresses them. But that will never be enough while the rest of the world, including the U.S., is complicit in their enslavement.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obama to Raul: "I wish I could quit you"
(Brokeback Mountain rehash)

Manuel A.Tellechea said...

Charlie:

I think one of the great personal tragedies of Obama's life is that he "missed out" on communing with a fully-sentient Fidel.

If the only pre-condition Obama had set for visiting Cuba were that Fidel would have to meet him at the airport, they would have dragged him out, in whatever state of decomposition, like those crooks in New York who tried to cash a dead man's social security check with the dead man in tow in a shopping cart.

But Raúl will certainly make it up to Obama. In fact, Obama could become Raúl's Elián and the last ilusión of his life. As for Obama, isn't he in need of another "mentor?"

Vana said...

The world will never quit Cuba, that's our misfortune, when there is no more Hugo someone else will take his place, looks like Obama is willing and able if he's elected. We are doomed!

Manuel A.Tellechea said...

Vana:

Very succinctly put and very right. The world does want our country. I don't think that any other land has been more covetted than ours by more countries over a longer period of time (except maybe Israel).

Sharpshooter said...

Vana,
don't sweat the samll stuff. Obama is not going to get elected in Nov. He is going the way of John Kerry, Mike Dukakis et al.
The fact that he has won in mostly white states does not mean athing because when push comes to shove they will vote for him. He is carrying a lot of dirt in his traveling bag and is mostly from Jeremiah Wright. McCain needs to challenge him on foreign policy and US security and pin him down on these 2 issues bringing them up constantly and he is doomed to lose in November.

Sharpshooter said...

Sorry for the typo.
I meant to say "because when push comes to shove they will NOT vote for him".
It must be the age factor catching up with me!

Vana said...

That's our biggest problem, the world wants the most beautiful land that human eyes ever beheld, I would call it mal de ojo, la tienen salada.

Sharpshooter said...

Vana,
take a look at this video about the likely nominee of the Democratic Party. It is very interesting and it should be sent to all of our friends. It is pretty scary and it shows Barack Hussein Obama in a new light, so to speak.

http://www.eyeblast.tv/Public/Video.aspx?rsrcID=2036

Ms Calabaza said...

Wow! Talk about luck? If Obama wins, Cuba lucks out yet again . . . amazing.

By the way, off subject but I just heard Sen. Ted Kennedy has a brain tumor.

Anonymous said...

Manuel, great articles on Cuba. What a tragedy. Manuel is there any way of cantacting you by email?

Manuel A.Tellechea said...

Anonymous:

My e-mail is my name:

manuel@tellechea.com

Yes, that really is my e-mail.

Fulano de Cal said...

Yes, the world should quit Cuba. They should quit thinking that they know what is best for Cuba. Especially other Latinos, they like to tell me how Cuba "should" be. My reply: "well, you are not Cuban, we Cubans will decide what we want."

Manuel A.Tellechea said...

ms. calabaza:

Yes, malignant brain cancer, which is as close to a medical death sentence as there is in this world.

At least one of Senator Kennedy's brothers was assassinated at the orders of Fidel Castro. On that level I will always empathize with him and his family, though I despised JFK more than any man who ever lived except Castro.

Although Ted Kennedy was never a Castro sympathizer and in recent years has become one of the regime's most vocal critics in the senate, his opposition still fell short of what one would expect from a man whose brother was murdered by him. He should also have tried to stop John Jr. and Caroline Kennedy from paying court to Castro. (Could they actually have thought that meeting their father's killer brought them closer to him?).

Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama may turn out to be the most calamitous act committed by any member of the Kennedy clan in 75 years of damaging America's (and Cuba's) interests. Worse than the Bay of Pigs; worse than the Kennedy-Khrushchev pact; worse than his father's shilling for Hitler.

Still, we wish him well and hope for a miracle, which is the only thing that can save him now. Our gripe was never with him or his family.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the email.

Angel Garzón said...

Mr. Tellechea, the U.S.A. has a vested interest in doing everything that can possibly be done in a covert fashion to maintain the Cuba boogeyman (Cuba's ruling elite) in power, while overtly maintaining a charade replete with peaks and valleys of purported opposition to it as public policy. The longer that such a charade is maintained, the more entrenched the necessity to keep it going, for the danger to the U.S.A.'s reputation as a leader of the free world would either crumble, or at the very least, become seriously affected internationally and would implode domestically, under the weight of the truth that would be exposed if Cuba becomes a free and democratic republic, a plurality of the citizenry of the U.S.A. would be highly upset with the establishment if these truths are exposed.

Manuel A.Tellechea said...

angel garzón:

It is undoubtedly true that the U.S. prefers the status quo in Cuba to a volatile situation which it might not be able to manage to its advantage. It has vetoed freedom for the Cuban for nearly 50 years and can conceive of no other option.

Ms Calabaza said...

Bush to speak about Cuba tomorrow . . . parole, parole, parole . . . parole, parole, parole

Vana said...

Ms C:

I'm sick and tired of Bush speaking about Cuba, yet doing nothing for her, he has made it harder on us the exiles for 8 long years to help our familiy let alone visit them, he has tightened the noose harder on that poor unfortunate island than Clinton, I'm sick of his speaches, words that's all empty words.

Manuel A.Tellechea said...

Vana:

Words, words, words, signifying nothing, and with each passing year less and less.

Ms Calabaza said...

Vana,
I'm tired of Cuban-Americans being used this way by the Republcan Party. Until CA's demand respect and action, they will continue to used as a bunch of willing "props" standing there applauding the usual Viva Cuba Libre stuff they've been spouting for years. How reliable these props are . . . foolish really.

Manuel A.Tellechea said...

ms. calabaza:

And yet they always work, kind of like some old jokes.