The war on the West is undeclared, but is already being fought in Israel and Ukraine

"The era of dictatorships and totalitarian systems has not ended at all. It may have ended in a traditional form as we know it from the 20th century, but new, far more sophisticated ways of controlling society are being born. It requires alertness, carefulness, caution, study and a detached view." - Václav Havel, "Freedom and Its Enemies" November 14, 2009.

On February 20, 2014 Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and seized Crimea. Eight years later, on February 24, 2022, Moscow began a new offensive to seize all of Ukraine, but unlike in Crimea, Russian troops were unable to achieve their new objective due to armed Ukrainian resistance.

The war continues to rage today, and Moscow has brought in troops and soldiers from around the world..

Nearly 20,000 Cubans have joined the Russian army since February 2022, with the complicity of the dictatorship in Havana, to fight for Putin in Ukraine. The Islamic regime in Iran began shipping drones to attack Ukraine in 2022, and first confirmed use of of these Iranian weapons was on September 13, 2022.  North Korean troops engaged in combat, on behalf of Moscow, in Ukraine on November 4, 2024. There are also unverified reports of Chinese troops and weapons being involved in the war backing Moscow in Ukraine.

Equally disturbing are the links between Cuba and Iran, and their decades long hostility against the United States.

In a transmittal letter accompanying the Defense Department’s May 1998 report,The Cuban Threat to U.S. National Security, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen wrote to the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee: ‘‘I remain concerned about Cuba’s potential to develop and produce biological agents, given its bio-technology infrastructure. In its public Executive Summary, the report stated,"Cuba’s current scientific facilities and expertise could support an offensive BW [bioweapons] program in at least the research and development stage.

Cuba’s biotechnology industry is one of the most advanced in emerging countries and would be capable of producing BW agents.’’In the October 2001 issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, Jose de la Fuente,the former director of research and development at Cuba’s premier Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, wrote he was ‘‘profoundly disturbed’’ that Cuba was selling to Iran technology that could be used to produce biochemical weapons. He wrote, ‘‘No one believes that Iran is interested in these technologies for the purpose of protecting all the children in the Middle East from hepatitis, or treating their people with cheap streptokinase when they suffer sudden cardiac arrest . . .."

During a May 2001 visit to Tehran, Fidel Castro proclaimed,"Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees." 

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, during a speech at the Imam Khomeini Mosque in Tehran in 2015, said Israel "will not see (the end) of these 25 years.”  This was just after the nuclear deal between Iran in which they agreed to cut its uranium stockpile. 

On October 7, 2023, Hamas, an Iranian proxy, invaded Israel killing 1,200, and taking hundreds of hostages. Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy, began firing rockets into Israel.   

China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba are creating an alternative world order hostile to Western democracies and the rule of law.  

There are two options. The first is to recognize the challenge, and develop intelligent strategies to counter it within a framework of Western alliances or secondly, ignore it, and pretend there is no threat and surrender to the new configuration of anti-democratic forces. The first is not without risk, but the latter guarantees servitude to tyranny.

However, with the first, there is an alternative to war. Cuban and Venezuelan freedom activists have made the case for it. Nazanin Boniadi, an Iranian-born human rights activist, actress, and 2023 Sydney Peace Laureate, made the same case in an OpEd published in Time today.

For decades, many of us pleaded with world leaders: reject both appeasement and war with the Islamic Republic. There was another path—to strangle the regime and empower the people. Few chose it. Too many asked the question, “Do the people of Iran really want change?” as if they did not hear waves of Iranian protestors chant, “Death to the dictator” and “Death to Khamenei” on the streets. Perhaps now—as these cries echo from the rooftops of Tehran, even under the specter of war—they will finally listen.

Ronald Reagan in his 1964 speech "A Time for Choosing" made the case plainly between the options of resistance and appeasement. "There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace - and you can have it in the next second - surrender," said the future 40th President of the United States. 

Underestimating Cuba and Russia in Venezuela and the failure of Neo-Appeasement

 "The United States and Cuba are talking about ways to solve the Venezuelan crisis." - Secretary of State John Kerry, August 14, 2015

Nicolas Maduro meets with Secretary of State Kerry in Colombia in 2016

Originally posted in CubaBrief
 
Five years ago, the then Secretary of State John Kerry before heading to Cuba on August 14, 2015 in an interview with Argentine journalist Andres Oppenheimer stated that "the United States and Cuba are talking about ways to solve the Venezuelan crisis."

The situation in Venezuela continued to worsen, and the presence of the Castro regime only served to aggravate the situation in the South American country.  Six months after Secretary Kerry announced that the Castro regime and the Obama Administration were seeking to solve the crisis in Venezuela opposition lawmakers declared a food emergency in February 2015. Despite the thaw with the Cuban dictatorship and efforts to engage the Maduro regime, the Obama Administration was accused by the Venezuelan dictator of being responsible for the country's instability.  In July 2016 reports emerged of food riots were the police were shooting into hungry crowds.

Ten years ago the Obama Administration, together with other countries in the region, ignoring the Democratic clause of the Organization of American States welcomed the Castro regime back into the democratic regional body in June 2009. Raul Castro was not interested because the dictator preferred to strongly back, what he called, "the legitimate government of President Nicolas Maduro," and denounced the OAS.

This was part of an overall foreign policy by the Obama Administration that Dr. José Azel in an important April 24, 2015 article published in El Nuevo Herald titled "The Resurrection of Neville Chamberlain" outlined and identified the policy's architect. The Obama Doctrine was first addressed by Charles A. Kupchan in 2001, and fully fleshed out in his 2010 book,  How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace. Charles A. Kupchan, currently a professor at Georgetown University, served as special assistant to President Obama for national security affairs from 2014 to 2017. Dr.Azel summarized Dr. Kupchan's approach into four phases:

It must begin, according to Kupchan, by making concessions to our enemies in an act of “unilateral accommodation.” These concessions must be “unusual and costly” to signal benign intent. [...] The second phase entails the practice of “reciprocal restraint” where the adversary nations walk away from rivalry, peace breaks out, and geopolitical competition gives way to cooperation.[...] “Social integration” and “the generation of new narratives and identities” are the third and fourth phases of Kupchan’s sequence towards stable peace.

This approach was a failure in Russia, Cuba and Iran. The abandonment of deterrence and sanctions for a policy of neo-appeasement led the world to greater instability, the humanitarian and political crisis in Venezuela and the deaths of Americans.

Neo-appeasement failed with these three tyrants.

Today the current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo understands that Cuba is part of the problem, and not a partner to talk with about solving the Venezuelan crisis. On January 2, 2020 the Secretary of State announced that the United States had sanctioned "Cuba regime official Leopoldo Cintra Frias for his involvement in gross violations of human rights and use of violence to prop up the former Maduro regime in Venezuela."

Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams on January 6, 2020 stated that “[w]e underestimated the importance of the Cuban and Russian support for the regime, which has proved I think to be the two most important pillars of support for the regime and without which it wouldn’t be there, it wouldn’t be in power.”

Thankfully, the team at the State Department today understands the role played by Cuba, and Russia in Venezuela and have returned to an approach that uses sanctions and deterrence.


Bloomberg, January 6, 2020

U.S. ‘Underestimated’ the Importance of Russia and Cuba to Maduro

By Nick Wadhams

President Nicolas Maduro Photographer: Carolina Cabral Fernandez/Bloomberg

 The U.S. has underestimated Russia and Cuba’s ability to prop up the Venezuelan regime, envoy Elliott Abrams told reporters, acknowledging frustration that President Nicolas Maduro has clung to power despite a pressure campaign to oust him.

Russian companies now handle more than 70% of Venezuela’s oil, including in ship-to-ship transfers, and the beleaguered nation’s economy has become more dependent on Moscow generally, Abrams said at a briefing on Monday.

The briefing was held as another political crisis unfolded in Venezuela, with opposition leader Juan Guaido and a Maduro-backed rival both announcing plans to open a session of the National Assembly after security forces had barred Guaido from the building.

U.S. officials have previously criticized Russia and what Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has dubbed Venezuela’s “Cuban Communist overlords” for their support of Maduro, who has remained in office despite harsh sanctions and as the oil-rich nation has descended into chaotic destitution and millions of Venezuelans have fled in desperation.

“We underestimated the importance of the Cuban and Russian support for the regime, which has proved I think to be the two most important pillars of support for the regime and without which it wouldn’t be there, it wouldn’t be in power,” Abrams said.

He had organized the briefing to underscore U.S. support for Guaido after Maduro’s security forces prevented his re-election as leader. Instead, Luis Parra, a former opposition legislator now allied with Maduro, took over Guaido’s Assembly office.

Earlier: Venezuela Congressional Showdown Looms After Maduro Maneuver

That move earned the scorn of most of Latin America including the leftist governments of Argentina, Mexico and Uruguay. Guaido won re-election in an off-site vote, garnering felicitations from the U.S. and other allies who have said that he is the country’s rightful leader.

Vice President Mike Pence congratulated Guaido in a telephone call on Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Pence reaffirmed that Guaido is the legitimate president, the person said.

“Obviously, if the regime had had the votes, it would not have ordered soldiers to keep elected deputies out of the National Assembly,” Abrams said. “This is a struggle against a regime that as we saw yesterday will do anything to prevent the return of democracy.”

Abrams said the U.S. was weighing new ways to support Guaido and was also considering new sanctions against the Maduro government.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-06/u-s-underestimated-importance-of-russia-cuba-to-maduro

In case you missed it.

El Nuevo Herald, April 24, 2015 

The Resurrection of Neville Chamberlain*

By José Azel

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain died in 1940, but his failed foreign policy of appeasing the enemies of democratic governance has been resurrected. The current incarnation of the appeasement approach to foreign policy- which I am labeling neo-appeasement- is best articulated by professor Charles Kupchan of Georgetown University in his book: How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace.

The exploration of unconventional ideas is a hallmark of academic work, and professor Kupchan’s scholarship may offer theoretical insights into the study of international relations. But international relations are not in the domain of the physical sciences where benign laboratory experimentation can take place without negatively impacting the lives of millions of individuals. Social science experimentation, of the kind offered by Kupchan, is best kept in the Ivory Tower- preferably under lock and key- where we can argue its merits to the point of nausea without imperiling lives.

Unfortunately, Kupchan’s hypotheses have moved with him to the U.S. National Security Council where he serves as senior director for European affairs and his neo-appeasement appears to be in full display in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy. He asserts as much in the first chapter of his book noting that: “The Obama administration clearly believes that enemies can become friends.”

So what is the professor’s and the administration’s road map for turning enemies into friends?

The neo-appeasement prescription entails a sequential four-phased process. It must begin, according to Kupchan, by making concessions to our enemies in an act of “unilateral accommodation.” These concessions must be “unusual and costly” to signal benign intent. I imagine this is what Prime Minister Chamberlain had in mind when he conceded the German speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler in the Munich Agreement of 1938.

The second phase entails the practice of “reciprocal restraint” where the adversary nations walk away from rivalry, peace breaks out, and geopolitical competition gives way to cooperation. This must have been Hitler’s mindset when Germany occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia six months after the Munich Agreement, and followed with the invasion of Poland in 1939 unleashing World War II.

“Social integration” and “the generation of new narratives and identities” are the third and fourth phases of Kupchan’s sequence towards stable peace. He and President Obama believe that deepened transactions between adversaries somehow lead them to change their identities and the “distinctions between self and other erode, giving way to communal identities and a shared sense of solidarity.”

I cannot tell if this assertion is naïve or just plain silly, but let’s hold on to it for a paragraph or two as we explore another troubling thesis of the professor’s work where he argues that democracy is not necessary for stable peace. In his view, the United States should assess whether countries are enemies or friends based on their diplomacy (that is, on what they say) and not on the nature of their domestic institutions-what they do.

I suppose this explains the administration’s diplomatic choices in marginalizing friendly democratic allies like Israel and appeasing hostile repressive regimes like Russia, Iran and Cuba.

Democracies do not usually go to war with each other, and recognizing that democracies will have enemies is not synonymous with being bellicose. Polity matters and we should not seek, as neo-appeasement prescribes, a communal identity and a shared sense of solidarity, with the likes of supreme leaders Ali Khamenei, Kim Jung-un, Vladimir Putin, or Raul Castro.

Neo-appeasement seems to be the intellectual foundation of the administration’s foreign policy. Under its banner we accommodated Putin’s occupation of Georgian territory, just as Chamberlain accommodated Hitler. We gave up our missile defense plans in Eastern Europe; we may have delayed, but ultimately accepted, Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon, and the President is using his executive power to unconditionally normalize relations with the Cuban regime. Mind you, this is a regime that in 1962 urged the Soviet Union to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on the United States with missiles from Cuba.

When challenged on his foreign policy, the President is cavalier in dismissing historical experience by repeatedly noting that “he is not interested in having battles that started before he was born,” intimating that world peace hinges on a calculus of before and after Obama’s birth.

In resurrecting Chamberlains’ approach of appeasing the mortal enemies of democratic governance, the President would do well to humbly ponder Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana’s admonishment that: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
_________________________________________________

*Dr. José Azel is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, University of Miami and the author of the book “Mañana in Cuba”.

Cost of Appeasement: Cuban troops marching in parade threaten to shoot U.S. President in the head

“Obama! Obama! with what fervor we’d like to confront your clumsiness, to give you a cleansing with rebels and mortar, and send you a hat of lead to the head.” - Marching troops at parade presided over by Raúl Castro, January 2, 2017

The Dictator and The President

Nine months after President Obama's state visit to Cuba (March 20 - 22, 2016) on January 2, 2017 Raúl Castro presided over a military parade in Havana where marching troops chanted about shooting the American President in the head: 

"Obama! Obama! con cuanto fervor quisiera enfrentarme a tu torpeza para hacerte una limpieza con rebeldes y morteros y voy a mandarte un sobrero de plomo para la cabeza."

Watch and listen to the soldiers chanting in the video below taken on January 2, 2016 starting at :59 seconds to hear the above that literally translates to English as follows:

“Obama! Obama! with what fervor we’d like to confront your clumsiness, to give you a cleansing with rebels and mortar, and send you a hat of lead to the head.”

Some are surprised by this, but it was predictable. Raul Castro is a bully. Two years prior to the military parade I wrote the following:

Like North Korea, the regime in Cuba is a bully and as anyone knows from the school yard when you appease a bully all you accomplish is to encourage more bullying behavior because it has been rewarded. Unfortunately, the history of the Castro regime demonstrates that it mistakes engagement with passivity and weakness then acts accordingly in its own interests.

The Obama Doctrine, first addressed by Charles A. Kupchan in 2001, and fully fleshed out in his 2010 book,  How Enemies Become Friends The Sources of Stable Peace  advocates "talking to the enemy", "unilateral accommodation" setting the stage for "reciprocal restraint." Now when one government is making "unilateral accommodations" and the other side is declaring victory and maintaining an aggressive posture the end result can be counterproductive.  The Obama administration followed this approach in Cuba with unilateral concessions ( repeated loosening of sanctions,  removing Cuba from the list of terror sponsors, freeing Castro spy serving life for murder conspiracy, watering down its report on human trafficking, marginalizing dissidents) and what are the end results of this appeasement policy?

The Obama Administration's Cuba policy has coincided with a collapse in trade between the two countries, and a worsening human rights situation in the island nation. The last year of the Obama Administration (2016) saw 200.3 million dollars in U.S. trade in goods with Cuba which is lower than the 711.5 million in U.S. trade in goods with Cuba in the last year of the Bush Administration (2008). However there has been an increase in violent repression with the extrajudicial killings of high profile opposition leaders, such as Oswaldo Payá. Politically motivated arbitrary detentions rose from 1,500 in the last year of the Bush Administration (2008) to  9,940 arbitrary detentions in the last year of the Obama Administration (2016). This worsening situation in Cuba is also reflected in an increase in Cubans fleeing the island. In 2008 there were slightly more than 10,000 visaless Cubans entering the United States compared to 46,635 visaless Cubans entering the United States in the first ten months of 2016.

There is a realistic alternative to both war and appeasement that can be found in nonviolent resistance but sadly the Obama administration went the route of appeasement that in the past has often, tragically, led to war.

Why are some folks not blessing Obama's trips to Cuba and Vietnam?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. - Matthew 5:9

Reverend King has the answer to the question

David Beeson over twitter asked an important question: "Blessed are the peacemakers, we're told. Obama has been to Cuba and now to Vietnam. So why aren't his Bible-thumping critics blessing him?"

The trip to Vietnam is still ongoing, but there are already shadows on the visit that would give peacemakers pause. First rescinding a decades-old ban on sales of lethal military equipment to Vietnam is not a nonviolent act or the action of a peacemaker. The response by China, warning the White House to not spark a “regional tinderbox” is ominous pointing to an arms race or even conflict.

In answering the question with a focus on the Cuba half  there have been a couple of months since the visit and time to further reflect on it.

First, since the December 17, 2014 announcement by President Obama and General Castro the level of repression in Cuba has grown exponentially.

Secondly, Christian Solidarity Worldwide has compiled figures that  reveal a tenfold increase in religious repression in Cuba with 2,300 separate violations recorded in 2015 compared to 220 in 2014.

Cuban Americans warned that this would happen in an open letter in February of 2015 published in The Washington Post but were completely shut out and ignored.

Furthermore, the Obama administration signed off with Carnival on an agreement with the Castro regime that discriminated against Cuban Americans that prompted mass protests.

Obama in Cuba and in Vietnam being photographed in front of communist icons

Lastly, the visit to Cuba in and of itself had some very troubling aspects that could prolong the life of the dictatorship and send the wrong message internationally on the figure of Che Guevara. Within the context of the Cuba visit being photographed in front of the Ministry of the Interior with image of the Argentine guerilla in the background is unfortunate.

Now in Vietnam, President Obama is photographed in front of the statue of the murderous Ho Chi Minh. That the U.S. ambassador would also be hanging out in the Vietnamese regime's Ministry of Public Security in a smiling photo opportunity with the head of that organization, despite that buildings history of persecuting and torturing dissidents, is again unfortunate.

Vietnam’s Minister of Public Security To Lam and US Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius

The Obama administration's Cuba policy has reduced tensions between the United States and Cuba but it has not addressed the presence of injustice or the fact that it has increased during this time of reduced tension. The failure of this policy can be measured by the tens of thousands of Cubans voting with their feet and leaving the island. This is a dramatic increase over previous years and can only be compared with other attempts to reach an accommodation with the Castro regime.

It is important to recall that the United States lifted economic sanctions on Vietnam on February 3, 1994 and normalized relations on July 11, 1995. Twenty two years later the Obama administration has opened the sale of weapons to Vietnam, but unlike in Cuba that still has economic sanctions, President Obama was not able to meet with Vietnamese dissidents in a scheduled meeting.

Ending sanctions reduces leverage and normalizing relations with abnormal regimes such as Vietnam and Cuba leads the United States in being complicit with the injustice taking place there. Perhaps that is why some Americans guided by biblical principles are so upset.

Human Rights Watch's Kenneth Roth tweeted the following caricature summing up President Obama's visit to Vietnam.

Sadly, this pretty much sums up Obama's lifting the Vietnam arms embargo for no real progress on human rights. pic.twitter.com/EmXTFZs3Vu

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) May 24, 2016

There is an alternative and it is the road less traveled of nonviolence which has a great record of success. Unfortunately, neither the Bush policy of preemptive wars or the Obama policy of neo-appeasement follows this path.

Non-violent Resistance: The razor's edge to a lasting peace

"The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard." - W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge (1944)

Figure copied from this page

The Bush Doctrine, first proposed by Paul Wolfowitz in 1992, and declared U.S. foreign policy in 2002 in a National Security Strategy (NSS) document summarized in the Frontline program, The War Behind Closed Doors:

America will exploit its military and economic power to encourage "free and open societies." It states for the first time that the U.S. will never allow its military supremacy to be challenged as it was during the Cold War. And the NSS insists that when America's vital interests are at stake, it will act alone, if necessary.

 Applying this doctrine in the Middle East created more chaos and new threats to American national security combined with a debate over torture and "enhanced interrogation techniques" that negatively impacted the soft power of the United States and the Western world in general. It was a disaster.

The Obama Doctrine, first addressed by Charles A. Kupchan in 2001, and fully fleshed out in his 2010 book,  How Enemies Become Friends The Sources of Stable Peace was summarized by José Azel in the critical May 6, 2015 article The Resurrection of Neville Chamberlain into four steps:

It must begin, according to Kupchan, by making concessions to our enemies in an act of “unilateral accommodation.” These concessions must be “unusual and costly” to signal benign intent. [...] The second phase entails the practice of “reciprocal restraint” where the adversary nations walk away from rivalry, peace breaks out, and geopolitical competition gives way to cooperation.[...] “Social integration” and “the generation of new narratives and identities” are the third and fourth phases of Kupchan’s sequence towards stable peace.

Kupchan in a April 2011 article in Friedrich Ebert Stiftung attempts to refute the charge that this policy is a version of neo-appeasement arguing:

It follows that talking to the enemy is not appeasement  – as is often claimed by engagement’s critics – but, under the right circumstances, good diplomacy. To be sure,  the effort to pursue diplomatic accommodation with an  adversary may not work. The target state may refuse to  reciprocate the initiator’s signals of benign intent, ensuring that confrontation continues.

The trouble with Kupchan's argument is that what he is advocating goes well beyond "talking to the enemy" into what he describes as "unilateral accommodation" setting the stage for "reciprocal restraint." Now when one government is making "unilateral accommodations" and the other side is declaring victory and maintaining an aggressive posture in the real world, while talking the talk of accommodation in diplomatic exchanges, it does share a disturbing similarity to appeasement policies of the 1930s that did not lead to peace but was a precursor to a major war that claimed tens of millions of lives. This approach tries to ignore the underlying conflict and hope that diplomacy will succeed in redefining the relationship. President Ronald Reagan in 1983 gave a powerful refutation of this approach stating:

".... I urge you to beware the temptation ..., to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of any evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil."

Both foreign policies have not and will not serve the just interests of the United States because they fail to navigate the narrow path, the razor's edge, to a lasting peace. The last American presidency that avoided a major war and made inroads to peace, that led to the dismantling of nuclear weapons for the first time, was Ronald Reagan. The policy pursued in Eastern Europe and with the Soviet Union was one of engagement, but it also succeeded by recognizing the underlying conflict and ideological differences behind it. The Reagan administration used economic sanctions, and the bully pulpit to denounce the crackdown on the Solidarity movement in Poland. Although the Solidarity Movement was a home grown and spontaneous nonviolent movement international solidarity and sanctions protesting the movement's repression helped.

Gene Sharp in 2003 published a monograph There Are Realistic Alternatives that recognizes the underlying nature of conflict and its desirability:

It is important to recognize that conflict in society and politics is inevitable and, in many cases, desirable.  Some conflicts can be resolved by mild methods, such as negotiation, dialogue, and conciliation—methods that involve compromise.  These are feasible when the issues at stake are not fundamental.  Even then, the resolution of a conflict by negotiation is more often influenced by the relative power capacities of the contenders than by reasoned joint assessment of where justice lies. However, in many conflicts fundamental issues are, or are believed to be, at stake.  These are “acute conflicts.”  They are not deemed suitable for any resolution that involves compromise. In acute conflicts at least one side regards it as necessary and good to wage the conflict against hostile opponents. 

 The end of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991 was achieved primarily through nonviolent means. Ironically, the one country that descended into a blood bath, Romania, and saw its transition to democracy delayed was the one in which engagement with the dictatorship was maintained. Gene Sharp, unlike the amoral realpolitik of Henry Kissinger recognizes that there is a moral dimension that cannot be ignored:

It is unreasonable to aim for a “win- win” resolution.  Brutal dictators and perpetrators of genocide do not deserve to win anything. We have many decades of evidence that violence in the conduct of conflicts is not eliminated by protests against such violence. In acute conflicts, the majority of people will not reject war and other violence because they believe, or are told, that such violence violates ethical or religious principles.  Adherence to expectations to the contrary is unrealistic. [...] There has to be a substitute means of conducting the conflict powerfully with the chance of success equivalent to or greater than the violent option. Of necessity, such a functional alternative must be able to deal satisfactorily with the “hard cases” for which violence has in the past been believed to be required.  These “hard cases” include conflicts against dictatorships, foreign invasions and occupations, internal usurpations, oppression, attempted genocide, and mass expulsions and killings.

Professor Sharp goes on to offer an alternative that walks the narrow path to a lasting peace using the means of nonviolent resistance:

In a great variety of situations, across centuries and cultural barriers, another technique of struggle has at times been applied.  This other technique has not been based on turning the other cheek, but on the ability to be stubborn and to resist powerful opponents powerfully. Throughout human history, in a multitude of conflicts one side has fought - not by violence, but - by psychological, social, economic, or political methods, or a combination of these.  This type of conflict has been waged not only when the issues were relatively limited and the opponents relatively decent.  Many times this alter- native form of struggle has been applied when fundamental  issues have been at stake and when ruthless opponents have been willing and able to apply extreme repression.  That repression has included executions, beatings, arrests, imprisonments, and mass slaughters. Despite such repression, when the resisters have persisted in fighting with only their chosen nonviolent weapons, they have some- times triumphed. This technique is called nonviolent action or nonviolent struggle.  This is “the other ultimate sanction.”  In acute conflicts it potentially can serve as an alternative to war and other violence.

 Furthermore over the course of the past century nonviolent action has proven, not only to be an effective method of struggle especially against the most brutal of dictatorships, but more effective than violent action. This is the third way, that neither engages in preemptive wars or appeasing brutal tyrants, and is the best hope to a world of freedom and justice which is necessary for a lasting peace. Today, Americans have an opportunity to influence the future of U.S. foreign policy along this path with the Global Magnitsky Act that holds torturers and kleptocrats accountable nonviolently through targeted sanctions.

Figure taken from the Vernal Project

Freedom in the World 2015: A Reflection on the Freedom House Report

"I am an irrepressible optimist, but I always base my optimism on solid facts." - Mohandas Gandhi 

Freedom House in its 2015 reports distressing news: for the past nine years freedom has been in retreat around the world. According to Freedom House: 

"More aggressive tactics by authoritarian regimes and an upsurge in terrorist attacks contributed to a disturbing decline in global freedom in 2014, according to Freedom in the World 2015, Freedom House’s annual report on the condition of political rights and civil liberties."

In concrete terms of the 195 countries Freedom House assessed: 89 (46 percent) were rated Free, 55 (28 percent) Partly Free, and 51 (26 percent) Not Free. Less than half the world is currently living in freedom.

On two previous occasion addressing the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy in 2010 and again in 2013 the global deterioration of human rights has also been painfully evident and reflected upon. A possible answer was ventured citing the martyred Cuban democratic opposition activist, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who when awarded the Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought on December 17, 2002 observed that:

“The cause of human rights is a single cause, just as the people of the world are a single people. The talk today is of globalization, but we must state that unless there is global solidarity, not only human rights but also the right to remain human will be jeopardized.”

 Although this is part of the answer, it is not the complete answer. Over the past decade two approaches towards confronting grave injustices have been tried and found wanting: war with and/or appeasement of tyrants.

Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya to overthrow cruel and unjust regimes have led into spirals of violence that have destabilized entire regions making the situation worse. On the other hand cruel and unjust regimes such as North Korea, the Peoples Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Vietnam and now in Cuba have and continue to be appeased out of fear, greed, and perceived self interests. 

In either case human rights has worsened. Neither has worked.

The one approach that has achieved progress over the past century and when failing has not worsened the situation compared to what existed before is nonviolent resistance.  Resisting injustice without committing new injustices or accepting existing injustices to avoid new challenges or losses in the profit and loss column. Tragically in the case of Syria what was initially a nonviolent uprising shifted to violent resistance when elements of Assad's military defected to the opposition thinking it would speed up victory. It had the opposite effect. 

On February 24, 2015 the Seventh Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy will convene placing a spotlight on the kidnapping of nearly 300 girls by Boko Haram in Nigeria when one of the escaped students will speak out for the first time. She will be joined by dissidents from Iran, North Korea, Turkey, Ukraine and China. 

Speaking truth to power and engaging in effective nonviolent campaigns that topple entrenched dictatorships does not cost billions of dollars. Appeasing tyrants have generated great profits for industries in the past as has going to war against them. This is the tragedy of nonviolence but at the same time the great opportunity it provides to the powerless majority but the secret is that it requires training, learning tactics and having a strategy.
 

Remembering Gandhi 67 years after his assassination

Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities." - G.K. Chesterton What's Wrong With the World

Gandhi spinning cloth with a symbol of national resistance

67 years ago today Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated but his nonviolent legacy remains intact and continues to inspire others. Gandhi was assassinated on January 30, 1948 while on a walk at Birla Bhavan by Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse.  He was 78 years old at the time of his death. Below are ten quotes to read and reflect on from this nonviolent practitioner:

"No people have risen who thought only of rights. Only those did so who thought of duties."
 
"Appeasement has become a word of bad odor. In no case can there be any appeasement at the cost of honour. Real appeasement is to shed all fear and do what is right at any cost."

"I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power that can move the world." - Young India Journal, September 1920

"It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings."

"Terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong but of the weak."

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."

"A saint who considers himself superior to a sinner forfeits his sainthood and becomes worse than the sinner, who unlike the proud saint, knows not what he is doing."

"Centralization as a system is inconsistent with non-violent structure of society."

They say, 'means are, after all, means'. I would say, 'means are, after all, everything'. As the means so the end.

"The truth is that cowardice itself is violence of a subtle type and therefore dangerous and far more difficult to eradicate than the habit of physical violence." - Mohandas Gandhi

Appeasement has two definitions: One honorable and one dishonorable

"Appeasement has become a word of bad odor. In no case can there be any appeasement at the cost of honour. Real appeasement is to shed all fear and do what is right at any cost." - Mohandas Gandhi, 1945

"I do not believe that we can make progress in European appeasement if we allow the impression to gain currency abroad that we yield to constant pressure." - Anthony Eden, 21 February, 1938



The Obama Administration has shifted from a policy of sanctions on the Castro regime to one of yielding to constant pressure and undermining the rule of law which in concrete terms means losing national honor. Taking an American citizen and arbitrarily detaining him for five years while demanding the release of men who planned terrorist acts on U.S. soil and in the case of one was found guilty of conspiring in the murder four human beings is blackmail. Giving in to this dictatorship's demand is shameful. This is a description of what is popularly known as a policy of appeasement. This definition gained currency in the 1930s following the appeasement policy of the Chamberlain government to Hitler's Third Reich which was to "buy off (an aggressor) by concessions usually at the sacrifice of principles."

Winston Churchill in a speech in Harrow, England on October 29, 1941 provided an alternative: "Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense."

However, there is an older definition of appeasement that predates Chamberlain and is reflected in the quotes by Mohandas Gandhi and Anthony Eden at the top of the page. This older definition stretches back five centuries and means "to bring to peace, pacify, quiet, or settle."

Orwell's whose essay Politics and the English Language should be required reading to anyone writing in the English language also described in an appendix to his novel 1984 titled "The Principles of Newspeak" explained how words could become the opposite of their original meaning. This is apparently what took place with the word "appeasement."

The policy by the Chamberlain government towards Nazi Germany that led through giving into constant pressure and making immoral compromises laid the ground work for World War II is now known as appeasement. This culminated in the 1938 Munich Pact in which the British prime minister made a deal with Hitler in a series of meetings handing over territory of Czechoslovakia while giving the Czechs the option to accept the deal or face the Nazis on their own, ignoring previous security arrangements.

Winston Churchill reacted to Chamberlain's agreement with Hitler stating: "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."


Yet, as originally defined, in terms of actually achieving peace and settlement, as Gandhi described it above real appeasement "is to shed all fear and do what is right at any cost." This is the opposite of what Chamberlain did in his negotiations with the Nazi leader.

Tragically, it is also the opposite of what the Obama Administration has done in its negotiations with the Castro dictatorship. When democrats morally compromise themselves with tyrants it begins a process where everything is on the table including morality and national honor. Castro regime's new demands are out of a very old playbook.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain shakes hands with Hitler

US Administration's passivity has cost American citizen 3 years in a Cuban prison

Alan Gross before and after 3 years in a Cuban prison

There have been failures in protecting US lives and property under the Obama Administration as in the case of the Benghazi scandal in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans lost their lives which have garnered lots of press coverage.  But there is another case which is that of American Alan Gross, arrested on December 3, 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in a Cuban prison which has been spun into a debate around US sanctions on Cuba which is a failure in restoring the liberty of an unjustly imprisoned American citizen.

 On April 17, 2009 President Barack Obama said that his Administration sought "a new beginning with Cuba" and stated further that he was “prepared to have my administration engage with the Cuban government on a wide range of issues — from human rights, free speech, and democratic reform to drugs, migration, and economic issues.” Less than eight months later Alan Gross was taken hostage in Cuba. Nevertheless, the Administration continued its policy of unilateral concessions.

Several questions remain unanswered that are extremely troubling. First, why did this American citizen spend 25 days in a Havana jail before being visited by a U.S. diplomat? By that time Alan Gross had been approached by a Cuban “attorney” who just happened to be representing five Cuban spies imprisoned in the United States for espionage and conspiracy to commit murder against four US citizens and they had also planned terrorist actions on US soil. This Cuban attorney represented Alan Gross before his show trial and later appeals. Secondly, did anyone ask if their was not a conflict of interests by this attorney and considering that her clients work for the Cuban State Security agents, Thirdly, has anyone investigated whether or not she is also an employee of the Cuban clandestine services? Finally who advised the Gross family to maintain this individual as their legal representative?

Alan Gross’s supposed crime: Attempting to provide Internet access to the local Jewish community in Cuba is an internationally recognized right. The reality is that he is a hostage of the Castro regime to be used in pressuring concessions. The Obama Administration dangled several offers to the
Castro regime and made a unilateral concession: 

• Take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism.  
• Waive probation for one of five Cuban agents convicted of espionage in the United States that planned at least one terrorist attack in the United States and provided intelligence that led to the downing of two US civilian planes over international airspace on February 24, 1996 killing four
• Cuba democracy programs would no longer be about promoting democracy but "building civil society."
• The White House and Senator John Kerry pushed to unilaterally cut money for the Cuba democracy programs and freeze their funding. 

On the other side of the ledger the Cuban dictatorship did not suffer any repercussions for arbitrarily detaining a U.S. citizen.  Alan Gross remains incarcerated to this day and tomorrow, December 3, 2012 will mark his third year in captivity as a hostage of the Castro regime who is now explicitly calling for his exchange for five convicted Cuban spies.

The dictatorship in Cuba is criminal, but not irrational and if the Obama Administration's approach is one of all carrots and no stick then the regime will continue to collect concessions and hang on to their hostage until that changes. Meanwhile the Obama Administration will continue to harvest the bitter fruits of appeasement.

The bitter fruits of appeasement

Appeasing totalitarian tyrants has a long losing track record

Alan Gross: American held hostage in Cuba since 2009

While reading the September 15, 2011 New York Times article on what Governor Richardson and the Obama Administration were willing to offer the dictatorship in Cuba in order to obtain the release of American hostage Alan Gross, I had a sense of deja vu. The Administration dangled several offers to the Castro regime and made a unilateral concession:

• Take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
• Waive probation for one of five Cuban agents convicted of espionage in the United States that planned at least one terrorist attack in the United States and provided intelligence that led to the downing of two US civilian planes over international airspace on February 24, 1996 killing four.
• Cuba democracy programs would no longer be about promoting democracy but "building civil society."
• The White House and Senator John Kerry pushed to unilaterally cut money for the democracy programs and freeze their funding.

Now that these offers have failed, another is floated:

• Get the European Union to changes its common policy limiting relations with Cuba because of human rights concerns.

This policy approach has been tried before in Cuba, North Korea, Libya, China, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany with disastrous results. Historian Paul Kennedy has described "as the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be expensive, bloody, and possibly dangerous."

The approach has often failed when dealing with totalitarian regimes of the right and the left because they often refuse to maintain a clear eyed vision of who the adversary is. In the case of Nazi Germany this failure led to WWII, the Holocaust and over 40 million dead.

On the other hand consider for a moment the example of Ronald Reagan who in 1980 brought an end to the policies of appeasement and detente championed by the American political establishment. However, President Reagan did engage in dialogue and negotiation but with a sense of realism of who and what he was dealing with stating in 1983:

During my first press conference as President, in answer to a direct question, I pointed out that, as good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. I think I should point out I was only quoting Lenin, their guiding spirit, who said in 1920 that they repudiate all morality that proceeds from supernatural ideas -- that's their name for religion -- or ideas that are outside class conceptions. Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. And everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old, exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat.Well, I think the refusal of many influential people to accept this elementary fact of Soviet doctrine illustrates an historical reluctance to see totalitarian powers for what they are. We saw this phenomenon in the 1930's. We see it too often today.This doesn't mean we should isolate ourselves and refuse to seek an understanding with them.

Secondly he identified the adversary's ideological framework as morally repugnant in the same speech but separated their humanity from that framework:

Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness -- pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the Earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.

Because Reagan refused to mince words and had a clear eyed sense of the adversary and pursued policies in defense of American interests and values he achieved great successes without any major wars on his watch and millions were freed of decades of oppression. 

Since then, even those like George W. Bush, who claim to be the heirs of Reagan have fallen far short in what amounts to appeasement. The Bush Administration continued the policy of appeasement of the Clinton Administration on North Korea. In October of 2008 they took North Korea off the list of state sponsors of terrorism without any improvement in its behavior in an attempt to obtain a deal to stop the regime's nuclear weapons program. It only encouraged more aggressive behavior by North Korea that perceived the US concession as a sign of weakness. On the other hand, what was described as a great success in the Bush Administration, the normalization of relations with Libya is now a source of shame. Qaddafi's regime murdered hundreds of American citizens and despite that, in exchange for a pay out, were also taken off the list of state sponsors of terror and apparently collaborated with the torture of detainees sent there by the Bush Administration. In the case of China, the communist dictatorship receives US development aid to build "civil society" controlled by the dictatorship while dissidents are left in the cold to fend for themselves.

Now the Obama Administration continues this failed approach with Cuba and because of the perception of weakness projected to the totalitarians in Havana now has an American hostage that has been unjustly imprisoned since December 2009. If instead of making unilateral concessions in the first months of his presidency he had demonstrated an understanding of nature of the regime and its fundamental systemic immorality then Alan Gross would not be an American hostage in Cuba today.

Its not only government policy but also at the level of civil society. For example when the Latino and American Students Organization at American University invite the Cuban ambassador to speak in a propaganda exercise to white wash the crimes of Cuban state security agents that planned terrorist acts on US soil that sends a message of weakness and encourages these types of regimes to continue their activities in the United States.

Historically, the fruits of appeasement when practiced with ideologically committed totalitarian regimes have been extremely bitter. De-linking human rights concerns from overall policy concerns has been a disaster for human rights in China and would also be a disaster for them in Cuba. Altering the designation of a state that sponsors terrorism in an effort to appease there conduct elsewhere is a dangerous policy that undermines a national commitment to hold as pariahs those regimes engaged in such practices. All too often throughout history appeasement has ended in armed conflicts that were more expensive, bloody and dangerous where a more principled and tough foreign policy would have avoided it.