Comment on Ted Galen Carpenter's essay "When to Fold ‘Em: What Biden Should Do About Trump’s Lesser Known Foreign Policies"

Facts matter

 

Ted Galen Carpenter's essay in The American Conservative "When to Fold ‘Em: What Biden Should Do About Trump’s Lesser Known Foreign Policies" on second tier foreign policy issues is interesting and thought provoking, but his history of U.S. Cuba policy is missing quite a bit. He claims that Washington has had a "continued enthusiasm for economic sanctions against Cuba." Nor was it merely "in response to Fidel Castro’s communist revolution."

The Castro revolution from its earliest days sought to overthrow neighboring governments, sending armed guerillas and troops to overthrow governments across Latin America. The same regime hosted a tricontinental meeting in 1967 bringing together terrorists and guerillas from across the world to plot communist expansion.

U.S. policy towards Cuba over this period was not static. Washington after failing to overthrow the Castro regime in 1961 with the Bay of Pigs invasion and Operation Mongoose in the early 1960s. pursued a policy of containment combining economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation. This was a successful policy that raised the cost and limited the expansion of the Castro regime abroad.

Lamentably, both sanctions and isolation collapsed during the Carter Administration (1977 – 1981). On Carter's watch diplomatic relations were restored in practice with Interests Sections in their respective countries. Carter ended the travel embargo and was loosening sanctions until the Castro regime's adventurism in Africa, especially participating in genocide in Ethiopia, and Castro personally selected murderers and rapists to wreak havoc in the United States during the Mariel boat-lift in 1980 cooled relations.

Ronald Reagan overturned the policy in 1981, placed Cuba on the list of state terror sponsors in 1982, and achieved more to advance U.S. interests in Latin America while providing greater protection for dissidents in Cuba. Only and last visit of the International Committee of the Red Cross to Cuba's prisons was in the middle of the Reagan-Bush years thanks to tough diplomacy exposing the systemic human rights violations of the Castro regime. Also, on Reagan's watch the creation of Radio Marti broke through the communist communications monopoly and spoke directly to the Cuban people in the island.

During the Clinton Administration (1993 –2001) the attempt to normalize relations ended up with the U.S. military carrying out joint military exercises with a dictatorship that massacred its own fleeing refugees in 1993-1994, and in 1996 shot down two Brothers to the Rescue planes over international airspace leading to a temporary tightening of sanctions with Helms-Burton. As soon as Clinton was re-elected in 1996 the backroom deals began again, and in 2000 in New York City President Clinton shook hands with Fidel Castro, and shortly afterwards opened up cash and carry trade between U.S. companies and the dictatorship. The Ag lobby and the Chamber of Commerce became big cheerleaders for the dictatorship out of economic interests.

The policy of containment was twice weakened and partially dismantled in favor of one of engagement with the dictatorship. On both occasions this legitimized the regime, provided it with more resources that allowed it to project further internationally.This approach coincided with the rise of the Sandinista regime in 1979 in Nicaragua with the assistance of the Cuban intelligence services and the rise of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 1999. The humanitarian and political disaster has been enormous.

This pattern was repeated during the Obama Administration but the third time may prove to be the worse for a number of reasons. This is not a new policy but a very old one that empowers dictators but has no apparent benefit for the United States. Removing Cuba from the list of state terror sponsors while Havana was smuggling tons of weapons to North Korea, and continuing to back guerillas in Colombia, and prop up Maduro in Venezuela was a disaster. This detente also coincided with the suspicious deaths of high profile Cuban dissidents.

Galen Carpenter also fails to mention that beginning in November 2016, on President Obama’s watch, scores of U.S. diplomats began suffering neurological injuries, and the Cuban government failed in its duty to protect them on their territory. This was the reason for the reduction in personnel on Trump's watch.

Lastly Carpenter omits that on January 2, 2017, Raúl Castro presided over a military parade in which Cuban soldiers chanted: “Obama! Obama! With what fervor we’d like to confront your clumsiness, give you a cleansing with rebels and mortar, and make you a hat out of bullets to the head.”

The United States for over 40 years has been making overtures to Havana to normalize relations and has repeatedly received a bloody nose for its efforts. Hopefully, one day elite policy makers will look to what Reagan did both in Europe and Latin America that led to a democratic era in both with a burst of freedom, but did not serve the narrow interests of Big Ag and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that repeatedly sought to engage with and make deals with dictators.

When pursuing a policy of realism and restraint, facts matter.

 Source: http://disq.us/p/2e2w6cu