International Socialist Review Issue 30, July–August 2003
Cuba, Democracy and the Bush Doctrine
by Héctor Reyes
source: http://www.isreview.org/issues/30/cuba.shtml
SINCE ITS 1959 revolution, Cuba has stubbornly maintained its political independence from the U.S.–setting a bad example that Washington has since sought to correct by attempting to isolate Cuba both politically and economically. The U.S. imposed an economic embargo on Cuba that has remained in place since 1961. The Clinton administration even put a new twist on the embargo, signing the Helms-Burton Act in 1996, a law that not only forbids American companies from doing business in or trading with Cuba, but also seeks to penalize foreign companies that trade with Cuba. Yet, as we shall see, there have also been economic interests in the U.S. pressuring for increasing U.S. economic penetration of Cuba in the same period.
The Cuban economy went into a major crisis in the 1990s, when it lost its sources of financial and technical assistance, as well as its major trade partners from Eastern Europe and the former USSR. The crisis was so severe that many cases of disease related to malnutrition were reported. Public transportation was scaled down because buses could not be repaired and fuel was scarce. Fidel Castro’s regime responded to the crisis by elaborating a strategy designed to keep the key parts of the economy running–at the expense of the others–and pursuing foreign investment in new industries and new trade partners. This was known as the Special Period. In Miami, the organizations of right-wing Cuban exiles were ecstatic–and so were sectors of the U.S. ruling class–believing that it was only a matter of time before the Castro regime would collapse. The Helms-Burton Act was thought of as a small push that would help tumble the house of cards.
Yet the regime was able to weather the worst of the crisis, and succeeded in attracting European, Canadian and Mexican capital–substantially but not exclusively focused on the tourism industry. The development of a modern tourism industry led to the expansion of trade in products and services with these partners. American capital watched from the sidelines as a new game was being organized without its participation. Fearing being left too far behind, some of these people began exerting pressure behind the scenes to bring about some degree of liberalization in Washington’s policies toward Cuba. A slow and modest process of liberalization began to take place under the Clinton administration. A relaxation of the policies–or at least their interpretation–regarding cash remittances and travel of Cuban-Americans to the island was allowed. Although the travel by Americans not of Cuban origin was still banned, the number of permitted cultural exchanges increased. And although the rhetoric–and sometimes the threats–against the travel of individuals to the island was maintained, the truth was that increasing numbers of Americans of all political persuasions found their way to Havana.
Corporations, former State Department officials and academics banded together into the Cuba Policy Foundation (CPF) to lobby to end the embargo. Businesses found enough supporters in Congress–both Democrat and Republican–to argue for further liberalization. Supposedly banned products such as Coca Cola and Nike found their way into Cuba through circuitous routes. Even after George W. Bush took office, the lobbying and the relaxations continued. Last year, former Illinois governor George Ryan led a trade delegation to Havana. Many prominent agribusiness and food corporations, as well as medium-sized Midwest businesses, participated in a major trade exposition. Last year Cuba bought $150 million worth of food from the U.S.1 Newspapers in San Juan, Puerto Rico–where the Cuban exile community has economic clout–speculated about the detrimental effects on the Puerto Rican tourism industry when, not if, the Cuban embargo was lifted.
The viability of these trends became uncertain after the U.S. and Cuban governments clashed over the regime’s crackdown on dissidents and the execution of three hijackers in April. Anyone who has followed how the Bush administration used the September 11 attacks to justify a new aggressive phase of U.S. imperialism all over the world can appreciate the contradictions between the relaxations in policy described above and the implications of the so-called Bush Doctrine (formally titled The National Security Strategy of the United States of America) regarding Cuba.
The Bush Doctrine and Cuba
The history of U.S. imperialism did not begin with the Bush administration, as some liberals would have us believe. However, the political, military and economic goals explicitly expressed in the Bush Doctrine represent a qualitative shift in the aggressiveness of U.S. imperialism and its unabashedly open proclamation to seek world domination. Two of the pillars of this doctrine–preemptive wars and regime change–have serious implications when posed in the Cuban context. After all, for the U.S. rulers, any Third World country that is not under the U.S.’s thumb is a "rogue" nation. And Cuba’s independence from Washington has been a thorn in its side for 44 years–making it a perfect fit for the rogue nation label and one of the unnamed countries in the nexus of the so-called axis of evil.
The current clash between Havana and Washington allowed the Bush administration to rearrange its Cuba policy to be more in sync with the Bush Doctrine by creating "precisely the kind of chill that is descending on U.S.-Cuba relations," as the Chicago Tribune mildly described it.2 Bush’s deputies have been hard at work for some time now trying to engineer this crisis. Last summer they unsuccessfully tried several times to make the case in Congress and through conservative think tanks that Cuba was involved in developing bioweapons. While addressing the Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C., May 6, 2002) on the subject "Beyond the Axis of Evil: Additional Threats from Weapons of Mass Destruction," this is part of what John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security and one of the now infamous "neocons," had to say:
In addition to Libya and Syria, there is a threat coming from another BWC [Biological Weapons Convention] signatory, and one that lies just 90 miles from the U.S. mainland–namely, Cuba. We know that Cuba is collaborating with other state sponsors of terror. For four decades Cuba has maintained a well-developed and sophisticated biomedical industry, supported until 1990 by the Soviet Union. This industry is one of the most advanced in Latin America, and leads in the production of pharmaceuticals and vaccines that are sold worldwide. Analysts and Cuban defectors have long cast suspicion on the activities conducted in these biomedical facilities. Here is what we now know: The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort. Cuba has provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states. We are concerned that such technology could support BW programs in those states. We call on Cuba to cease all BW-applicable cooperation with rogue states and to fully comply with all of its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention.
If the U.S. were able to build enough of a case that Cuba is supplying international terrorists with weapons of mass destruction, then it could proceed with an openly confrontational campaign that conceivably could lead all the way to military intervention. Of course, as the situation in Iraq shows, the U.S. is not averse to manufacturing evidence where none exists. The problem for the Bush chickenhawks is that almost no one else is buying it, not even in Latin America, where those in power fear that the return of intervention and destabilization tactics by Washington would eventually swallow their regimes into the resulting whirlwind. "[F]or the first time in 23 years, the Organization of American States attempted to debate human rights in Cuba, but in the end couldn’t agree on whether it had the authority," reported the Miami Herald.3 This is why the governor of Florida, Dubya’s brother, Jeb Bush, expressed frustration at Washington’s would-be partners in crime for not going along with the project: "We should explain to our brothers from Latin America and other places that a regime that totally lacks respect for human rights can’t be kept in place."4
The truth is that Washington has been providing funding and logistical support to groups of dissidents inside Cuba for years. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided millions of dollars already for these purposes. About eight months ago, the U.S. installed a new head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, James Cason. It is Cason who engineered the most recent crisis by frequently meeting with Cuban dissidents, providing them with funding, and distributing their writings. According to anonymous Chicago Tribune sources with connections to Latin America policy makers in the White House, the Bush administration was happy with the results of Cason’s meetings, and while "[t]hey didn’t intend for so many people to be sacrificed…"[they] were prepared for some arrests."5 It makes one wonder whether some of these dissidents had an attack of lucidity and realized how cynically the U.S. was willing to use them as sacrificial lambs, they would have been so willing to become pawns in its imperialist chess game.
Cuba, Democracy and the Bush Doctrine
by Héctor Reyes
source: http://www.isreview.org/issues/30/cuba.shtml
SINCE ITS 1959 revolution, Cuba has stubbornly maintained its political independence from the U.S.–setting a bad example that Washington has since sought to correct by attempting to isolate Cuba both politically and economically. The U.S. imposed an economic embargo on Cuba that has remained in place since 1961. The Clinton administration even put a new twist on the embargo, signing the Helms-Burton Act in 1996, a law that not only forbids American companies from doing business in or trading with Cuba, but also seeks to penalize foreign companies that trade with Cuba. Yet, as we shall see, there have also been economic interests in the U.S. pressuring for increasing U.S. economic penetration of Cuba in the same period.
The Cuban economy went into a major crisis in the 1990s, when it lost its sources of financial and technical assistance, as well as its major trade partners from Eastern Europe and the former USSR. The crisis was so severe that many cases of disease related to malnutrition were reported. Public transportation was scaled down because buses could not be repaired and fuel was scarce. Fidel Castro’s regime responded to the crisis by elaborating a strategy designed to keep the key parts of the economy running–at the expense of the others–and pursuing foreign investment in new industries and new trade partners. This was known as the Special Period. In Miami, the organizations of right-wing Cuban exiles were ecstatic–and so were sectors of the U.S. ruling class–believing that it was only a matter of time before the Castro regime would collapse. The Helms-Burton Act was thought of as a small push that would help tumble the house of cards.
Yet the regime was able to weather the worst of the crisis, and succeeded in attracting European, Canadian and Mexican capital–substantially but not exclusively focused on the tourism industry. The development of a modern tourism industry led to the expansion of trade in products and services with these partners. American capital watched from the sidelines as a new game was being organized without its participation. Fearing being left too far behind, some of these people began exerting pressure behind the scenes to bring about some degree of liberalization in Washington’s policies toward Cuba. A slow and modest process of liberalization began to take place under the Clinton administration. A relaxation of the policies–or at least their interpretation–regarding cash remittances and travel of Cuban-Americans to the island was allowed. Although the travel by Americans not of Cuban origin was still banned, the number of permitted cultural exchanges increased. And although the rhetoric–and sometimes the threats–against the travel of individuals to the island was maintained, the truth was that increasing numbers of Americans of all political persuasions found their way to Havana.
Corporations, former State Department officials and academics banded together into the Cuba Policy Foundation (CPF) to lobby to end the embargo. Businesses found enough supporters in Congress–both Democrat and Republican–to argue for further liberalization. Supposedly banned products such as Coca Cola and Nike found their way into Cuba through circuitous routes. Even after George W. Bush took office, the lobbying and the relaxations continued. Last year, former Illinois governor George Ryan led a trade delegation to Havana. Many prominent agribusiness and food corporations, as well as medium-sized Midwest businesses, participated in a major trade exposition. Last year Cuba bought $150 million worth of food from the U.S.1 Newspapers in San Juan, Puerto Rico–where the Cuban exile community has economic clout–speculated about the detrimental effects on the Puerto Rican tourism industry when, not if, the Cuban embargo was lifted.
The viability of these trends became uncertain after the U.S. and Cuban governments clashed over the regime’s crackdown on dissidents and the execution of three hijackers in April. Anyone who has followed how the Bush administration used the September 11 attacks to justify a new aggressive phase of U.S. imperialism all over the world can appreciate the contradictions between the relaxations in policy described above and the implications of the so-called Bush Doctrine (formally titled The National Security Strategy of the United States of America) regarding Cuba.
The Bush Doctrine and Cuba
The history of U.S. imperialism did not begin with the Bush administration, as some liberals would have us believe. However, the political, military and economic goals explicitly expressed in the Bush Doctrine represent a qualitative shift in the aggressiveness of U.S. imperialism and its unabashedly open proclamation to seek world domination. Two of the pillars of this doctrine–preemptive wars and regime change–have serious implications when posed in the Cuban context. After all, for the U.S. rulers, any Third World country that is not under the U.S.’s thumb is a "rogue" nation. And Cuba’s independence from Washington has been a thorn in its side for 44 years–making it a perfect fit for the rogue nation label and one of the unnamed countries in the nexus of the so-called axis of evil.
The current clash between Havana and Washington allowed the Bush administration to rearrange its Cuba policy to be more in sync with the Bush Doctrine by creating "precisely the kind of chill that is descending on U.S.-Cuba relations," as the Chicago Tribune mildly described it.2 Bush’s deputies have been hard at work for some time now trying to engineer this crisis. Last summer they unsuccessfully tried several times to make the case in Congress and through conservative think tanks that Cuba was involved in developing bioweapons. While addressing the Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C., May 6, 2002) on the subject "Beyond the Axis of Evil: Additional Threats from Weapons of Mass Destruction," this is part of what John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security and one of the now infamous "neocons," had to say:
In addition to Libya and Syria, there is a threat coming from another BWC [Biological Weapons Convention] signatory, and one that lies just 90 miles from the U.S. mainland–namely, Cuba. We know that Cuba is collaborating with other state sponsors of terror. For four decades Cuba has maintained a well-developed and sophisticated biomedical industry, supported until 1990 by the Soviet Union. This industry is one of the most advanced in Latin America, and leads in the production of pharmaceuticals and vaccines that are sold worldwide. Analysts and Cuban defectors have long cast suspicion on the activities conducted in these biomedical facilities. Here is what we now know: The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort. Cuba has provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states. We are concerned that such technology could support BW programs in those states. We call on Cuba to cease all BW-applicable cooperation with rogue states and to fully comply with all of its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention.
If the U.S. were able to build enough of a case that Cuba is supplying international terrorists with weapons of mass destruction, then it could proceed with an openly confrontational campaign that conceivably could lead all the way to military intervention. Of course, as the situation in Iraq shows, the U.S. is not averse to manufacturing evidence where none exists. The problem for the Bush chickenhawks is that almost no one else is buying it, not even in Latin America, where those in power fear that the return of intervention and destabilization tactics by Washington would eventually swallow their regimes into the resulting whirlwind. "[F]or the first time in 23 years, the Organization of American States attempted to debate human rights in Cuba, but in the end couldn’t agree on whether it had the authority," reported the Miami Herald.3 This is why the governor of Florida, Dubya’s brother, Jeb Bush, expressed frustration at Washington’s would-be partners in crime for not going along with the project: "We should explain to our brothers from Latin America and other places that a regime that totally lacks respect for human rights can’t be kept in place."4
The truth is that Washington has been providing funding and logistical support to groups of dissidents inside Cuba for years. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided millions of dollars already for these purposes. About eight months ago, the U.S. installed a new head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, James Cason. It is Cason who engineered the most recent crisis by frequently meeting with Cuban dissidents, providing them with funding, and distributing their writings. According to anonymous Chicago Tribune sources with connections to Latin America policy makers in the White House, the Bush administration was happy with the results of Cason’s meetings, and while "[t]hey didn’t intend for so many people to be sacrificed…"[they] were prepared for some arrests."5 It makes one wonder whether some of these dissidents had an attack of lucidity and realized how cynically the U.S. was willing to use them as sacrificial lambs, they would have been so willing to become pawns in its imperialist chess game.
