Noam Chomsky: Why Obama Suddenly Decided to Cozy up With Cuba—It Wasn't Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Noam Chomsky: Why Obama Suddenly Decided to Cozy up With CubaIt Wasn't Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
A major victory for the Cuban people.
By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now!
May 18, 2016
Amy Goodman: I wanted to ask you about the passing of Michael Ratner, Michael Ratner, the former head of theor the late head of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the trailblazing human rights attorney, who died last week at the age of 72. I had interviewed Michael last year in Washington, D.C., at the reopening of the Cuban Embassy, after it was closed for more than five decades. And I asked Michael to talk about the significance of this historic day. This is an excerpt of what he said.
Michael Ratner: Well, Amy, lets just say, other than the birth of my children, this is perhaps one of the most exciting days of my life. I mean, Ive been working on Cuba since the early 70s, if not before. I worked on the Venceremos Brigade. I went on brigades. I did construction. And to see that this can actually happen in a country that decided early on that, unlike most countries in the world, it was going to level the playing field for everyoneno more rich, no more poor, everyone the same, education for everyone, schooling for everyone, housing if they couldand to see the relentless United States go against it, from the Bay of Pigs to utter subversion on and on, and to see Cuba emerge victoriousand when I say that, this is not a defeated country. This is a countryif you heard the foreign minister today, what he spoke of was the history of U.S. imperialism against Cuba, from the intervention in the Spanish-American War to the Platt Amendment, which made U.S. a permanent part of the Cuban government, to the taking of Guantánamo, to the failure to recognize it in 1959, to the cutting off of relations in 1961. This is a major, major victory for the Cuban people, and that should be understood. We are standing at a moment that I never expected to see in our history.
AG: That was Michael Ratner. It was July (20th). It was that historic day in Washington, D.C., when the Cuban Embassy was opened after almost half a century. If you could talk both about the significance of Michael Ratner, from his work around Guantánamo, ultimately challenging the habeas corpus rights of Guantánamo prisoners, that they should have their day in court, and winning this case in the Supreme Court, to all of his work, also talk about Cuba, Noam, something that you certainly take on in your new book, Who Rules the World?
Noam Chomsky: Well, Michael Ratner has an absolutely fabulous record. His achievements have been enormous. A tremendous courage, intelligence, dedication. A lot of achievement against huge odds. The center, which he largelyit was a majorhe ran and was a major actor in, has done wonderful work all over the placeCuba and lots of other things. So I cant be excessive in my praise for what he achieved in his life and the inspiration that it should leave us with.
With regard to Cuba-U.S. relations, I think what he just said is essentially accurate. In fact, its even worse than that. We tend to forget that after the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy administration was practically in a state of hysteria and seeking to somehow avenge themselves against this upstart who was carrying out what the government called successful defiance of U.S. policies going back to the Monroe Doctrine. How can we tolerate that? Kennedy authorized a major terrorist war against Cuba. The goal was to bring the terrors of the earth to Cuba. Thats the phrase of his associate Arthur Schlesinger, historian Arthur Schlesinger, in his biography of Robert Kennedy. Robert Kennedy was given the responsibility to bring the terrors of the earth to Cuba. And it washe in fact described it as one of the prime goals of government, is to ensure that we terrorize Cuba. And it was pretty serious. Thousands of people were killed, petrochemical plants, other industrial installations blown up. Russian ships in the Havana Harbor were attacked. You can imagine what would happen if American ships were attacked. It was probably connected with poisoning of crops and livestock, cant be certain. It went on into the 1990s, though not at thatnot at the extreme level of the Kennedy years, but pretty bad. The late 70s, there was an upsurge, blowing up of a Cubana airliner, 73 people killed. The culprits are living happily in Miami. One of them died. The other, Luis Posada, major terrorist, is cheerfully living there.
The taking over of southeastern Cuba backat the time of the Platt Amendment, the U.S. had absolutely no claim to this territory, none whatsoever. Were holding onto it just in orderits a major U.S. military baseit was. But were holding onto it simply to impede the development of Cuba, a major port, and to have a dumping place where we can sendillegally send Haitian refugees, claiming that theyre economic refugees, when theyre fleeing from the terror of the Haitian junta that we supportedClinton, incidentally, in this caseor just as a torture chamber. Now, theres a lot of talk about human rights violations in Cuba. Yeah, there are human rights violations in Cuba. By far the worst of them, overwhelmingly, are in the part of Cuba that we illegally holdyou know, technically, legally. We took it at the force of a gun, so itspoint of a gun, so its legal. I mean, in comparison with this, whatever you think of Putins annexation of Crimea is minor in comparison with this.
More:
http://www.alternet.org/world/noam-chomsky-why-obama-suddenly-decided-cozy-cuba-it-wasnt-warm-and-fuzzy-feelings
msongs
(67,394 posts)That's low, even for you.
Judi Lynn
(160,515 posts)shadowmayor
(1,325 posts)Noam Chomsky is truly a national treasure, a fine American who has spent his life speaking truth to power, shining light on injustice and oppression and always questioning the motives of our rulers. In other words - a citizen. May we all aspire to be more like him. And he is somehow kind when discussing the darkest aspects of our human actions.
Igel
(35,296 posts)Using the same kind of grammar we expect from political adversaries and holding both sets to the same standard, diagram
"Were holding onto it just in orderits a major U.S. military baseit was."
(I don't have this demand placed on me. I know about dysfluencies and their purposes, and don't even think that every utterance has to have a CP.)
shadowmayor
(1,325 posts)Is our children learning?
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)putting food on my family. I think "it'll take time to restore chaos" was the one time the truth slipped out of his mouth. Watching this video makes me think "Damn, I am happy that Obama is our president"
shadowmayor
(1,325 posts)Yeah, the lil' Bush had a tendency to let things slip. I think he was in Poland when a reporter asked him what 9-11 had to do with the invasion of Iraq? His reply - "Nothing". Took our fawning corporate media another decade to actually start to figure out what Howdy Doody and his puppet masters Dick and Donny had done to the world.