Can Washington Think of Cuba's Government as Something Other Than Needs to Be Overthrown?
FEBRUARY 12, 2021
BY ROSA ELIZALDE
On February 1, 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke to MSNBC about the new U.S. government’s “foreign policy challenges.” Blinken threw out, piece by piece, the world chessboard of his predecessor, Mike Pompeo. When asked by journalist Andrea Mitchell if he will revoke the inclusion of Cuba in the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, the new secretary of state’s response to “a series of actions” taken by the outgoing administration was, “We’re looking at all of them.”
The “all of them” is the series of decisions that Donald Trump took in the last four weeks of his presidency including the bundle of sanctions on Cuba as a poisoned gift for Joe Biden. The sanctions by the Trump administration against Cuba that began in the spring of 2017 under the pretext of sonic attacks on U.S. diplomats in Havana—which no one has been able to prove to this day—were escalated just before the end of Trump’s presidency, with dozens of unilateral measures and the inclusion of the Caribbean country in the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
U.S. Against the Cuban Revolution
The U.S. government’s hostility to the Cuban Revolution did not begin with Trump. Nor does it remain at the level of policy orientation of the U.S. presidency.
Since the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the United States government has helped shape the counterrevolutionary forces. It has tried to take over the Cuban “opposition,” both inside and outside the island. In 1960, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower circulated a secret policy document with a chilling title: “A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime.” The paper outlined how the U.S. government was planning a “powerful propaganda offensive” and further stated that “Work is already in progress in the creation of a covert intelligence and action organization within Cuba which will be responsive to the orders and directions of the ‘exile’ opposition.” Finally, the U.S. government had created a “paramilitary force outside of Cuba” for future guerrilla actions, a force that was evident during the failed invasion of Cuba in 1961 at the Bay of Pigs (Playa Girón).
Richard Bissell of the CIA, who was in charge of the Bay of Pigs invasion, later reflected on the U.S. government’s role in the attack on Cuba in his book, Reflections of a Cold Warrior. He said that the CIA’s main task in Cuba was to “fabricate” an opposition that was “responsible, appealing, and unified.” Bissell planned the Bay of Pigs invasion under Eisenhower (a Republican president) and conducted it under John F. Kennedy (a Democratic president).
More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/02/12/can-washington-think-of-cubas-government-as-something-other-than-needs-to-be-overthrown/
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