Sen. Chris Dodd provides a short essay on what a workable Cuba Policy should look like.
It is my opinion that most of the problems that Castro has caused for the U.S. resulted from his efforts to defend himself and Cuba from American predation. Castro's revolt against the Batista and American Mafia dominated dictatorship in the late 1950's was a very rational response to an extremely nasty government.
It is also my opinion that Castro adopted Communism primarily because the Soviet Union was the only powerful government willing to help him protect his revolution from American forces. The Bay of Pigs invasion was proof of how dangerous the American government was to the Cuban Revolution, but it was only the most obvious of many similar efforts to destroy Castro's government. Without the threat from the U.S. he might have been Socialist, but most of the governments of Europe have been Socialist at one time or another. None of those have become authoritarian in the way that the USSR was - or Argentina, Chile, the Philippines and Peru have been.
Does Castro head an authoritarian government? Sure he does. Such governmental extremism is a natural response to a major outside threat - as the Bush administration's response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America has proven. No, that is not the only cause of authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but it is an extremely important one. But the United States has been the single most powerful threat faced by the Cuban government for 46 years. Do they dare ease up on efforts to control their own population as long as the government of the United States wants to overthrow their government? I wouldn't if I were Castro.
As an aside - At least the threat to Castro is actually existential. The U.S. if not prevented would easily overthrow the Castro government, eliminated the health and education benefits available to every Cuban as a matter of human Right and give the hotels and Casinos in Havana back to the previously (mostly Mafia) owners. Does anyone really think that any small group of religious fanatics (other than Christian ones) could possibly take control of America and the American government? The Shiite extremists could never have taken control of Iran if the Shah hadn't run one of the most brutal regimes in the Middle East - and he was doing that primarily out of fear of being overthrown.
Castro is on the way out through the normal process of aging. American right-wingers are salivating at the chance to get back into Cuba and exploit that nation economically. Cuba needs to protect itself from those people, but reenter the global economy to rebuild the economy of Cuba. The U.S. government should begin to put policies into place that ease that transition, at the same time recognizing that the American forms of free market economics are likely to be damaging to the Cuban people.
Sen. Dodd's proposal is an early version of the needed American policy. "Staying the course" leaves America on the sidelines as a stable Cuba with a well-educated workforce builds its economy only 90 miles off our coast. We are their natural best customer, just as Cuba offers real opportunities for our business people. We need to begin engagement now, without demanding that Cuba change to suit us. They have spent 46 years proving that they reject such demands.
We need to get them to want to accommodate America, not obey America. Our sales people will succeed where our CIA and military forces have failed for over four decades.
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