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If the US foreign policy apparatus hadn't had its head jammed quite so firmly up its ass, they would have accepted the overtures of friendship from both Castro

by dsr_ 8y ago

If the US foreign policy apparatus hadn't had its head jammed quite so firmly up its ass, they would have accepted the overtures of friendship from both Castro and Ho instead of scorning them. Imagine Vietnam coming out of their war for independence from France with a democratically elected government starting in 1954. Imagine Cuba being the major US ally in the Caribbean and primary vacation destination, with Fidel Castro serving as President from 1960 through 1970 in a constitutional republic. Both of those scenarios were within the realm of possibility -- but not with the Yale and Harvard asshats ruling the State Department.

oh_sigh 8y ago
Imagine Cuba not being overtaken by armed rebels, and then keeping it living in the 1950s for the next 70 years.
- Synaesthesia 8y ago
  Is the US who kept it in the 50’s. It wasn’t even a socialist revolution. But you must understand, they confiscated US property. That’s the crime they committed.
  - darawk 8y ago
    > It wasn’t even a socialist revolution. Was it not?
    - vidarh 8y ago
      It's "complicated". Castro's "26th of July Movement" (M-26-7) originally had very limited political goals. Beyond overthrowing Batista, they included some redistribution of land and some degree of nationalisation of public services, and confiscation of a lot of companies and property they considered basically fruits of Batista's corruption, but beyond that there were wide disagreements, and there certainly was not a clear agreed goal of introducing socialism at the outset. Castro had been on friendly terms with Batista for years before. Batista gave him money for his honeymoon, and even considered him for government. Some saw him as radical, but Batista at least considered him as a potentially viable cabinet minister, despite himself being very much explicitly anti-socialist, though of course it's possible Batista saw it as a way of pacifying him. Castro may well have had exposure to socialist ideas before then, but at the outset he was basically a nationalist with anti-imperialist views. It was first after Batista's coup and crackdown on dissidents, that Castro seriously started pushing a more radical agenda publicly. Even them, after overthrowing Batista, Castro looked to the US as a potential ally. But when exactly Castro started supporting Marxist-Leninism is open for debate. Castro denied it into '60 at least. Late in '61 he then claimed to have been a Marxist-Leninist secretly for some years, but he clashed with the more Soviet friendly parts of his own movement at times, and the Soviets themselves doubted his sincerity - not least because of his past overtures to the US, and how his "admission" coincided with increasing Soviet financial support. Whatever Castro was or was not early on, there was a decade long period of Castro moving closer and closer to the Soviets where you can see the process going in lockstep with each new US rejection and each new Soviet overture, and where there's a very real possibility that the US could have turned Cuba into an ally and encouraged more liberal policies. Of course we'll never know.
Nasrudith 8y ago
It was an irrational fear of communism in both of the cases really that made a bad situation worse. Vietnam's motivations were against the French colonialism and communism were an ally. But they had their stupid 'domino theory' crap despite the fact that even China and Russia could barely get along. I mean don't get me wrong "communist states" end in totalitarianism but when their fear ends up pushing other countries towards communism instead of away from it there is no way to describe it but irrational.

by dsr_ 8y ago

oh_sigh 8y ago

Imagine Cuba not being overtaken by armed rebels, and then keeping it living in the 1950s for the next 70 years.

Synaesthesia 8y ago
Is the US who kept it in the 50’s. It wasn’t even a socialist revolution. But you must understand, they confiscated US property. That’s the crime they committed.
- darawk 8y ago
  > It wasn’t even a socialist revolution. Was it not?
  - vidarh 8y ago
    It's "complicated". Castro's "26th of July Movement" (M-26-7) originally had very limited political goals. Beyond overthrowing Batista, they included some redistribution of land and some degree of nationalisation of public services, and confiscation of a lot of companies and property they considered basically fruits of Batista's corruption, but beyond that there were wide disagreements, and there certainly was not a clear agreed goal of introducing socialism at the outset. Castro had been on friendly terms with Batista for years before. Batista gave him money for his honeymoon, and even considered him for government. Some saw him as radical, but Batista at least considered him as a potentially viable cabinet minister, despite himself being very much explicitly anti-socialist, though of course it's possible Batista saw it as a way of pacifying him. Castro may well have had exposure to socialist ideas before then, but at the outset he was basically a nationalist with anti-imperialist views. It was first after Batista's coup and crackdown on dissidents, that Castro seriously started pushing a more radical agenda publicly. Even them, after overthrowing Batista, Castro looked to the US as a potential ally. But when exactly Castro started supporting Marxist-Leninism is open for debate. Castro denied it into '60 at least. Late in '61 he then claimed to have been a Marxist-Leninist secretly for some years, but he clashed with the more Soviet friendly parts of his own movement at times, and the Soviets themselves doubted his sincerity - not least because of his past overtures to the US, and how his "admission" coincided with increasing Soviet financial support. Whatever Castro was or was not early on, there was a decade long period of Castro moving closer and closer to the Soviets where you can see the process going in lockstep with each new US rejection and each new Soviet overture, and where there's a very real possibility that the US could have turned Cuba into an ally and encouraged more liberal policies. Of course we'll never know.

Nasrudith 8y ago

It was an irrational fear of communism in both of the cases really that made a bad situation worse. Vietnam's motivations were against the French colonialism and communism were an ally. But they had their stupid 'domino theory' crap despite the fact that even China and Russia could barely get along. I mean don't get me wrong "communist states" end in totalitarianism but when their fear ends up pushing other countries towards communism instead of away from it there is no way to describe it but irrational.