3 ms·

Strongly disagree, though I'd never downvote you for that. Why did the US go to such great lengths to hide its involvement? You might answer that the US's chec

Strongly disagree, though I'd never downvote you for that. Why did the US go to such great lengths to hide its involvement? You might answer that the US's checkered past in foreign policy (coups, assassinations, drug wars, oil wars, supported rebellions, etc) will make the world suspicious despite our altruistic intensions here. But I think the rest of the world's answer is simpler and more likely: our intentions are not altruistic, and this is merely another unprincipled application of power to obtain a goal. That checkered past is good evidence, and there's no reason this is different just because "social media" is a magic word or something. For example, why are we trying to undermine Cuba's regime but not Saudi's? Because our policy goals only pretend to care about dictatorships. And if we care so much about the Cuban people, why do we have a trade embargo against them? Which is why no one trusts us and, frankly, shouldn't trust us. Building a platform that you'll use to "push them toward dissent" isn't providing a medium for free thought and reform; it's psychological warfare. We're trying to capture the attention of people and then trick them into doing what we want. "So what?" you say. "Even if the goals are selfish and strategic, democracy is still good, and Cuba would clearly be better off without a dictator." That's certainly possible, but I doubt it. For starters, our involvement taints any actual emerging democratic movement with the notion that it's just another arm of US foreign policy. I'd like to live in a world where an asshole strong arm dictator can't blame "US meddling" for any unrest without being dismissed out of hand, but sadly, I don't live in that world. So we're really undermining that goal by playing directly into the (mostly correct) notion that the US isn't looking out for other countries' best interests. Maybe we should stop trying to interfere everywhere, because to the extent that our intentions are good in the first place, we're no good at it. But more importantly, it's not really clear that actual democracy is the natural result of this kind of thing. If driven by US involvement, will a grassroots rebellion against the Cuban regime actually result in an open, honest democracy or will it devolve into a feeding frenzy for US interests, led by US-friendly politicians pushed into place by US operatives? The US has installed enough dictatorships and phony democracies for me to think this is more likely. When you use democracy as a veneer, I'm not sure why you'd expect it to really work.

rickmzp 13y ago
Quoting from my original comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7523278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7523278, since it seems very relevant here. ---- Cuban-American here. Helping Castro's controlled economy before giving control of the government and said economy back to its people is unpopular. Allowing the Cuban people to communicate and band together within the country is attempted all the time by government-affiliated and independent organizations, most of which are in Miami and organized by Cuban-Americans. This seems like one of those attempts, sponsored by the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives[1]. If I were in charge of the project, I figure I'd probably also avoid giving this project a U.S. brand as to not catch the attention of Cuban censors or propagandists. Networks are fully controlled by the Cuban government. Their "Facebook" is government built.[2] There are no social networks that are optimized for the tools (like satellite phones) they use to get around censors. At first glance, this seemed like a nice attempt at helping the Cubans get around these limitations. [1] http://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are/organization/bureaus/bureau-democracy-conflict-and-humanitarian-assistance/office-1 http://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are/organization/bureaus/bureau-... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/cuba-launches-facebook-copycat-site-red-social_n_1125771.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/cuba-launches-faceb...
- icambron 13y ago
  > Helping Castro's controlled economy before giving control of the government and said economy back to its people is unpopular. Unpopular with whom? Are you telling me that Cubans (meaning people who actually live there) support the embargo? Because that doesn't really make sense. > If I were in charge of the project, I figure I'd probably also avoid giving this project a U.S. brand as to not catch the attention of Cuban censors or propagandists. Yet, here were are... > At first glance, this seemed like a nice attempt at helping the Cubans get around these limitations. Well, making that true at first glance was the goal, right?
  - rickmzp 13y ago
    Generally it has been unpopular with Cuban exiles, Cuban activists, and others in support of a free economy and free speech for Cubans. Recently there has been movement since power was transitioned to Raul that has had Cuba experiment with more economic freedoms[1]. Opinion has indeed evolved to want to open relations with Cuba in an effort to continue that trend[2]. (h/t dragonwriter for report) But even with that, there's along way to go for the Cuban people.[3]* The people who actually live there who saw the transition have been generally supportive of US intervention in Cuba. They have been supremely disappointed in the US for their failures in their interventions (Bay of Pigs disaster, agreeing to never invade and bring down Castro, ineffective sanctions, etc.). As you can imagine, most of the people who live there now have grown up with texts that describe the embargo in such a way that there is no way to see it as a response to the government in Cuba. The way people paint the full picture is privately through discussions, private texts, and secret communications back and forth with extended family in Miami. I hope that helps you make more sense of what conclusions can be drawn by the people there. Not sure if your final comment was a snide attempt at saying I'm missing depth on this issue, but this issue is quite important to me and my family and one we are pretty intimate with. If you've read carefully, you'll know I'm not arguing a solution, but simply giving you an important perspective that was surprisingly lacking for such a lengthy original post. But hey, hasn't the Internet taught me anything? Ok, back to work now! [1] http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/14/opinion/la-ed-cuba15-2010apr15 http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/14/opinion/la-ed-cuba15... [2] http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/2014cubapoll/US-CubaPoll.pdf http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/2014cubap... [3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-cubans-freedom-remains-elusive/2013/11/29/50201842-56bd-11e3-ba82-16ed03681809_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-cubans-freedom-re... *EDITED to add link and clarify

rickmzp 13y ago

Quoting from my original comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7523278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7523278, since it seems very relevant here. ---- Cuban-American here. Helping Castro's controlled economy before giving control of the government and said economy back to its people is unpopular. Allowing the Cuban people to communicate and band together within the country is attempted all the time by government-affiliated and independent organizations, most of which are in Miami and organized by Cuban-Americans. This seems like one of those attempts, sponsored by the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives[1]. If I were in charge of the project, I figure I'd probably also avoid giving this project a U.S. brand as to not catch the attention of Cuban censors or propagandists. Networks are fully controlled by the Cuban government. Their "Facebook" is government built.[2] There are no social networks that are optimized for the tools (like satellite phones) they use to get around censors. At first glance, this seemed like a nice attempt at helping the Cubans get around these limitations. [1] http://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are/organization/bureaus/bureau-democracy-conflict-and-humanitarian-assistance/office-1 http://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are/organization/bureaus/bureau-... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/cuba-launches-facebook-copycat-site-red-social_n_1125771.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/cuba-launches-faceb...

icambron 13y ago
> Helping Castro's controlled economy before giving control of the government and said economy back to its people is unpopular. Unpopular with whom? Are you telling me that Cubans (meaning people who actually live there) support the embargo? Because that doesn't really make sense. > If I were in charge of the project, I figure I'd probably also avoid giving this project a U.S. brand as to not catch the attention of Cuban censors or propagandists. Yet, here were are... > At first glance, this seemed like a nice attempt at helping the Cubans get around these limitations. Well, making that true at first glance was the goal, right?
- rickmzp 13y ago
  Generally it has been unpopular with Cuban exiles, Cuban activists, and others in support of a free economy and free speech for Cubans. Recently there has been movement since power was transitioned to Raul that has had Cuba experiment with more economic freedoms[1]. Opinion has indeed evolved to want to open relations with Cuba in an effort to continue that trend[2]. (h/t dragonwriter for report) But even with that, there's along way to go for the Cuban people.[3]* The people who actually live there who saw the transition have been generally supportive of US intervention in Cuba. They have been supremely disappointed in the US for their failures in their interventions (Bay of Pigs disaster, agreeing to never invade and bring down Castro, ineffective sanctions, etc.). As you can imagine, most of the people who live there now have grown up with texts that describe the embargo in such a way that there is no way to see it as a response to the government in Cuba. The way people paint the full picture is privately through discussions, private texts, and secret communications back and forth with extended family in Miami. I hope that helps you make more sense of what conclusions can be drawn by the people there. Not sure if your final comment was a snide attempt at saying I'm missing depth on this issue, but this issue is quite important to me and my family and one we are pretty intimate with. If you've read carefully, you'll know I'm not arguing a solution, but simply giving you an important perspective that was surprisingly lacking for such a lengthy original post. But hey, hasn't the Internet taught me anything? Ok, back to work now! [1] http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/14/opinion/la-ed-cuba15-2010apr15 http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/14/opinion/la-ed-cuba15... [2] http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/2014cubapoll/US-CubaPoll.pdf http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/2014cubap... [3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-cubans-freedom-remains-elusive/2013/11/29/50201842-56bd-11e3-ba82-16ed03681809_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-cubans-freedom-re... *EDITED to add link and clarify