U.S. wants to "come in from the cold" to warmer environs in Cuba

We are pleased to herald the US State Department's dubious announcement that it will finally lift the U.S. embargo against the Cuban nation. Now we shall wait to see what they will actually do. What is interesting about the announcement is the way it is presented in the corporate media. On March 8, Rory Carroll, writing for the The Guardian (UK), reported:

"Obama will use spring summit to bring Cuba in from the cold. US companies are queuing up as the president moves to ease restrictions on travel and trade".

Reading this reminded me of the report submitted by my co-editor Paul Richard Harris and published on Axis of Logic after his recent visit to Cuba:

"No matter how much they might like to, I thought, the Cubans cannot ignore the US. So I put the question to almost everyone I met: ‘What do you think of Barack Obama, and do you expect the embargo might be removed or at least reduced?’ Every person I spoke with gave a variation of the same response: ‘He seems like a decent man, and we wish him well. But we really don’t care'."

Mr. Harris left out the final line of their response which he shared with me in private: "We've been fine without the help of the U.S. for 40 years and we don't need them now".

"Out in the Cold"

Rory Carroll: "Obama will bring Cuba in from the cold"

Cuba is not "out in the cold" as stated in The Guardian. There is no doubt that Cuban people have suffered under the embargo, but they have also flourished with one of the most highly respected records in the world in the areas of housing, health care, education, nutrition, protection of the environment, their export of quality medical care to poor countries, and their protection of human rights.

It isn't Cuba who is "out in the cold". It is the country with the collapsing economy; it is the pariah state after it's murderous rampages in Afghanistan, Iraq and its joint slaughter with Israel of innocents in Gaza; it is the state who has lost trillion dollar wars, bankrupting itself and earning scorn for its war crimes; it is the state that has robbed national economies worldwide; the state that turned against its own people, stripping them of their wealth, taken their homes, savings and retirement funds; it is the state that has denied its own people the right to health care, a decent education and a productive work life; it is the state that has, without exception, the worst human rights record in the world; it is the state that has normalised imprisonment without charges and torture for prisoners of war; it is the state that continues to maintain a quasi-police state, with interment camps at the ready for its own people should they object too directly against its abuses.

The United States is the country that is "out in the cold" and it will be a cold day in hell before it is ever brought back into the "community of nations" with even a modicum of respect. It's ironic, if not amusing, that one of Obama's generous offerings to Cuba is the suggestion that Washington may even take Cuba off their "terror list". Don't expect Cubans and their government to fall to their knees with gratitude and relief if/when this "gift" is given! There is something inherently indecent about a government of killers deciding to refrain from calling someone else terrorists.

To suggest that the United States will "bring Cuba in from the cold" is just one more example of Washington's ignorance and arrogance and that of their handmaiden, the corporate media. The fact that this report comes from the Guardian, a UK newspaper, demonstrates the international reach of that ignorance.

Obama's Agenda

Moreover, the Guardian unwittingly reveals the motive and weapon behind this magnanimous offer to bring Cuba in from the cold: "US companies are queuing up". This charitable gesture, with the U.S. "poised to offer an olive branch" to Cuba, is akin to the serpent slithering into the Garden of Eden to seduce Eve with a bite from the Big Apple. The report then gilds the dark lily with golden words of giving "a lifeline to thousands of [Cuban] families" and to "diffuse tensions".

Then the Guardian gets to the heart of the U.S. agenda:

"Recognising Castro continuity, and aghast at European and Asian competitors getting a free hand, US corporate interests are impatient to do business with Cuba. Oil companies want to drill offshore, farmers to export more rice, vegetables and meat, construction firms to build infrastructure projects".

"... rice, vegetables, meat, construction firms"? With the participation and help of ALBA, the new trading bloc of the South, Cuba already has them all. Swapping Cuba's excellent medical technology and services for Venezuelan petroleum is just one example of this. And if the Obama regime intends to invade Cuba with its corporate weapons to exploit Cuba's economy and gain control of it's 20bn barrels of newly discovered offshore oil reserves,it surely does not understand the pervasive depth and strength of Cuban culture.

Washington and the corporate media have always depicted Fidel Castro as a dictator who has used oppression to impose communism on the Cuban people. This view reveals, in part, their deceptive tactics to achieve an imperial agenda. It also exposes their ignorance of the fact that Cuban communism is not a top-down phenomena. Through education in the classroom, in the workplace and in the home, generations of Cubans have adopted an independence, self-awareness and morality that is unparalleled in the world. The Cuban culture simply is not fertile ground for the conspicuous consumerism and the corruption of the U.S. news, entertainment and advertising industries.

The Guardian states,

"The presidents of Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Guatemala have recently visited Havana to deepen economic and political ties. Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is expected to tell Obama on a White House visit this week that the region views the US embargo as anachronistic and vindictive. Easing it would help mend Washington's strained relations with the 'pink tide' of leftist governments."

Rory Carroll's depiction of Latin America's mass movement against imperialism as a "pink tide of leftist governments" subtly reveals his lack of understanding and disdain for socialism. The socialist tide that has been flowing across Latin America for 10 years is red and it's not only a tide of "leftist governments" - it's a tide of the people who are forcing their governments to turn left at every intersection.

It is the United States government and its partnered corporations who are seeking to "come in from the cold", shivering from the widespread rejection by American states in their southern "back yard". Fidel Castro's torch, now taken up by Raul Castro and President Chavez, has been lighting the way for Brasil's Lula da Silva, Chile's Michelle Bachelet, Dominican Republic's Leonel Fernandez, Guatemala's Alvaro Colom , Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, Argentina's Cristina Kirchner, and other South American leaders - and today, it burns brighter than ever.

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