Cruelty is Not an American Value

Cruelty is not an American value nor should it be a deliberate policy of our nation. But what the Trump administration is doing in Cuba is simply cruel. As a nation we should be ashamed.

Cuba is a small, poor nation that has no capacity to harm the U.S. and represents zero threat to our national security. Yet for 66 years Cuba has been the target of crippling economic sanctions and multiple attempts at “regime change.”

Why? Plucky little Cuba had the unmitigated gall to be an openly socialist country, 90 miles from the “leader of the free world” in the Caribbean Sea otherwise known as the “America’s Lake.”

Under Trump the sanctions have escalated to cutting off all petroleum imports and completely destroying the already struggling Cuban economy. Cuba’s electrical generation, transportation systems, public functions and private businesses have run out of fuel. Hospitals can not function and people are literally starving. Cuba is suffering a serious humanitarian crisis deliberately created by the U.S. government.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Cuban officials last week to “deliver a message ” He said the U.S. is “prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Cuba must make “fundamental economic and political reforms” and Trump has threatened military action. Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on any nation who tries to alleviate the humanitarian crisis.

Why must Cuba change to accommodate our intolerance and bullying? The conflict is not about Cuba’s behavior. The problem has always been our government’s unwillingness to tolerate a country whose ideology, political, and economic practices were different from ours. Cuba could not be allowed to succeed. A successful socialist Cuba would show that alternatives were possible and undermine our capitalist hegemony. We simply could not risk leaving Cuba alone to build a successful socialist economy.

The U.S. is clearly the aggressor with six decades of acting illegally and inhumanely toward Cuba. The current administration has no shame, no decency and no concern for the people of Cuba. They have no respect the rule of law and basic standards of international behavior.

Self-determination of nations is a fundamental principle in international relations. Nations have the right to freely exercise their sovereignty and to choose political, economic and other internal policies without outside interference or coercion from other nations.

This is supposedly a basic tenant of U.S. foreign policy. The idea was espoused by President Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points peace plan following WW1. The U.S. has formally accepted this principle by signing the U.N. Charter, and joining the the Organizations of American States (that began in 1889). In 1934 the Senate ratified the the Kellogg-Briand Pact and agreed not to use war as a tool of foreign policy. These commitments have been repeated ignored. Cuba is perhaps the worst, but not the only example, of our country’s hypocrisy.

We have a long history of supporting repressive governments and dictatorships. We have supported repressive military dictatorships all over Latin America. Many of these governments were much worse for their people than Cuba (or Venezuela). Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are monarchies. But they have oil and money to buy weapons and jet fighter planes. Obviously concerns for the people of other countries, democracy or human rights are not guiding principles of our foreign policy.

An ironic aspect of the economic isolation of Cuba is that we have no problem trading with communist China and Vietnam. How is Cuba different? Why do we vilify and sanction Cuba while importing most of our consumer goods from China? With Vietnam we spend 30 years (including support for the French re-establishing their colony 1945-1954) opposing communism. We killed 58,000 of our own and 2 million Vietnamese. But now American business exploits the cheap, sweatshop labor in Vietnam.

Why, if capitalism is so wonderful and communism such a tyranny, must we force capitalism on other people? If capitalism is a superior economic system there should be no contest and we should have nothing to fear from socialism or communism.

But many people also see the downsides of capitalism – the greed, poverty, inequality, exploitation and environmental destruction – and have sought a more equal and fair distribution of wealth. The 1%, being unwilling to share, have seldom been willing to take the risk of true democracy or a truly egalitarian economy. They are afraid of real competition in the “marketplace” of ideas.

So people must be manipulated and controlled with propaganda about the evils of socialism. When that fails, government resorts to military or police violence against protesters, opposition parties, labor or social activists. In the case of our government it has resulted in many foreign military interventions, covert actions, regime changes, and wars to “contain” these aberrant economic systems. Our country’s selfishness and cruelty has resulted much suffering and in millions of deaths over the years.

Another irony is that most of our belligerent foreign interference has been a failure. Cuba is a prime example. Theoretically the sanctions were to counter “threats” to our national security and to “help” the Cuban people throw off their communist “dictatorship.” But despite 66 years of sanctions and other more aggressive actions communist Cuba, and its one party rule, has survived.

Economic sanctions are often perceived as an alternative to war. But they are actually another form of warfare and produce significant “collateral damage.” The people of the targeted countries are severely impacted but the ruling elite are not hurt. So economic sanctions almost always fail to achieve any change in the targeted counties.

There are alternatives to our militarized foreign policy. The Cuba Study Group (cubastudygroup.org) opposes our punitive policies for business, not ideological reasons. They recommend “engagement” rather than coercion and “facilitating change by bridge-building and reaching out to those with whom we differ, seeking a better understanding and mutual respect.” It is long overdue that we end the trade embargo and normalize all diplomatic, cultural and economic relations with Cuba.

Unfortunately endless war has numbed our compassion and normalized the use of military violence. We are not shocked by the cruelty our country inflicts on other people whether it is immigrants at home, children in Gaza or the people of Cuba. As a nation we don’t see or care about the cruelty committed by our government.