60 Years of Castro Tyranny in Cuba, and Trump's Re-design of the US Middle East Role

TODAY, WE LOOK BACK ON THE CUBA CASTRO TAKEOVER AND KEEP AN EYE ON SYRIA. • • • LOOKING BACK : CUBA FALLS TO CASTRO. On January 3, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that the United States was formally terminating diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba. • The Association for Diplomatic Studies (AFDS) published "Moments in US Diplomatic History : Castro’s Cuba -- The Early Days," which is an oral history of the January 1, 1959, armed revolt led by Fidel Castro and others who took control over most of the country, saw Cuban president Fulgencio Batista flee Havana, and marked the end of one era and the beginning of another; as the departure of the despised dictator brought initial hope that life in Cuba would improve. • In 2007, Charles Stewart Kennedy of the AFDS interviewed William Lenderking, who arrived in Havana in March 1959 and witnessed how optimism quickly gave way to fear and repression as the new government began indoctrinating youth and instituting widespread control over libraries, newspapers, and magazines. Lenderking concludes that Castro was never truly interested in good relations with the United States. Lenderking's oral history offers a firsthand personal account of what happened after Castro took over in Cuba : “LENDERKING : Fidel Castro had just come to power two months earlier and Havana was euphoric. In the early days, Fidel and his circle were regarded as folk heroes, even worshipped by some Cubans, and I had to admit when I saw them in public they cut a fine figure, especially Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, who was later supposedly removed by Castro when he had doubts about the revolution. Everyone seemed to think that this was a new era, that a bad government had been ousted and that we could get along with Castro and he would certainly want to get along with us because of our power and influence. And so it was a period of real optimism there. I was not just the youngest and most junior officer on the USIS [US Information Service] staff -- we had about six or seven officers there -- I was the youngest and most junior officer in the whole embassy. In fact, I was still in trainee status, and did not have an official position, which meant I was supposed to get experience in all the sections or at least the two USIA sections, information and culture, and as it turned out that was only a one-year assignment. That is the way USIA did it in those days. And in that one year the whole situation in Cuba turned 180 degrees. The feeling of euphoria dissipated quickly, at least among those who were not committed revolutionaries, and changed to one of deep dismay and opposition. There were constant crises between the US and Cuba; Castro was denouncing us all the time, there were demonstrations, intrigue, high emotions....US Ambassador to Cuba Philip Bonsal....was the Eisenhower administration’s attempt to initially get along with Castro....Bonsal was a gentleman, low key and sophisticated, not at all bumptious, spoke excellent Spanish, was familiar with Cuba and Latin American history, and he was popular with the Cubans. He tried very hard to have a good relationship and get us over the bumps of old resentments that were always getting in the way....But in retrospect, I think Ambassador Bonsal was slow to recognize just how far Fidel Castro was prepared to go and that he was not really interested in good relations with us, except totally on his own terms. In short, I think from the beginning Fidel was convinced he could never carry out his revolution unless Cuba’s close ties with the US were broken. He later said he’d always been a Communist and forged a close relationship with the Soviets, replacing Cuba’s dependency on the US with one on the Soviet Union....Since I was the most expendable American officer, still technically in training, I went to people in some of the interior cities where there was a massive program of indoctrination going on beyond anything we were aware of in Havana, and it was against the US and it was pro-Communist. Castro’s officials were taking the books out of the libraries and replacing them with Marxist tracts, supplied massively in Spanish through the cheap paperback programs the Soviet Union had in those days, worldwide. We also had a worldwide book translation program, but it wasn’t in the same league in either depth or breadth with what the Soviet Union was offering. They understood the importance of ideas and argumentation much better than we did. And it wasn’t just books. The regime was taking over the newspapers and independent magazines, one by one, picking off anything and anyone who offered an independent opinion. I also witnessed on several occasions kids outfitted something like the Boy Scouts being marched through the squares chanting, “Uno-dos-tres-cuatro, Viva Fidel Castro Ruz!” Well, I’d read “Animal Farm,” “1984,” “Darkness at Noon” “Brave New World,” and others in that same general vein and what was happening in Cuba was alarming. It was nothing less than the stifling of all independent voices and the indoctrination of the youth of an entire country, and it seemed to me very ominous....In the beginning the Cubans were very friendly. From my experience and the experiences of others, I believed Cubans genuinely liked Americans and vice-versa. But Cubans had a very highly developed sense of grievance toward the United States, which in my view was justified to a large extent by having had Cuba as an American colony, and after Cuba’s independence in 1934 continuing to treat it like one....One person I had an introduction to through my wife’s sister, who had met him when he was visiting at Yale, was a senior official in the foreign ministry. He was a Yale graduate, a charming bon vivant, and when I contacted him he said, ‘Okay, I will take you to lunch.’ Well, we hit it off instantly -- he was suave and very outgoing and we just bounced from one topic to another at this upscale restaurant he took me to, with the din of the Cuban luncheon cocktail hour and Cuban music blasting in our ears...but I did cultivate my friendship with him and when things really got bad I offered, and he accepted, my help to get him and his wife out of the country....It’s a long story but basically what happened is I was able to get him an expedited visa. I argued with the visa officers who insisted he appear in the Embassy in person. We all knew the Embassy was being watched, and he, as a senior official in the Foreign Ministry would certainly be spotted by the surveillance people, and he was very apprehensive of coming into the Embassy. I arranged for him to come in and leave by a side door and maybe that helped....The risk was real enough -- he could have been arrested, jailed, and even executed as a traitor -- it happened to others. Fortunately, he and his family got out -- disguised heavily....It was jarring to think that Havana was regarded as almost a paradise and a haven for tourists of all kinds only a few months previous to all this....I’ll tell you one more story that I think is interesting. The head Cuban cultural affairs assistant at the Embassy, in USIS, was very popular and well connected. Everyone loved her. She was just perfect...and everyone liked her and relied on her. But there was only one problem -- she turned out to be a spy for Castro. She was in the Embassy in a glassed-in ground floor office, so she saw all the people who came and went, and she was reporting to Castro’s intelligence services. I’m sure some people ended up in prison or being roughly interrogated because of her....So that was the kind of atmosphere it was : it went from euphoria in the beginning to very unpleasant....There was certainly debate but I think we were all dismayed about the way the government was going. It was shutting down the newspapers and censoring, seizing land without compensation, mounting scurrilous and vicious public attacks on anyone who dared to criticize what was happening, and none of these were essential to a successful revolution. So we began to see that Castro’s agenda did not include a friendly relationship with the US and a willingness to sit down and work out our problems. And we were all operating from the premise that our problems could be negotiated and settled and it was in the interest of both our countries....somewhere around fall of 1959, the Embassy...had a straw vote, just the Embassy section chiefs, the Ambassador and the DCM [Deputy Chief of Mission], and they voted that there was no way the United States could get along with Castro if he continued on his present course, because things had gone too far. And after that point I think we all prepared for what would be an eventual breaking of relations." • If we fast forward to today's Cuba, American Thinker's Monica Showalter wrote on Wednesday that : "The press has delicately reported that Cuban military dictator, Raúl Castro, thinks President Trump wishes to return to a policy of 'confrontation.' Confrontation? Last time we heard that, Sukarno was using the word as his battle cry for attacks on Malaysia back in '63. This time, Castro being Castro, he's attempting to blame others with the word because the Castro dynasty has always blamed others. But given that Castro remembers the word and the era, and, incidentally, hung out with Sukarno, it's likely he means it as a battle cry, too. The only problem here is that he's screaming like a cornered rat." Showalter quotes the BBC report on Raúl Castro's remarks : "Once again, the US government seems to be on the road to confronting Cuba and presenting our peaceful and inclusive country as a threat to the region. Once again, they want to make Cuba guilty of all the evils of the region." The BBC said that Castro accused "the far right" in Florida -- where many Cuban exiles live -- of having "confiscated US policy towards Cuba" : " 'I reiterate our willingness to coexist in a civilized way despite our differences, in a relationship of peace, respect and mutual benefit with the United States.' Castro said new generations of Cubans had 'assumed the mission of constructing socialism,' adding that 'the revolution hasn't aged.' " • Showalter explains what is behind Raúl Castro's remarks about the US : "First, his grip on power no longer is secure, at least for him. A conservative journalism buddy of mine recently returned from Cuba. What he tells me is that he thinks President Obama's initial opening to the dictatorship, bad as it seemed at first, might just have been a good thing. He tells me Cubans are now openly stating that communism is a miserable failure, and they'd love to get rid of it. On my friend's prior trips to Cuba, he said they had all acted as scared to talk to outsiders as North Koreans. Now the change is pronounced. What's more, since everyone is doing that, the secret police has its hands tied, since the goons can't arrest everyone. It is hard as heck to put that genie back into the bottle, what with the fresh air that's drifted in. That's problem one for Raúl, and if he means to stay in power, he's going to try to, which means putting Cuba on a war footing. He needs a war, so he's going to try to start one. Second, President Trump really has talked tough with the dictator, openly stating that military intervention is not off the table in Cuba's colony, Venezuela, something the polite-society anti-Trump Latin elites shuddered in horror at, despite the unfolding humanitarian disaster in that country. That's never been done, not even by President Bush, and that took guts to do. Trump also appointed the razor-sharp Mauricio Claver-Carone to run his Latin America policy at the NSC. That would have to be the top of the 'exiles' whom Raúl was complaining about in his diatribe, given that Claver-Carone is Cuban-American and knows how that regime works....What's more, Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton, denounced the three hellholes of Latin America led by Cuba as 'the three stooges' of socialism....For Raúl, 'three stooges' has got to sting....Cuba controls both Venezuela and Nicaragua, physically, given the presence of Cuban operatives running all key ministries in both socialist hellholes, and those countries have become problems as they decay for other countries. Obviously, someone knows that the only way to fix this is to take Castro's colonies away and end his creepy little empire of failure with this language and these moves. Third, the region is with Trump. Brazil just inaugurated a spectacular change agent for its country, President Jair Bolsonaro, whose first words were in his vow to eradicate socialism from the face of his country. Can you imagine how Raúl Castro might have reacted to that? He'd see a threat because guess what : it is a threat. Bolsonaro will likely start with dismantling the Castroite consortium of nations based in Brazil, known as the São Paulo Forum, which will be a big blow to Cuba, which considered that a satellite operation, and then he will move on to find ways to check Venezuela, whose starving refugees are spilling over in their thousands into Brazil. Ultimately, it's going to have to mean getting rid of the Castros if the Venezuelan problem is ever to be solved, given Cuba's grip. As Bolsonaro openly recognizes this, note that Raúl can also see that Bolsonaro's got considerable freedom of action, too, given that he sports a 75% approval rating in the polls, something that Raúl, with his murmuring and discontented Cuban public, lacks. That whole picture has got to scare Raúl something fierce." • So, says Showalter : "One can only conclude that Raúl's bellicose anniversary speech is the raving of a rat who's feeling cornered. The walls are closing in on Raúl, and 2019 is a dawn for better times for Latin America. It seems to be a matter of if, not when, all of Raúl's hellhole regimes fall at this point, and that can only be bad news for him, particularly if Russia's Vladimir Putin is also kicked out. For Raúl, we can only hope such an end is going to be miserable." • May we dare to hope that 2019 will be the year in which the tyrannical Castro regime's grip on Cuba gives way?? • • • WHAT IS ON THE TABLE FOR SYRIA IN 2019? The Washington Institute published an article by Michael Knights on December 24, 2018, that is already outdated, because it begins by stating that : "President Donald Trump’s December 19 decision to withdraw U.S. troops and airpower from Syria has thrown a handful of US policies and scores of US partnerships into chaos. The war against the Islamic State and the maximum pressure campaign on Iran now face grave uncertainty, and both the Islamic State and Iranian security hardliners and proxies will move quickly to exploit new opportunities." • A rather over-dramatic beginning, because Knights goes on to say that : "Yet there is also an opportunity for America and its allies and partners to get creative, and to do so in a way that might satisfy President Trump -- the ultimate disrupter -- that he has secured a better deal in the process....Withdrawing too quickly and completely is the disastrous Obama model: fighting smarter and lighter with more burden-sharing should be the Trump model. The US mission in Syria is low-cost and high-impact. With a very small number of US forces in Syria, President Trump has smashed ISIS control of territory, moving the US a long way towards the enduring defeat of ISIS. This was a fantastic bargain compared to the large missions of the past....The President has stated this week that US counter terrorism in Syria will continue and that the US can re-engage as needed. This flexibility should now be tested, but not in a way that directly pushes President Trump into a corner over making his decision, which is his right as the US commander-in-chief. All measures should be explored immediately to raise non-US contributions (European, Turkish, and Iraqi Kurdish) to the Syrian Democratic Forces counter terrorism campaign, and to reduce permanent US presence, to make the operation even more cost-effective for America. This must be done quickly, because Iran and Russia and Assad will move rapidly to enter eastern Syria, but not to eliminate the Islamic State -- more likely to seize oilfields and push ISIS into Iraq or Turkey or other parts of the region where they will continue to pose a threat." • US News & World Report quoted the Reuters report that : "Turkey and Iraq will deepen their cooperation in the fight against terrorism, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday. Erdogan was speaking at a news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Barham Salih. Turkey has said it would take over the fight against Islamic State following the US decision to pull out of Syria. Ankara also carries out regular air strikes on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) bases in northern Iraq." • On its own site, Reuters reported from Beirut on Wednesday that : "A convoy of Syrian Kurdish fighters has pulled out of the flashpoint area of Manbij in northern Syria, close to territory controlled by Turkey, Syria’s defense ministry said on Wednesday. Some 30 km (20 miles) from the Turkish border, the town occupies a critical spot on the map of the Syrian conflict, near the junction of three separate blocks of territory that form spheres of Russian, Turkish and -- for now -- US influence.'According to information, approximately 400 Kurdish fighters have left Manbij so far,' the Syrian defense ministry said. Their departure was in line with an agreement 'for the return of normal life to the area of northern Syria,' it said. The ministry showed online a video of dozens of vehicles traveling along an unmade road carrying armed fighters, some waving the flags of the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia and its female counterpart the YPJ. The YPG is the strongest element in the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), a coalition of militias that the United States has backed in its campaign against Islamic State, helping it capture swathes of north and east Syria. Fearing an attack by Turkey after a US pull-out from Syria, the YPG asked Syrian government forces to deploy in the area around Manbij. There was no immediate comment from the YPG or the SDF on the withdrawal or on how many fighters might remain in Manbij. Turkey regards the YPG as a terrorist group tied to the PKK inside its own borders, and has staged incursions into Syria in support of Syrian rebels to push it from the Turkish frontier. As a result of one of those incursions, Turkish-backed forces have held an area bordering Manbij since 2016, and Ankara has repeatedly demanded that the YPG leave the area and cross to the east bank of the Euphrates. The YPG previously announced it had pulled its forces out of Manbij and has said fighters still in the area belonged to a local militia allied to the SDF. US forces have underpinned stability in Manbij since Islamic State’s defeat there in 2016, and have conducted joint patrols with Turkish forces since November in an effort to allay Ankara’s security concerns." • The Wall street Journal reported on December 24, 2018, that : " Turkey sent more troops and tanks to its border with Syria, state media reported, continuing to amass along Kurdish-held areas after President Trump said Ankara would take over the fight against Islamic State there. The President last week abruptly ordered a US troop withdrawal from Syria, triggering concerns that the move could allow the extremist group to rebuild. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan 'has very strongly informed me that he will eradicate whatever is left of ISIS in Syria....and he is a man who can do it plus, Turkey is right 'next door,' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter late Sunday, using an acronym for the militant group. Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesman for Mr. Erdogan, said on Monday that a US military team will come to Turkey this week [in December] to coordinate the handover. A senior Trump administration official said on Sunday that the idea is for there to be close coordination between the US and Turkish military. The chairman of the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joe Dunford, has talked with his Turkish counterpart, the official said, adding that such consultations are expected to continue down the chain of command on each side. But despite an agreement that appears to repair fraying US-Turkish ties, competing interests of other foreign powers in Syria threaten to upend the plan, as does Turkey’s ability and willingness to fully replace the US mission....Mr. Erdogan has indicated that Turkey’s mission will be broader than that of the US, targeting extremists and the Kurdish YPG militia, which was the US’s main partner in the fight against Islamic State, but which Ankara sees as terrorists....Turkish officials have said Turkey’s most immediate goal would be to secure a 20-mile wide buffer zone along its border with Syria rather than venture deep into Syrian territory, where its troops would risk clashing with forces loyal to the Assad government, Iran or Russia....Turkey is also hamstrung by its delicate and increasingly important relationship to Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has sworn to recapture northeastern Syria from the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by Syrian Kurds. Capturing the area would give Mr. Assad and his allies control of nearly all of Syria after nearly eight years of war, including vast oil fields currently under Kurdish control. Russia and Turkey in September instated a fragile cease-fire in the northwestern province of Idlib, and have growing interests outside Syria, on trade and security. That leaves Mr. Erdogan in a pinch. If he doesn’t commit wholly in Syria, Mr. Trump may feel let down. If he goes too far, he risks angering Russia, jeopardizing the Idlib cease-fire and sparking an outbreak of violence that could send hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing toward the Turkish border. Mr. Erdogan has said Turkey’s help is contingent on US logistical support, without specifying what that means, which gives him a possible out if he feels the US leaves him in the lurch....The Trump-Erdogan agreement could push the Syrian Kurds, facing a growing Turkish threat, to strike a deal with the Assad government. There is already panic in SDF-held areas among civilians who fear either a resurgence of Islamic State after a US withdrawal, or the prospect of living under the Syrian regime, said Omar Abou Leila, an activist with the Deir Ezzour24 media group in eastern Syria." • And, on Thursday, the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News reported that the Syria withdrawal of US troops "slows down amid flare-up as Trump 'wants to protect Kurds.' " President Trump has already said that the United States would leave Syria slowly “over a period of time” and would protect the Washington-backed Kurdish group that Turkey lists as a terrorist organization. On Wednesday, speaking to reporters at a cabinet meeting, President Trump said he was not happy that the Kurds were selling oil to Iran, but that he wanted to protect them either way. "I didn’t like the fact that they’re selling the small (amount of) oil that they have to Iran, and we asked them not to sell it to Iran...We’re not thrilled about that. OK? I’m not happy about it at all. We want to protect the Kurds, nevertheless. We want to protect the Kurds, but I don’t want to be in Syria forever. It’s sand. And it’s death.We’re getting out and we’re getting out smart. I never said I’m getting out tomorrow.” • AND, in the ongoing debate bout the US troop pullout from Syria, one nation must figure importantly, although it gets little coverage in regional Sunni or Shiite media. It is Israel. The Washington Institute wrote on Wednesday about the April Israeli election and the role foreign policy will play in the election campaign. David Makovsky and Dennis Ross state that : "Candidates need to be asked how they will deal with thorny issues such as Russian blowback in Syria, Hezbollah missile threats, Gaza reconstruction, and Iranian nuclear resurgence." The writers see the Trump administration’s support for Israel as "important diplomatically and symbolically," BUT leaving "Israel on its own when it comes to dealing with the challenges of Iran in Syria and Lebanon and managing the Russians. With Moscow now adopting a tougher policy toward Israel’s freedom of action in Syria and Lebanon, how do Netanyahu and other candidates propose to deal with the Russians? The challenge is especially acute because the Trump administration with its withdrawal from Syria is signaling everyone, including the Russians, that it sees no interests in Syria regardless of whether Israel and Jordan are likely to face Iranian-backed threats from there. Historically, there was an understanding between Israel and the United States : Israel handles the threats it faces in the region, the US deals with threats from external powers. That apparently no longer applies with the Trump administration, so Israel’s leaders have to contend with a new reality in the region in which the US intends to play a diminished role even as Russia becomes more assertive in filling the vacuum." • THAT is a largely over-stated position not supported by evidence on the ground. Yahoo News got it right on Tuesday by looking to Reuters for the real story about post-Syria Israel-US relations. Reuters reported : "US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that the United States would continue to cooperate with Israel over Syria and in countering Iran in the Middle East, even as President Donald Trump plans to withdraw US troops from Syria. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said as he met with Pompeo in the Brazilian capital that he planned to discuss how to intensify intelligence and operations cooperation in Syria and elsewhere to block Iranian 'aggression.' In his first public comments on Trump's decision, Pompeo said it 'in no way changes anything that this administration is working on alongside Israel. The counter-ISIS campaign continues, our efforts to counter Iranian aggression continue and our commitment to Middle East stability and the protection of Israel continues in the same way it did before that decision was made." • Reuters continued : " 'We have a lot to discuss,' said Netanyahu, who like Pompeo was in the Brazilian capital for the inauguration of Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil's new president. 'We’re going to be discussing our, the intense cooperation between Israel and the United States which will also deal with the questions following the decision, the American decision, on Syria and how to intensify even further our intelligence and operational cooperation in Syria and elsewhere to block Iranian aggression in the Middle East.' Netanyahu said Israel was very appreciative of the 'strong...unequivocal support' Pompeo gave Israel's 'efforts at self defense against Syria' in the past few days." • State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said Pompeo and Netanyahu “discussed the unacceptable threat that regional aggression and provocation by Iran and its agents poses to Israeli and regional security” and Pompeo reiterated the US commitment to Israel’s security and right to self-defense. Netanyahu said last month after President Trump's announcement that Israel would escalate its fight against Iranian-aligned forces in Syria after the withdrawal of US troops. Israel sees the spread of Iran's influence in the Middle East as a growing threat, and has carried out scores of air strikes in civil war-torn Syria against suspected military deployments and arms deliveries by Iranian forces supporting Damascus. • • • DEAR READERS, it is unlikely that Cuba will free itself from the Castro regime as long as Raúl Castro controls the military and security force goon squads. But, the rumblings are unmistakable and when the 87-year old Raúl finally leaves this world, the remnants of the Castro power base will be hard-pressed to hang on to their tyrannical power. • As for Syria, much of the hand-wringing from the media and Progressive politicians worldwide is simply part of their "Destroy Trump" agenda. President Trump is far too savvy to just pack up and leave a country as fragile and volatile as Syria. He will leave on his own timetable and as he sees the regional players -- Turkey on the western borders and Israel on the eastern side -- take over in meaningful ways. He has already reminded Turkey that the US wants to protect the Kurds. His Secretary of State has re-confirmed its complete support for Israel. And, we can be sure, even after those US troops are gone -- isn't it a little insane to believe that 2,000 troops are holding Syria and the Middle East together ?? -- US air power will still be there. Russia, Iran, Turkey, Hezbollah, and probably even ISIS, know that, and it constrains their aggressive intentions mightily.