What Happened When We Stayed the Course in Cuba

[Mika]

What Happened When We Stayed the Course in Cuba - By Joseph J. Gonzalez
http://www.hnn.us/articles/42982.html

President Bush has told Americans that his policy in Iraq will remain unchanged. With even prominent Republicans seeking to alter course, Americans may wonder why the president remains so determined. They should look to the lessons Bush draws from history.

Bush is a student of history. What has it taught him? That determination succeeds and weakness fails.

In a recent speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Bush said that history provides "lessons applicable to our time." These lessons, he said, teach us that American troops can bring democracy to Iraq, just as they did to nations in Europe and Asia in the years following World War II. But we must remain determined, said Bush; if we waiver, Iraq will become another Vietnam.

No one should be surprised that Bush or anyone else invokes the sad example of the nation's exit from Vietnam, but instead of fixing on Vietnam, Bush should consider the case of Cuba. From 1898 to 1959, America was steadfast in Cuba - and the result was disastrous.

Much like the Bush administration in Iraq, the McKinley's administration introduced democratic institutions to Cuba after its armed intervention during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Following elections, America ceded sovereignty to a new Cuban government in 1902.

But American troops remained in Havana and elsewhere. In order to protect Cuba's nascent democratic institutions, the McKinley administration planted U.S. troops on Cuban soil and required the Cubans to recognize America's right to intervene should American interests be threatened.

American troops did not bring democracy, however. Instead, they helped to prepare the way for dictatorship, revolution and anti-Americanism. Between 1906 and 1933, U.S. presidents intervened more or less continuously in the affairs of Cuba, often using troops to put down rebellions and resolve disputed elections. Tired of such interventions, Americans eventually came to support a series of corrupt, authoritarian but pro-United States leaders in the 1930s and 1940s.

Those who led the Cuban revolution of the 1950s (and Fidel Castro was only one leader among many) sought to end American influence on the island. Everyone knows what happened next. Castro became both a dictator and one of the world's foremost antagonists of American foreign policy.

From 1898 to 1959, the United States guided Cuban politics. It maintains troops on Cuban soil today - at notorious Guantanamo Bay. For at least six decades, Bush and his neoconservative allies may be surprised to learn, American steadfastness was not the problem; American control was.

Before 1959, Cuban politicians served American interests first, Cuban interests second. American corporations dominated the island's economy and politics. Sovereign in name, but not in fact, Cuba was little more than a satellite of the American political and economic system.

All this suggests another lesson for President Bush: Struggling new governments require not just freedom from tyranny, but also freedom to guide their own economic and political futures. They require autonomy.

As an American protectorate, Cuba never had autonomy, and it remains unclear if Iraq will. The administration plans to keep American troops in Iraq for decades. No Iraqi can now be prime minister, it seems, without the permission of the U.S. government.

It's unlikely, however, that President Bush will want to absorb this lesson. He long ago decided what history has to teach him: Success requires determination and only determination. The rest is just the carping of critics. It's too bad for him - and for us - that the lessons of history are not so reassuring.

Mr. Gonzalez is a faculty member in the departments of history and interdisciplinary studies at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., and a writer for the History News Service.

The article may be republished as long as both the author and the History News Service are clearly credited.

[Lasher]

1. The aftermath of the Vietnam war was a consequence of our going in.

Not of our getting out.

Good point about staying the course regarding Cuba.

[Demeter]

2. And In Spite Of Our Best Efforts, Cuba Survives--Even Thrives!

This country is idiotic in its foreign policy since forever.

[jaksavage]

3. Then there is North Korea nt

[peacetalksforall]

4. Yep, all in THE NAME OF Protecting Our Shores. And then there

was nine-eleven with a thousand plus subsequent cover-ups and sealed or destroyed evidence. No courts. No judges. No juries. Just war in another part of the world. A criminal act was reacted to by the patriotism of war - for another long time occupation following the invasion and plundering by the U.S. government and contractors and millions of supportive lemmings.

Regrettably, we may once again occupy Cuba for corporations and this time with something unique compared to the Spanish-American War - corporate employee and contractor mercenaries under the direction of the State Dept - currently led by a female. Private orders, private equipment, private aircraft, private supplies - from what is supposed to be our diplomatic and peace-negotiation seeking department of (what is supposed to be) our government. And minus the people's approval. All paid with stolen money. And using Spanish speaking mercenaries from Chile - formerly loyal to Pinochet (plus new recruits from the Cuban-American community?).

[peacetalksforall]

5. self-delete

[peacetalksforall]

6. That was a fine contribution, Mika. Very educational. Thanks. n/t

[Mika]

7. It is a good look at what occupies this country now.

How do citizens of America kick out the interests that the Cubans kicked out post Revolution?


:(

[Judi Lynn]

8. Vote coming up today, Tuesday, in the General Assembly at the U.N., condemning the embargo.

Cuba's ballet legend Alonso slams U.S. embargo
Fri Oct 26, 2007 1:23pm EDT

HAVANA (Reuters) - Alicia Alonso, the nearly blind matriarch of Cuban ballet, on Friday denounced U.S. sanctions as an "inhuman and unjustifiable siege" that has hindered cultural ties between the United States and Cuba.

Alonso, 85, called on American artists and intellectuals to speak out against the U.S. embargo that has banned trade with Fidel Castro's communist government and restricted travel between the two countries since the early 1960s.

"I ask you to raise your voices to reject so unfair a measure and demand the end to this inhuman and unjustifiable siege," she said in a statement read out for her at a news conference.

U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday rejected any easing of the sanctions without a full transition to democracy, calling last year's transfer of power from the ailing Castro to his brother Raul an exchange of one dictator for another.

Every year since 1992, the U.N. General Assembly has told the United States to lift the embargo against Cuba. Last year's resolution was approved by a record 183-4, with one abstention. The next such vote is slated to take place next Tuesday.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2625674220071026



Alicia Alonso

Photos of Alonso's world famous Ballet Nacional de Cuba:
http://images.google.com/images?q=Ballet+Nacional+de+Cuba&ndsp=20&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&start=0&sa=N



Ballet Nacional de Cuba, "Giselle," John Ross Dance Photographs

Ballet Nacional de Cuba - Sadler's Wells - August 2005
http://www.ballet.co.uk/gallery/jr_cuba_magia_danza_0805

[Judi Lynn]

9. Wiki. on Ballet Nacional de Cuba, directed by Alicia Alonso:

Ballet Nacional de Cuba

Ballet Nacional de Cuba
Type Ballet Company
Founded October 28, 1948
Headquarters Great Theater of Havana
Havana, Cuba
Website www.balletcuba.cu

National Ballet of Cuba (Ballet Nacional de Cuba), is managed by Cuban prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso and is one of the top ballet companies in the world. The artistic standards and technical severity of the dancers and the wide diversity in the aesthetic conception of the choreographers in combining joyful Cuban sensuality with superb classical Russian, French and English ballets, have granted this ensemble a secure place among international dance institutions. Today occupies a prominent place in the contemporary Hispanic-American culture. The company was founded in 1948, with Alicia Alonso as the main founder and first figure. In 1950 the National School of Ballet Alicia Alonso was founded, annexed to the professional company.

The company was founded by Alicia Alonso,her husband Fernando and Fernando's brother Alberto on October 28, 1948 as Alicia Alonso Ballet Company. Two years later, a school was established to create a strong artistic vision and promote the talents of young Cuban dancers. Alicia Alonso set a tradition of Romantic and Classical excellence while encouraging the development of new choreography.

Although the school was thriving artistically, it struggled financially. When Fidel Castro took control of Cuba in 1959, he had a commitment to level the social structure and to make the arts available to everyone. “The old government was out and the new hope was coming for the arts and the ballet in Cuba,” recalled Margarita Saá, former BNC ballerina. The coming of the Revolution, marked the beginning of a new stage for the Cuban ballet, Castro gave $200,000 to Alonso, a supporter of the revolution. With state funding, suddenly the ballet became important to the country and its identity. That year, as a part of a new cultural program, the company was reorganized and it took the name of National Ballet of Cuba that has had a vertiginous development from that moment on, enriching its repertory and promoting the development of new dancers, choreographers, professors and creators. Combined with other spheres related to dance, such as set design,costumes, lighting and sound. Significant improvements in traditional repertory, unique and diverse choreographic advances, have established works that are recognized routinely as visionary achievements in the contemporary choreography. Following the romantic and classical tradition, The BNC has a rich history of stimulating the creative talent of its choreographers who under Ms.Alonso's guidence have improved both contemporary and classical ballet. The BNC has choreographed and preformed completely new versions of classics such as Giselle, The Swan Lake or Coppélia.These masterpieces are sometimes accompanied with works coming from the renovating movement of Sergei Diaghilev Russian Ballets Petrushka, or Afternoon of a Faun; and ballets created by Cuba's national choreographers.

Government funding for the Ballet Nacional continues to this day. These funds allow the Ballet to scour the country and hand pick gifted students. Cuba funds a country-wide teaching organization called the National School of Ballet, directed by Ramona Saá. There is no shortage of eager young hopefuls on this island.Placement in the ballet program can lead to respectable salaries, government subsidies, the opportunity to travel internationally and recognition as a Cuban cultural asset.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballet_Nacional_de_Cuba