The truth on the other hand, is the unshakable reality that has driven every sanction, every sabotage attempt, and every assassination plot since 1959: Cuba is a threat only to an idea. It is a threat to the imperial doctrine that a small, poor nation in America’s ‘backyard’ must not be allowed to choose socialism, to provide free healthcare and education, and homes to live without the permission of Washington.
For this sin of self-determination, the crime of building a society where capital is not god, Cuba has been punished with the most enduring economic siege in modern history. This is not an ‘embargo’, which I consider to be a sterile, political term. It is a total blockade, designed to constrict and cripple. It is enforced by a plethora of laws with names like the Helms-Burton Act, which terrorises foreign companies from trading with the Island and allows the US to seize ships in international waters. Its goal, as US politician Robert Torricelli once admitted, was to…
‘Wreak havoc’.

  • Alpha71@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    I dunno, maybe helping to almost end the world in 1962 plays a small part in it.

    • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
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      9 hours ago

      Maybe if the US hadn’t tried to invade Cuba the year before they wouldn’t have requested Soviet assistance. Also maybe the US shouldn’t have placed nukes in Turkey if it didn’t want the soviets to do something similar.

    • GiorgioPerlasca@lemmy.ml
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      9 hours ago

      Maybe study the whole story before writing. From Wikipedia:

      In 1961, the U.S. started deploying 15 Jupiter IRBM (intermediate-range ballistic missiles) nuclear missiles near Izmir, Turkey, which directly threatened cities in the western sections of the Soviet Union. These missiles were regarded by President John F. Kennedy as being of questionable strategic value; a nuclear submarine was capable of providing the same cover with both stealth and superior firepower. In the late 1950’s missile technology was well developed in the field of medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), as opposed to ICBMs (intercontinental-ballistic missiles) which could not be kept in a state of readiness at all times.

      MRBMs represented only a small portion of the total American nuclear arsenal, but still much larger than the U.S.S.R.'s. Soviet strategists realized that some nuclear equality could be efficiently reached by placing missiles in Cuba. Soviet MRBMs on Cuban soil, with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 statute miles), could threaten Washington, DC and around half of the U.S. SAC bases (of nuclear-armed bombers), with a flight time of under twenty minutes. In addition, the U.S.'s radar warning systems oriented toward USSR would have provided little warning of a launch from Cuba.

      Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had publicly expressed his anger at the Turkish deployment, and regarded the missiles as a personal affront. The deployment of missiles in Cuba - the first time Soviet missiles were moved outside the USSR - is commonly seen as Khrushchev’s direct response to the Turkish missiles.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

      • Alpha71@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        I am aware of the whole story. It still doesn’t change the fact that they were complicit in almost ending the world. I will say that it doesn’t excuse America’s current behavior.

        • bthest@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          What a fascist bootlicking take. Blaming Cuba for the US deploying nuclear weapons on an apocalyptic scale AND STILL FUCKING DEPLOYING THEM DOING TO THIS DAY.

          You must really have your head shoved waaay up the eagle’s rotten asshole to come up with something that backwards.

      • Alpha71@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        True, true, true…

        Except for Castro publicly going on about how Russia should have never backed down.