International Cuba getting crushed by Trump's oil blockade

[PainIsLIfe]

Electricity supplies problems didn't had turned ppl in Afganistan to love USSR or later U.S.
Nor also had changed something in Yemen.

More problems : more hate.

Plus Cuba doesn't have just crude oil as source.

Proud U.S can't deal with Yemen nor, let's be realistic, with Gaza tunnels after Benny wasn't allowed to fill tunnels with sea salt water.
HAMAS elite is sitting with generators and power banks, using comps not cheaper than we have etc. They does have real fun today.

What?

 

[Yehudim]

I don't know that I'd agree necessarily, they're bad in different ways. The Islamic Republic is more isolated which comes with causes lots of unnecessary suffering and the recent crackdown by all accounts is as bad as crackdowns get.

But Iran still has a higher GDP per capita and by some accounts before last year's crackdown Egypt had twice as many political prisoners per capita, second only to Syria. And Sisi had his own Tianamen square moment with the Rabaa massacre just a few months after the 2013 coup.

Tbh if we had a competent and popular president I might even support direct military action against Cuba, just fucking wring their necks and get it over with. Iran is a different beast, Iraq but hard mode. Maximum pressure is fine but there's nowhere near the political will for regime change there.

I remember that crackdown, it was nothing compared to what Iran *admitted* to.

That type of crackdown regularly happened in Iran, btw. Internet shutdown, with the killings of a few hundred people in a small area and then business as usual.

Iran is a menace to its neighbors, along with having an incredibly oppressive internal security force with morality police and the like. Egypt, at least as it comes off to me, is like a run of the mill military dictatorship: corrupt, ruthless, but inwardly looking and not as oppressive as other extremist movements like Islamists and Communists.

 

[Islam Imamate]

I remember that crackdown, it was nothing compared to what Iran *admitted* to.

That type of crackdown regularly happened in Iran, btw. Internet shutdown, with the killings of a few hundred people in a small area and then business as usual.

The recent crackdown is worse than Rabaa but 1,100 protesters killed in a day is nothing to sneeze at. Plus we give the Egyptians military aid which is not a good look if we want to make the rights based case against Iran even if Iran is worse.

Iran is a menace to its neighbors, along with having an incredibly oppressive internal security force with morality police and the like. Egypt, at least as it comes off to me, is like a run of the mill military dictatorship: corrupt, ruthless, but inwardly looking and not as oppressive as other extremist movements like Islamists and Communists.

I think military regimes are among the worst in the planet and Egypt is a good example of why. To the extent the Islamic Republic is bad imo it's because it has similar features to Egypt; large, opaque corporatist structures that dominate the economy and a robust military apparatus to repress the population. In Iran it's based more on having a deep reservoir of committed paramilitary personnel rather than Egypt which relies more on hardware like armored vehicles and whatnot but they're more like each other than either are to the Gulf state for example.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

I never understand why the US didn't lift the embargo decades ago when the Cold War ended.

I mean, the Cuban regime is a disaster and set to fail, so why give them an excuse to put the blame of their misery in the american embargo and policies? If anything it galvanizes whatever nationalistic will still existing around the current regime, as Cubans are proud AF.

Yup. And American aggression is what drove Cuba towards the Soviet Union to begin with.

There have been tons of other military coups in Latin America that resulted in reform, not radical change. Cuba could have easily gone the way of the Mexican Revolution in the early 1900s and gone back to parliamentary democracy, elections, etc.

But after they allied with the USSR, their fate was sealed. They had to be punished for their defiance, no questions asked.

 

[TrueBias]

In before a bunch of Americans tells us how it's a "massive win" that Cubans are even more miserable that they were

I just realized when folks post this stock shit, fheure admitting knowing the argument, of which suggests, not confirms, they could be in agreement

 

[Koro_11]

In before a bunch of Americans tells us how it's a "massive win" that Cubans are even more miserable that they were

I don’t know many Americans, but I know a lot of Cubans, both inside and outside the country, and yeah pretty much all of them are all for toppling the regime, and they all understand things sometimes have to get worse before they get better.

 

[Yehudim]

Yup. And American aggression is what drove Cuba towards the Soviet Union to begin with.

There have been tons of other military coups in Latin America that resulted in reform, not radical change. Cuba could have easily gone the way of the Mexican Revolution in the early 1900s and gone back to parliamentary democracy, elections, etc.

But after they allied with the USSR, their fate was sealed. They had to be punished for their defiance, no questions asked.

Yeah, their fate was sealed because communists cannot win elections unlike the PRI. There’s nothing remotely democratic about them, and when they open up, they die.

 

[Koya]

I don’t know many Americans, but I know a lot of Cubans, both inside and outside the country, and yeah pretty much all of them are all for toppling the regime, and they all understand things sometimes have to get worse before they get better.

Yeah putting them on even more restrictions is sure to not incite more nationalistic sentiment against the West.

It's not like almost every sanction program led to war.

 

[Hog-train]

If Cuba was overthrown, I'm imagining some MAGA will expect Cubans to flock back, thus closing that door on immigration.

But I really don't see that happening.

If relations were to improve, and I hope they do, then Cubans already settled in America will see a green light for bringing families over.

I do want that for Cubans.

I'm not convinced MAGA actually want that, though.

It'll be the complete opposite. Everyone in Cuba will flood out of the Island creating a humanitarian nightmare. That's one of the primary reasons we just don't go in there militarily and just topple the regime in 10 seconds.

Because then we'd be responsible for the whole regime change and all the money it entails. Cuba would be a gigantic money sink with no financial positive at the end of the rainbow because they have zero resources. And all the people will try to illegally come here. That's the last thing the US wants.

So the poor people of Cuba are just going to suffer greatly instead.

I think the Cubans that fled Castro have been out of the country living safetly on American soil, welcomed freely and with complete unfair preference over literally every other immigrant group in the world, for so many decades they have no clue of the plight of the Cubans living there today while the power and infrastructure begins to fail.

This is some fan fiction bullshit. The Cubans in Florida absolutely know what's going on in Cuba.

1. They have family still there which they can easily talk to on the phone, send remittances to and also visit.
2. Tourism was still a big thing until very recently. This isn't North Korea. We can literally see Youtube travel bloggers going there and talking to the locals.

If you go on the Cuba Reddit, plenty of Cuban Americans and Cubans discuss life there.

 

[Koro_11]

Yeah putting them on even more restrictions is sure to not incite more nationalistic sentiment against the West.

It's not like almost every sanction program led to war.

Yeah I’m not a fan of making the poor citizens suffer even more, I hope they can find a way to just crush the regime quickly and not punish the innocent.

 

[avenue94]

Yeah I’m not a fan of making the poor citizens suffer even more, I hope they can find a way to just crush the regime quickly and not punish the innocent.

You might as well wish for cotton candy and unicorns at that point. Sanctions always hurt regime enemies and the poor first. That's the tradeoff.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

You might as well wish for cotton candy and unicorns at that point. Sanctions always hurt regime enemies and the poor first. That's the tradeoff.

Exactly.

Remove the sanctions and Cuba may have gone the way of Vietnam, which is also a single-party state but has opened itself up and has experienced tremendous growth in the last decades

 

[avenue94]

Exactly.

Remove the sanctions and Cuba may have gone the way of Vietnam, which is also a single-party state but has opened itself up and has experienced tremendous growth in the last decades

Possibly, but Cuba isn't anywhere close to what those other countries are from an innate economics perspective.

 

[Koro_11]

You might as well wish for cotton candy and unicorns at that point. Sanctions always hurt regime enemies and the poor first. That's the tradeoff.

Can you point to the part where I'm asking for sanctions?

 

[Romulas]

For me, the crazy thing about leftist apologist for regimes like Cuba and Iran is not even that they don’t really know about these countries, it’s that they really don’t care about them. These countries are just a tool to criticize the US.

Isn’t 60+ years of communist rule enough punishment for the Cuban people?

No, it's America's fault that communism didn't work in Cuba. Communism needs to be able to sell good to capitalist countries and make money off of US tourists in order to give Cuban citizens the quality of high life communism offers. It's America's fault they cannot do that.

 

[Yehudim]

Exactly.

Remove the sanctions and Cuba may have gone the way of Vietnam, which is also a single-party state but has opened itself up and has experienced tremendous growth in the last decades

I don’t even know why you’re semi-endorsing this shit. So basically if we remove sanctions, and the Cubans adopt policy to become Bautista-lite (market friendly, corrupt dictatorships) this is…progress???

Was the issue with Bautista solely that he was allied with America? Or was it the lack of 5-year plans and a military dictatorship in the name of communism?

 

[Possum Jenkins]

I don’t even know why you’re semi-endorsing this shit. So basically if we remove sanctions, and the Cubans adopt policy to become Bautista-lite (market friendly, corrupt dictatorships) this is…progress???

Was the issue with Bautista solely that he was allied with America? Or was it the lack of 5-year plans and a military dictatorship in the name of communism?

The issue with Batista was that he was a corrupt, iron-fisted dictator, who completely whored himself out to US business interests and who left a huge part of his population in complete misery.

The following are American sources:

The U.S. subsequently suspended the shipment of combat arms to the Cuban government in March 1958, with the Acting Secretary of State Christian A. Herter asserting that "in our best judgement, we could not continue to supply weapons to a government which was resorting to such repressive measures of internal security as to have alienated some 80 percent of the Cuban people."[63]

“I loved Havana and was horrified by the way this lovely city had unfortunately been transformed into a huge casino and brothel for American businessmen […]. My fellow countrymen walked the streets, picked up fourteen-year-old Cuban girls and threw coins just for the pleasure of watching men roll around in the sewers and picking them up. One wondered how Cubans – seeing this reality – could regard the United States in any other way than with hatred.”

— Arthur Meier Schlesinger, personal advisor to President Kennedy[64]

Fulgencio Batista - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If around 80% of the population hates you, you're a gigantic piece of shit, way beyond whether you're "market-friendly" or not. This is why the revolution was successful- it had the support of the vast majority of the people.

There's hundreds of countries that open their economies without resorting to the humiliation that Batista did. And as it's now clear, Fidel wasn't an orthodox Marxist who insisted on private property being abolished and for the state to control everything. He was driven in that direction by the American threat, which led to them allying with the USSR.

 

[Yehudim]

The issue with Batista was that he was a corrupt, iron-fisted dictator, who completely whored himself out to US business interests and who left a huge part of his population in complete misery.

The following are American sources:

The U.S. subsequently suspended the shipment of combat arms to the Cuban government in March 1958, with the Acting Secretary of State Christian A. Herter asserting that "in our best judgement, we could not continue to supply weapons to a government which was resorting to such repressive measures of internal security as to have alienated some 80 percent of the Cuban people."[63]

“I loved Havana and was horrified by the way this lovely city had unfortunately been transformed into a huge casino and brothel for American businessmen […]. My fellow countrymen walked the streets, picked up fourteen-year-old Cuban girls and threw coins just for the pleasure of watching men roll around in the sewers and picking them up. One wondered how Cubans – seeing this reality – could regard the United States in any other way than with hatred.”

— Arthur Meier Schlesinger, personal advisor to President Kennedy[64]

Fulgencio Batista - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If around 80% of the population hates you, you're a gigantic piece of shit, way beyond whether you're "market-friendly" or not. This is why the revolution was successful- it had the support of the vast majority of the people.

There's hundreds of countries that open their economies without resorting to the humiliation that Batista did. And as it's now clear, Fidel wasn't an orthodox Marxist who insisted on private property being abolished and for the state to control everything. He was driven in that direction by the American threat, which led to them allying with the USSR.

So if he was closer to fascism (right-wing nationalist dictator vs right wing sellout dictator) he would have been better, in other words.

The reason 80% of Cuba hated him is because he was not as good at repressing as the communist party. You won’t find 80% of people in Havana openly criticizing the party, because they have a much better secret police, and decades of indoctrination and cults of personality.

By the way, Schlesinger sucks.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

So if he was closer to fascism (right-wing nationalist dictator vs right wing sellout dictator) he would have been better, in other words.

The reason 80% of Cuba hated him is because he was not as good at repressing as the communist party. You won’t find 80% of people in Havana openly criticizing the party, because they have a much better secret police, and decades of indoctrination and cults of personality.

By the way, Schlesinger sucks.

Right, the advisor to the most aggressively anti-communist and anti-Fidel US president "sucks" because he recognized that the Batista regime was shitty.

Goddamn, talk about indoctrinated.

Living among South Florida Cubans... not even once.

 

[JoeBobbaLou2]

Exactly.

Remove the sanctions and Cuba may have gone the way of Vietnam, which is also a single-party state but has opened itself up and has experienced tremendous growth in the last decades

yup, sanctions and embargoes punish the people, and usually drive them to cling to the defacto leader at the time.

Lift the sanctions and let the people of Cuba live their lives without having to ration electrify and gas ffs.