by Peter Koenig
The lame duck, Obama, extending a conciliatory hand to Cuba by opening an embassy in Havana, by reopening, after 54 years of a criminal and crippling embargo, diplomatic relations? – At the same time Obama is making not a single concession in terms of lifting the blockade. This smells like a trap. Cuba beware!
Imagine – a US Embassy in Havana – it would open the floodgates for US NED (National Endowment for Democracy) funded ‘NGOs’, for Washington’s spies and anti-Castro propaganda machine; it would have free hand to destabilize the country. And what would Cuba gain? – Zilch, zero, nothing. Not even a gradual lifting of the embargo had been announced. To the contrary, it would open Cuba’s borders to the vultures of Florida Cubans, eventually to theirs and other foreign investments, subjugating the country’s huge social gains over the last half a century – universal free education and health services, by far the best social system of the Americas – to the sledgehammer of neoliberal privatization.
Why would Cuba now need a US Embassy? After 54 years of struggling and surviving against Washington’s nod? – In fact, nobody needs the empire – the empire’s consent to financially and economically survive. Suffice it to look at the ‘engineered’ decay of the Russian ruble which eventually will leave Russia better off than before the downward slide of its currency and the likewise ‘engineered’ downward spin of the price of petrol. Everybody knows that the Middle Eastern oil producers, Obama’s stooges, will not forever shoot themselves in the foot by flooding the petrol market and foregoing their oil revenues.
What Cuba needs is free access to international markets – outside and independent of the United States. Cuba needs to integrate into an independent financial and monetary system, detached from the corrupt casino dollar. Solidarity by the rest of the world which has already helped Cuba survive the illegal, inhuman US embargo is now more than ever of the order. The support of a unity of nations must now help stem the temptation to bend to Washington’s offer of ‘diplomacy’.
With the establishment of diplomatic relations, Cuba would be condemned to adopt the dollar as trading currency – no escaping the dollar, if ever Cuba wanted to hope for the good deeds of the empire – the lifting of the blockade.
Look what happened in Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador – once a US Embassy is established, all the nefarious destabilizing elements could sneak in, willy-nilly. Plus, economic ‘sanctions’, would be nearer than ever, if Cuba doesn’t behave. Both Bolivia and Venezuela have learned their lessons the hard way. After they closed the US Embassy and sent US organizations and NGOs home, they could breathe again. Though Venezuela is still suffering from Washington’s diabolical arm of propaganda and direct interference in domestic affairs, she has no longer the burden of maintaining a ‘diplomatic’ tie with the northern aggressor.
Most importantly, however – the US is vying for Cuban hydrocarbons, estimated today at 20 billion barrels of offshore oil reserves. Cuba, like Venezuela, is close to US Mexican Gulf shores, where the major refineries are waiting for the crude. During his tour of South America in July 2014, President Putin in a meeting with Cuban President, Raul Castro, signed an agreement whereby the Russian oil company, Rosneft, will assist the Cuban oil producer, Cupet, exploring and exploiting the island’s offshore petrol.
Is it coincidence or sheer self-interest, that just now, when Russia is digging for oil in Obama’s backyard that he is offering diplomatic ties with the 54 years embargoed Caribbean island? – Your guess.
Venezuela has the world’s largest remaining hydrocarbon reserves, about 300 billion barrels. They are close to the US shores and would be the best bet for US mega-oil. But the White House’s destabilizing efforts in Venezuela seem to fail. These efforts and other State Department blunders have helped increase US isolation in Latin America.
Why not trying another approach? – A well disguised lie; insinuating with the opening of an embassy in Havana that the deadly embargo might ease in some undefined future between the brutal Goliath of the north and castigated, downtrodden David of the Caribbean. An embassy in Cuba may also earn some much needed kudos with other Latin American neighbors which have been upset for years about the criminal strangulation by the empire of one of their brothers.
In fact, first reactions from Latin America to Obama’s diplomatic initiative were positive. But more than caution is in order. – The establishment of a US embassy in Havana might be more than just a floodgate for US secret service agents and anti-Cuba propaganda. A US Embassy in Havana might begin breaking down US isolation in South America, especially in Brazil and Argentina. It might become a backdoor for Washington to gain access to these countries huge natural resources.
Knowing about Washington’s agenda of world dominance, it would be difficult to imagine that there is even a shred of goodwill behind Obama’s move to ‘normalize’ relations with Cuba. – Havana beware!
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, the Voice of Russia, now Ria Novosti, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe.
One manifestation of “exceptionalism” is the assumption that lesser “races” are less able to understand “intrigues”, and hence need to receive the “word” and “guidance” from foreigners of erudition.
This “service” is apparently extended to the Russian Federation as well as Cuba.
If the notion that information in itself can facilitate change perhaps Mr. Chomsky’s audience is better chosen, and better addressed.
https://zcomm.org/zcommentary/obamas-historic-move/
Truth about situation in Ukraine
Kiev captured and muddled. News from the occupied city
My daughter lives in Kiev. She sings in a small jazz group. She performs at night clubs for young people. Recently she was offered a stage to perform in one of the clubs downtown, near Khreshchatyk. The decoration of the hall shocked her: the walls were “artfully” covered with obscene rhymes targeting Putin. The manager of the club warned her that it was in the tradition of the place to routinely get up and sing Ukrainian anthem together with the audience. At that he looked at my daughter with a tense scrutinizing glance. Needless to say that she decided against performing there …
Russophobia is in vogue among the young Kievites, and not only among the young ones. I know a family of 40-year-olds. The head of the family is a middle class businessman. He is a nice, modest guy with a typical Russian last name, something like “Smirnov”. He regularly goes to the ATO zone with the aid for Ukrainian troops he provides at his own expense. His wife, who was born in Russian heartland, sheds a tear, when she mentions “our boys, who are being murdered by Russians”.
Russophobia became a synonym of Ukrainian patriotism. The people, who keep silence and do not support conversations, in which Russia and Russians are cursed, cause suspicion. Many people really consider that Ukraine is in the state of war with Russia. ernikov
No disagreement that Cuba should be cautious – but Cuba already has experienced decades of Cuban emigre attacks (see the 3+ members in Congress) as well as NED type provocations (I think at least one of the spies traded was caught doing that).
Ultimately a question of whether Cuba can get something done – the potential oil exploration would seem to be a big enough carrot for this. The rest is up to Cuba’s negotiating skills.
Some people know that it is a lie, but they pretend not to know.
Without war, without “Russian aggression” one would not be able to explain economic and legal chaos that had engulfed Ukraine. People would have to acknowledge that Maidan was in vain, that the protesters had been fooled by a bunch of local and foreign scoundrels. They do not want to feel humiliated and deceived. And in addition TV propaganda is in full swing since early morning till night, broadcasting “news from Russian-Ukrainian front”. And the population calms down: they are dot dumb asses, it is the war that is ruining everything, and revolution was a great idea.
Until the propaganda screen is lifted, millions of people will keep on staying in the muddled state of mind. This is the problem the liberators of Ukraine from the Nazi yoke are going to be faced with.
I will give several every-day-life facts.
The inhabitants of Kiev received new utility bills. They are impressive. Let us take a family of two people, a mother and her son, a schoolboy. The payment for heating amounts to 700 UAH now. In order not to create any difficulties for you with the calculation of exchange rates, I will explain: together with other utility payments the bill can amount to 1000 UAH, and the mom’s salary is 1800 UAH. And the official minimal salary is 1200 UAH, which is not sufficient for the survival of one person even.
Notably, the majority of the payers express their embarrassment in whisper only. If you ask me, why in whisper, I will tell you openly: they are afraid. Right radical dictatorship of nationalist and fascist kind had been established in the country, and it is dangerous to be declared its enemy, as it is able to kill and to cripple.
Similar reasons are behind silent reaction of the dwellers of Kiev to the exchange rates they observe in the bureaus of exchange. Even illiterate people should understand that, judging by the growing dollar, they became at least twice poorer. If you add to it the increase of prices and Yatsenyuk’s reforms, then it is clear that they became three and even four times poorer.
By the way, as far as the reforms are concerned: everything the PM suggests doing in order to fill the budget, is planned to be taken from the pockets of the ordinary citizens, however, the citizens themselves are keeping mum. And when they start moaning, they are being told expertly that Russia is guilty of everything. And some people find comfort in the endless charismatic-church-like chanting of magic spell “if not for Russia and Putin, we would have lived perfectly well”. This is the endless circle.
In such environment the exhibition of anti-Russian and anti-Russia banners, which was held in Kiev in December seemed quite natural. The main objects of ridicule and hatred in it were Donbass, its population – the “padded jackets”, Russia and its values. The banners message was: “kill Colorado beetles”, tear the ties of brotherhood, and oust everything Russian from Ukraine. There was one especially disgusting banner, portraying Christ the Savior sitting on a heap of tyres, which had been burnt in Maidan, with a bottle of Molotov’s cocktail in his hand. Fratricidal hatred is always the food for blasphemy and it also feeds on it…
“Leading light” of Ukrainian Soviet literature Yuriy Mushketyk called upon the population to give up reading all kinds of printed editions in Russian and at the government – to close all the media published in the “enemy’s” language. By the way, this man had been the winner of many prizes under Soviet power and a party leader of the writer’s union. Now he, like thousands of other creative people, joined the ranks of “patriots”, that is, haters of Russia and the entire Russian culture.
Let us note: even if the new authorities issue an order to read nothing but Mushketyk’s works under threat of punishment, the people would not read anything anyway.
One more news: a group of young MPs from “Svoboda” party put forward a draft bill suggesting official renaming of Ukrainian Orthodox Church as Russian Orthodox Church, which will let them start “legal” repressions of priests and congregations as “foreigners” and “enemy’s agents”.
Ivan Pech
,With the establishment of diplomatic relations, Cuba would be condemned to adopt the dollar as trading currency – no escaping the dollar, if ever Cuba wanted to hope for the good deeds of the empire – the lifting of the blockade. ‘
Fully agree. Diplomatic relations only would also enable US companies to make claims of decade old former assets – the WSJ is writing about it today.
The Castros would be fools if they accepted this poisenous US Obama ,offer’.
Could you update us on Belarus Saker?
Belarus warming up to the Nazi junta in the ukraine, Belarus stopping goods bound to Russia from Kaliningrad and that evil bitch Victoria Nudelman “talking about a small improvement of US-Belarus relations”…
The unpredictable Lukashenko has gone a bit too far this time it seems?
Mikhas
The end of Cold War 1.0 inside Cold War 2.0!
re: Cuba is in mortal danger. These folks in the State Dept. live as retarded adolescents in a visual/mental field of their own “what if” game plan which they actually have and pay so-called “think tanks” to come up with.
RT showed Psaki mess with one of their correspondents at a press conference by making up something on the spot i.e by saying that the White House had two days earlier in fact signed the Ukraine Freedom Act into law. She knew that they had not (the law was signed by Obama two days later). She just wanted to do a smug power trip to interrupt the question of the ( female) RT correspondent and try to throw her off balance. Total contempt.
What would keep them from “taking back Cuba”? when they have paved the way by putting Russia on the defensive and vilifying their leader? No Russian oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico! and “Remember the Maine” will be updated if necessary.
They think it is their Crimea…sadly not true but living outside of virtual reality is so much more off-putting: One has to deal with the needs of real people and they do not want to do this. Someone should make Psaki go clean up her room and then her act!
The article is correct on all the “possibilities” of coming problems.But I believe wrong in the results.I don’t think the author knows Cuba very well.
Cuba and the US already have what are almost “defacto” embassies already,called interest sections in each others capitals.This move only makes them “dejure”.The Cuban G2 has dealt with US spies for decades.And even now exiles are allowed to visit Cuba regularly.The US Dollar is also well used in Cuba today.And government policy has been to try and acquire even more dollars to buy imports from foreign countries.
For any NGO’s to be established in Cuba they would need to have the Cuban governments OK.And I don’t see that happening.Certainly the US,wants the end game to be the overthrow of the Cuban government.But the Cubans understand that and have for over 50 years.They think establishing diplomatic relations will make it easier for them in dealing with other countries that are US stooges.And open information to Americans about the real Cuba,not the cartoon Cuba the US propaganda tells Americans about.As long as Cuba is vigilant and watches the US “diplomats” well,they should be OK.
As to the embargo (known as blockade in Cuba).The removal isn’t real likely.But an easing of it is possible.At least in the parts that effect,to Cuba’s pain,its dealing with foreign countries.As long as Cuba can keep going with good (and hopefully improving)economic relations with China and Russia,she should be OK.
Uncle Bob
I think that perhaps “Remember the Maine” is a phrase to keep in mind. That was the last time the Americans came to Cuba’s “aid”. Opening the door too wide for the same thugs that coined that phrase after so many years of struggle would seem a bit too much too soon in my book. The character of the Cuban people, as demonstrated by their amazing help to other nations in need, must not be squandered for the sake of a flurry of fast food joints and a privately owned central bank.
Saker
As I mentioned before , this development , in my view is a change in tactics from the USA . The original goal to harm Cuba , has not changed , but considering that the past strategy did not work , a new one was necessary . I hope I Am wrong , but , judging by past record , The Government in Cuba must keep their eyes wide open . Given the opportunity the USA will send hundreds of CIA agents with diplomatic passport , the NGOs paid under the table by the secret services will try to foment discord and will pay anybody prepared to jump at the opportunity to become suddenly rich . The time will arrive for colored revolution , coup d’etat and other problems organized by the Evil empire .
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Thanks Peter Koenig for a great piece…yes, I totally agree, but had not thought about all the intelligence agents that could flood it with a “top security clearance” stamp on their passports, or however it appears…the Edward Snowden counterparts that are still working for NSA…
And even up here in Canada I’ve heard of the Miami Cubans…who hate the Castros and just want to get back to their fabulous estates in paradise.
I hope the Cubans won’t sacrifice their independence for toilet paper…
I talked to a guy from Venezuela a few months ago, that was working as labour in constuction where I live, and he wasn’t sure he liked Chavez, mostly because of how awful it was in Venezuela because of no toilet paper…???
This seems to be the case elsewhere too…why is toilet paper so hard to produce ???
Gosh Pug, I would have thought your daughter would be better off to leave Kiev…I guess you can’t talk her into it…maybe she’ll come around sooner or later.
Yes, I’m interested in Borzoi dogs. I just love them, and I’ve noticed that there are breeders in Kiev…I was actually wondering if the dogs there were ok, or whether they’d been eaten !!
I guess things are sort of normal still in Kiev, except for national anthems…I’m so glad your daughter decided not to sing there.
@ Ann
In Venezuela, while financing a bunch of phony protest groups with stated purposes of violence, injury, death, the US NGO scumbags thought up a cute disruptive measure, to intercept all the toilet paper before it could get to the stores; something imported and easily interrupted but causing a lot of reaction. Such nice people.
pug, even though that is the absolute most depressing story I’ve heard in a long time, I want to thank you for sharing with us.
I am going to say a big, fat prayer for you, your family, your friends and your country tonight. I just wish I could do more.
However hard it may be, pug, please stay a witness. Stay near a keyboard and let us know what happens.
Oh, brothers and sisters! Let us all all put aside our differences and work together now to stop a new nightmare from happening.
Generations ago they failed. Now that curse has come back around again. Will we fail, too?
I think a government has some say in how big another country’s embassy can be….but they could still bring in spies as tourists and business people. They can use such people even now to run NGOs.
Main benefit of an embassy is, they can bring in cash money in diplomatic bags, to pay the NGOs without having any trace in the banking system. On the other hand, Cuba can keep better watch on the embassy staff and anyone visiting there.
With BRICS up and running, why would Cuba need to do anything in dollars?
@ PETER KOENIG
You have echoed my very first thoughts about the U.S./Cuba tango.
I wouldn’t trust the bastards in the U.S. as far as I could throw them…
Koenig is writing generically. His concerns and reasoning are valid, but he doesn’t know Cuba.
There’s no consideration given to Cuban demographics: they’re going to have to go through an awful lot of colours before we see a pro-U.S. colour revolution that is Black.
Cuba always has been wide open to subversion and has been crawling with CIA assets and operatives since the start. There are dozens of US-founded and -funded NGOs and political parties that are just scams for extracting money from the Interests Section. Human Rights groups are the worst.
Cuba circulated the following memo at the U.N. and it was not challenged or disavowed.
http://www.nowaroncuba.org/Documentation/Hypocrisy_memo_on_Human_Rights_in_Cuba.htm
The closest thing Cuba ever had to a Maidan was a spontaneous demonstration that sprang up and grew on the Malecon, a broad scenic roadway along the sea wall in Havana. The Cuban response was swift. Fidel hopped in a jeep, had his driver take him there, and went walkabout among the demonstrators, arguing and explaining.
The Cubans haven’t totally ignored these faux NGOs; there has been a G2 agent among the membership of most of them for decades. But they were just watched. They had no social impact and were never seen as threatening. This changed when James Cason was appointed to head the Interests Section. Armed with Swiss chocolates and cashmere sweaters, he stormed around the island setting up anti-Castro groups, and supplying communication equipment.
Cuba thought whatever the hell the U.S. was up to, it had better be stopped. They surfaced their agents, some of whom had been undercover in a “dissident” group for as much as 25 years, and brought to trial those dissidents who were major law-breakers. It is, e.g., illegal in Cuba to accept money from an enemy country to call for an invasion of Cuba. Analogous laws exist in the U.S. and everywhere else. What was very demoralizing for the dissident groups was the number of G2 agents among their leadership. It stands to reason. The G2 agents were the smartest and sanest people they had.
[More]
An indispensable tool for studying US subversion, in Cuba specifically but with general applicability, is FRUS X, Foreign Relations of the United States, Book X. This was a special history project conducted by the official historian of the State Department. He compiled every document he could find related to relations with Cuba from 1960-1963. There are minutes and memos of the planning meetings for Operation Zapata (Bay of Pigs) and Operation Mongoose, its successor.
There are also the CYA reports, CIA “tasking” memos, surveys of European reaction to Bay of Pigs, and occasionally a lesson learned, such as “The president should not be briefed by an advocate.” Throughout Zapata planning, someone would occasionally say “We really should have intelligence on how the Cuban population will react,” and everyone would agree, but they just went on relying on the self-exiled, who insisted they had large forces on the island all ready to rise in revolt.
Kennedy introduced a new orientation. The main thrust of the next plan for the overthrow of the Cuban government was going to be destabilization and development of popular resistance. Military action would follow, not lead, the political action.
In Document 278 we find:
“CIA was found to have important contacts and operational capabilities for use in achieving the policy goal set by the President. It is noted, also, that there is an impressive potential for increasing the CIA’s capability. The orientation of planning and programming, however, was definitely out of phase with the objective of establishing a popular movement from within Cuba to overthrow Castro and the Communist regime. In the main, CIA thinking has been to apply militant force covertly (such as action teams for “smash and grab” raids on up to armed resistance groups), in the hope that a popular uprising would possibly harass the regime. The early task, then, has been to re-orient this 180 degrees, with militant (sabotage, etc.) actions to be considered as part of the support of the popular movement we are generating. The basic strategy of building our action upon a genuine internal popular movement is underlined; this will apply the major lesson to be learned from earlier operations in Indonesia and Cuba.”
If not the birth, this was at least the conception, of the colour revolutions.
http://fas.org/irp/ops/policy/docs/frusX/index.html
“Putin’s illegal takeover of Crimea” The old man seems to be slipping in his old age. The only hope for America is the ideologically advanced yet materially deprived Spanish population in the USA especially the émigré’s who have had to flee their own homeland and take refuge within the borders of Empire for their own safety. On the face of it this is no more than a publicity stunt on behalf of the American’s. They sure picked one with the capacity to fool himself when they vetted Obama for President. How he keeps from choking on his hogwash is supernatural feat.
Guys, let be serious… Do you really think that the Castro regime will survive after the brothers have passed away? The cuban nomenklatura will try hard to copy the vietnamese model, but… The main problem has been a highly centralized goverment built around the Castros…