Some historical context for Americans who have begun to travel to Cuba and wonder about the state of the economy and the anti-American propaganda there.
Ben Norton: For the crimes — and there is no question that they are crimes — the U.S. has repeatedly and continuously committed against its sovereign neighbor over the past five decades include:
– a violent invasion that left hundreds dead
– more than 600 assassination attempts
– myriad covert campaigns dedicated to fomenting “hunger, desperation and overthrow of government”
– the unilateral imposition of a suffocating embargo
– and the harboring of CIA-trained admitted terrorists who murdered Cuban civilians in hopes of toppling the socialist state.
Since the 1959 revolution that overthrew the brutal right-wing regime of U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, the U.S. has pursued policies in and against Cuba that can only, according to any consistent definition of the term, be described as terrorism. This is precisely what world-renowned scholar and foreign policy analyst Noam Chomsky has called U.S. actions in the country: a “terrorist campaign” and a decades-long “murderous terrorist war.” Even former government functionaries have admitted as much. More here.