3. Response by Les Slater [3 October]
Condemning the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as Cuba has done, is correct and necessary but a press release from the Cuban American Alliance Education Fund, Inc. (CAAEF), dated September 25, 2001 and entitled "Cuba Policy Should be Reviewed in New International Context" should be rejected by all supporters of the Cuban revolution.

This document is written from a pro-war, pro-imperialist, American chauvinist perspective and is an obstacle to any defense of the Cuban revolution. The first paragraph of this document sets its framework.

"We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the terrorist attacks on the United States this past September 11 and express support for international efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice and, beyond that, to defeat terrorism. This, as the President says, will be a long, hard struggle. For the effort to be effective, however, we believe that accuracy is required in defining the "terrorist nations" the President has said the United States will punish. Does that mean all those on the State Department's list of terrorist states? Obviously not, for Afghanistan was not on the list, even though we knew all along that Osama bin Laden operated from there."

" . and express support for international efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice and, beyond that, to defeat terrorism." -- Lead by whom and for what goals? To this we have an immediate answer: "This, as the President says, will be a long, hard struggle." 'Our' Commander in Chief ! But only if he accepts our advice "For the effort to be effective." in defining who are the terrorist nations. In the name of accuracy, the President is chided for Afghanistan not being on the list as ".we knew all along that Osama bin Laden operated from there."

The document goes on to make a case that Cuba should not be on this 'terrorist' list. But the U.S. has no right whatsoever to label anyone or any country terrorist or a supporter of terrorism! The U.S. has more blood on its hands the rest of the world combined, many times over.

Cheering on the United States " . to defeat terrorism ." (excepting Cuba of course) will only embolden their attempts to attack all of their enemies, including Cuba. Terrorism is just their pretext.

Defending Cuba will not be helped by patriotically getting behind the holy war to defeat 'terrorism'. Under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, the definition of terrorism and supporter of terrorism has been expanded greatly. The attacks on democratic rights in this country and elsewhere will make it harder for defenders of Cuba to do our work. We should not be any party to cheering the beast on.

Les Slater
[Slater is a long-time Cuba solidarity activist and member of the (Boston) July 26th Coalition]

4. Response by Jon Hillson entitled "Opponents of U.S. aggression should reject pro-war 'Cuba policy review' statement"
[from the CubaNews listserv, 5 October]

A news release entitled "Cuba Policy Should be Reviewed in New International Context," that was first circulated by the Cuban American Education Fund on September 25, is now being disseminated on many electronic lists. It was the subject of an article in the Chicago Tribune on September 28. It is signed by 16 individuals, including several from groups that express differences with various aspects of Washington’s hostile policies towards Havana. Others signers are academic figures and some are political activists.

The release presents itself as an effort to seek removal of Cuba from the U.S. Department of State’s "list" of nations that "sponsor terrorism."

The document "expresses support" to Washington’s leadership of "international efforts to bring the perpetrators [of the September 11 attacks] to justice and, beyond that, to defeat terrorism." It favorably quotes "the President," whose definition of this undertaking as "a long hard struggle" they loyally share.

The signers make clear their desire to serve as virtual advisers to the U.S. government to enable it to "have clear and objective criteria for designating countries as terrorist states and imposing the sanctions that go with that." These offending states, "the President has said the United States will punish," this signers note with approval.

The wording of the statement identifies the signers wholly and completely with Washington, the U.S. government, the administration, and defense of "the interests of the United States." Every pronoun is saturated with fealty to executive bodies of the empire and its commander in chief.

This is not surprising, since the first name on the release is the president of the Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy, one of whose most prominent spokesmen is former Nixon cabinet member William Rogers. This organization, like several others on the signers list, favors a "transition to democracy" in Cuba—that is, the overthrow of its revolutionary government. This milieu, recently described by the New York Times as the "Cuba policy community," differs in approach from anti-communist ultra-rightists who believe that any "softening" of the current sanctions regime detracts from realization of the goal they share—a "democratic" Cuba, subservient to the United States.

Such groups and individuals reject the fundamental transition the Cuban people began in 1959 to forge national independence. They wrought this historic achievement by taking economic and political power from the local ruling rich and their U.S. big business sponsors. The people of Cuba have defended this conquest—the first socialist revolution in the Americas—arms in hand, ever since.

* * *

The document, echoing Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Daschle, Gebhardt, Feinstein, Guiliani, and all the rest, claims that the "new world context [is] dominated by the struggle against terrorism."

On the contrary, that "new world context" is in fact dominated by the struggle to oppose the unjust and brutal war Washington is about to unleash under the banner of "defeating terrorism." The statement places the signers on the opposite side of the barricades from the Cuban people, and hundreds of millions more around the world for whom they speak.

The patriotic, pro-government stance of the document brooks no criticisms of the war being planned by the U.S. government. It is silent on mounting attacks on civil liberties and democratic rights that the prosecution of this massive set of interventions demands. This unambiguously places the signers on Washington’s side in the coming military aggression. Their declaration is imbued with the spirit of national chauvinism—the opposite of internationalism, which is a cornerstone of the Cuban revolution. It upholds nothing less than the self-proclaimed imperial prerogatives of Washington to dictate its terms to the world.

To effectively fight against the war, you have to be a first a citizen of the world. The injunction of José Martí a century ago—"homeland is humanity"—is a universal banner of solidarity that should be raised by anti-war fighters everywhere as an affirmation that an injury to one is an injury to all, on an international scale. This is a useful antidote to the frenzy of pro-war U.S. nationalism mounted by Washington, to which the signers of the statement completely adapt, while embellishing their embrace of it with the mantle of aiding Cuba. In fact, this statement is a blow to everything for which the Cuban revolution has stood and fought. It is an objectively pro-war document and serves the interests of those who are directing it. It has nothing to do with "helping" Cuba.

Those who defend Cuba’s right to self-determination—its sovereign right to decide its own form of government—should decline the slightest endorsement of this document. It instead merits condemnation by those who defend the revolution.

* * *

Working people in the United States have no interest nor stake in this war, in sacrificing hard won constitutional rights targeted by the administration and its Democratic party allies, in being laid off for "security"-related downsizing, or postponing their strikes, social struggles, and protests in deference to the "national unity" demanded by Washington to carry out its bellicose aims. But these life and death questions do not occupy the signers of the letter. Working class U.S. youth will be among the ones who die in this unjust crusade, which will take the lives of countless numbers of working people in the target countries, who will rightly fight invading forces.

The statement in question does not begin with the interests of the working people, farmers, youth, the oppressed and exploited. It does start with struggles for social justice for Blacks, Latinos, women, gays, the elderly; those on strike, organizing unions, fighting for labor rights, who march against police brutality; who demand amnesty for undocumented workers. Instead, its point of departure is the "interests of the United States," who want Washington's so-called war against "terrorism" to "be effective," who stand with "the President" in the "long, hard struggle" ahead and offer him and his camarilla advice on how to best proceed.

The statement takes for good coin Washington’s utter cynicism in maintaining a "list" of so-called terrorist sponsor nations. But it is state-sponsored terrorism by the United States that marks the rise and rule of the U.S. empire. From carpet bombing to coups, from the School of the Americas to the CIA, from the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the billions lavished on death squad governments in Central America, to the torture chambers of Chile, which opened their doors on September 11, 1973 with the U.S.-sponsored coup against the Allende government and the arming of the mercenary terrorist "contras" against the Nicaraguan people in the 1980s, Washington is hardly in a position to cast the first stone. In passing, the supervisor of the contra killers, John Negroponte, gave his baptismal speech as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on October 1, demanding action against "terrorism," having been confirmed unanimously by the U.S. senate in the wake of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

From the tens of billions of damage—and the loss of thousands of lives—as a result of its four-decade long blockade against Cuba, to the hundreds of thousands of deaths of Iraqi children under the blows of U.S. sanctions, the imperialist state is the main organizer of such violence in the world, the leading international exporter of terrorism, in all its forms. The terrible blowback of this basic industry of death reached the United States on September 11. It was gruesome proof that the price for the imperialist export of U.S.-organized terror will be paid by working people in the United States.

* * *

In response, Washington sheds and spreads crocodile tears while cold-bloodedly escalating a war drive whose military outlines have been etched in weekly bombing sorties against Iraq since the U.S. failure to install a compliant regime there a decade ago, despite the slaughter of 100,000 civilians and retreating, shell-shocked conscripts. The colossal promotion of collective mourning now underway seeks to manipulate public shock into patriotic fervor in support of war while quarantining as callous and indifferent anyone who has the temerity to question—let alone protest—the mobilization of martial spirit by the government. This emotional stampede has one function, and it is not to promote "healing" or expressing "grief."

It is to numb the sense sufficiently to win advance approval for the terror Washington will launch, the results of which will multiply the brutality of September 11 many times over, applied to who knows who on its famous, and expanding "list" of so-called rogue states. Yet the signers of the statement offer to update the hit list, in the name of "accuracy" for Washington’s "effort to be effective"! After all, they note, Afghanistan "was not on the list, even though we knew all along that Osama Bin Laden operated from there." To this we should reply, "U.S. Hands of Afghanistan" and any other country that may shortly occupy the Pentagon’s bullseye.

The statement seeks to counter, as a loyal opposition, "Our rationale"—that is, the official U.S. claims—as to why Cuba is on the list. This is an exercise in the delusion that "arguments" and "ideas" somehow "influence" Washington. In reality, the government is nothing more or less than a political expression of social relations. It is not a mush of good, bad, and ugly "ideas." These capitalist social relations are at the heart of a worldwide system of economic domination—imperialism—bolstered by military power that will soon be activated.

* * *

Cuba is on the "list" because its social and economic system and the popular revolutionary government that represent and defend them are anathema to the U.S. cop of the world.

Cuba’s defiance of U.S. hegemony, imperialist pillage—often called "globalization"—and its staunch solidarity with every struggle of the oppressed and exploited, has earned it the undying hatred of the ruling rich of the United States. Declarations and statements from Cuba, including Fidel Castro’s September 22 alert to the people of the world to oppose the coming U.S.-initiated carnage, affirm the vitality of the Cuban revolution and its readiness to help lead an international fight against U.S. aggression. The Cuban president addressed 50,000 people at an Open Tribune in Santiago de los Baños.

Fidel Castro’s condemnation of the September 11 attacks does not cater to U.S. war-mongering in the slightest. He asked, in his September 22 speech, who had "profited [from the attack]?" Then the Cuban president answered, "The extreme right, the most backward and right-wing forces, those in favor of crushing the growing world rebellion and sweeping away everything progressive that is still left on the planet. It was an enormous error, a huge injustice and a great crime whomever they are who organized or are responsible for such action. However, the tragedy should not be used to recklessly start a war that could actually unleash an endless carnage of innocent people and all of this on behalf of justice and under the peculiar and bizarre name of ‘Infinite Justice.’"

But to "convince" the Bush administration that Cuba does not belong on the "list" it inherited from President Clinton—who supervised the greatest increment in U.S. sanctions against Cuba since the embargo was formalized in 1962—the signers of the letter gut the Cuban president’s speech of its explicit revolutionary anti-imperialist content and lift several sentences, shorn of context, to make their pitch. These remarks reaffirm Cuba’s longstanding, principled rejection of individual terrorism, its prohibition of the use of its territory for planning any such strikes, and its willingness to cooperate with other countries to deter such operations. The document tries to fashion Castro’s words as a potential "turn" towards Washington’s war drive through the angle of bilateral "cooperation" in the "struggle against terrorism." Fidel’s militancy is pompously dismissed as "vintage Castro."

Cuba’s opposition to state-sponsored terrorism and its historic political rejection of individual terrorism withstand all sorts of slanders by enemies who claim it supports both. That is, the practice of the Cuban revolution and its real record are its greatest defense. These, in turn, have earned it the solidarity of the immense majority of humanity. Those who defend Cuba stand on this record of internationalism, from its anti-racist armed forces defeating the troops of apartheid in South Africa, to the millions of medical consultations carried out by tens of thousands of its doctors serving the most oppressed and exploited peoples of the world.

Since the political course expressed in such deeds remains unchanged, the authors of the statement grudgingly note that "Cuba clearly will not be an unquestioning [U.S.] ally"—alas!—"but it need not be an enemy."

An enemy of whom? "Cuba will never declare itself an enemy of the American people," Castro stated on September 22, who are "today subjected to an unprecedented campaign to sow hatred and a vengeful spirit, so much so that even the music that sings of peace has been banned. On the contrary, Cuba will make that music its own, and even our children will sing their peace songs for as long as the announced bloody war lasts."

The coming aggression will be "a war of unpredictable consequences," Castro explained, as he unmasked the anti-terrorist demagogy with which the White House, Congress, and the media have draped what the signers of the news release laud as a "long, hard struggle" for which they enthusiastically volunteer.

* * *

The approaching war has nothing at all to do with "terrorism." In the face of a deepening world-wide recession—underway in many parts of the globe well before September 11, including in the United States—Washington seeks to resolve the worsening crisis of a world economic order, one that Cuban leaders have long explained is "unsustainable," through military means.

The current composition of the "anti-terrorist alliance" is subject to sharp, jarring changes based on the blind economic laws that drive U.S. war policy, and what happens on the ground—the changing menu of targeted counties. Today’s "ally" is tomorrow’s "enemy." The initial military aggression against Afghanistan is just that: an opening salvo, anticipated by previous U.S. campaigns against Iraq and Yugoslavia, both of which Cuba opposed, the former from its position as a temporary member of the United Nations Security Council, the august body which authorized the butchery. Havana vigorously put forward its anti-war and anti-imperialist message despite its obvious political disagreements with the regimes in Baghdad and Belgrade.

The signers of the statement who believe they are doing something to benefit Cuba by lending their names to such a document display a naïveté that, in war-time, is fatal—the inability to tell "us" from "them," the incapacity to distinguish between real allies and deadly enemies. They should publicly retract their support for the document, and get off the patriotic bandwagon, immediately. Cuba cannot be defended by supporting imperialist war. The notion is base and absurd on its face.

* * *

Virtually every sentence in this statement is fatally flawed. These include a completely unserious, irresponsible acceptance of Washington’s latest "Cuba spy charges" against a U.S. intelligence officer arrested on September 21, who has yet to enter a plea, and faces the death penalty if convicted in trial.

"Government sources," the Washington Post reported on September 28, "said Cuba has been known to share information with Libya, Iran, and others that might be sympathetic to Osama bin laden." Citing the same "sources," the newspaper reported that the arrest of the Defense Intelligence Agency officer was "accelerated" by the FBI "because of concerns she would pass along classified information about the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."

An article on the "Cuba Policy Review" statement appearing the South Florida Sun Sentinel on September 29 includes references to the spy charges, and notes the dispatch of a letter to by the Cuban American National Foundation to the White House, Pentagon and State Department urging they too conduct a review, of "all national security aspects of our Cuba policy." The CANF cites as targets of this witch-hunt direct charter flights from the United States to Cuba—currently authorized by the U.S. government—along with "unrestricted" travel by diplomats posted to the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., and remittances from Cuba to "fund subversive groups." It is noteworthy that the CANF, the "Cuba policy community," and the signers of the statement that is the subject of this article all refer to Washington’s stance towards Cuba as "our Cuba policy."

The statement’s signers virtually acknowledge the veracity of the spy charges against the DIA officer. They casually note that, "It is no secret that both nations have conducted intelligence operations against one another." The danger of such a remark is obvious, starting with its discarding of the presumption of innocence. By so doing, the statement lends credibility to the unfolding frame-up of Cuba floated by "government sources." The relentless logic of this reached a new low, if a report in the September 29 Miami Herald, is accurate.

The article, "Suspected Spy for Cuba led a charmed professional life," notes that while Havana "has made no public pronouncement about Montes’ arrest, [Wayne] Smith said Cuban diplomats in Washington privately justified running spies like her in the United States." Smith served in the U.S. Embassy to the Batista dictatorship, helped author language for the U.S. embargo, and now, while taking his distance from this policy, advocates the "transition to democracy" in Cuba. He is a "senior fellow" at the Center for International Policy, and is one of the signers of the statement.

In further remarks to the Herald, Smith is quoted as saying, "One of the Cubans at the Interest Section was saying the other day, ‘You have people you run [as spies] in Cuba. We have to know what kind of operations you are running against us.’" Smith’s claims bolster the government’s Cuba spy hysteria, fingering Cuba and "a Cuban" at its U.S. diplomatic entity, which the CANF is demanding the White House, Pentagon and Department of Defense investigate. How fine is the line between the "Cuba policy community" and its erstwhile CANF nemesis!

* * *

The statement suggests that a negotiated "extradition treaty" between Washington and Havana might allow for the return from Cuba of "fugitives from U.S. justice" living there. Among those who got a taste of that kind of "justice" are Asata Shakur and Puerto Rican independence fighters, to whom, among many others, Cuba has offered asylum. This safe harbor of solidarity is part of Cuba’s national patrimony, and like the rest of the island, is not for sale.

Some "friends" of Cuba believe statements like these represent tactical initiative or a timely use of divisions in ruling circles. But these views do not comprehend the scope of the war drive, the significance of its bipartisan leadership, and the logic of events that entrap and render impotent all those who believe progressive social change can be achieved by gimmicks and maneuvers.

The minor disputes that separate some U.S. rulers and their spokespeople are not over whether, but how to overthrow the Cuban government. Now, these narrow differences are shrunk further by the war drive and are subordinate to its execution. In a July 26 speech two years ago, the Cuban president termed these divisions as between those who seek to "corrupt" Cuba, and those who prefer to "suffocate" the revolution—the end result being the same. In the matter of how Washington punishes the Cuban people, we reject the proponents of "corruption" and "suffocation," unconditionally. We defend Cuba.

All such ruling class forces—including its direct representatives who signed the letter—consciously seek to drive wedges into the unity of the Cuban people. The "Cuba policy community" includes and overlaps such bourgeois circles. Its reference point, its political orientation, and the source of its hopes are the U.S. government. Washington is the sun around which its fundraising efforts, lobbying, and "research" orbit. The "Cuba policy community" will be used, in one way or another, to ratchet up the pressure against Havana. The statement now being circulated reflects just that. For those signers who claim this is not their intention, that exhausted dodge inexcusably fails to recognize the stakes in current and coming struggles. Not for nothing is the road to hell paved with "good intentions."

* * *

None of the war-makers grasp the consequences of their actions, nor can they predict the responses such aggression will spark. Indeed, as Fidel Castro told the crowd at Santiago de los Baños on September 22, the "very authors [of that war] have admitted they do not have the least idea of how events will unfold…The grave economic world crisis was already a real and irrefutable fact affecting absolutely every one of the big economic power centers. Such crises will inevitably grow deeper under the new circumstances and when it becomes unbearable for the overwhelming majority of the peoples, it will bring chaos, rebellion, and the impossibility to govern."

Preparation for what is coming is served above all by political clarity, not capitulation—a strong spine, not weak knees, discipline, intelligence, and confidence in the demonstrated capacity of the people of the world, and of the United States, to rise up and resist. This is the opposite of looking towards some mythical "progressive" element of the war government to pull a Cuban chestnut out of the fire, if enough "respectable" figures cozy up to them.

Cuba’s example, as well as the rich traditions of antiwar struggle—including and especially by working people and GIs—in the United States will serve new generations of young fighters who will step up to big challenges.

Opposing an unjust war abroad goes hand in hand with resisting the war at home now unfolding against working people, from the Depression-like unemployment now ravaging airline industry workers—an offensive in the works prior to September 11 by "cost-conscious" bosses, who now have a green light to clean house—to bipartisan attacks on civil liberties, from immigrant rights to the Bill of Rights, spearheaded by Democratic party liberals. All these dynamics anticipate new tests of struggle, as well as posing questions that go to the heart of who rules this country, and how to end the horror for which they are responsible, once and for all.

At the beginning is the need to resist, to stand on principle, and to be firm.

"The world will grow aware of this and will raise its voice in the face of the terrible, threatening drama that it is about to suffer," Castro emphasized on September 22.

For the prepared, organized, fighting people of Cuba, he said, "it is time for serenity and courage." This, as opposed to the spirit of panic and surrender that permeates the "Cuba Policy Should be Reviewed in the New International Context" statement.

What really should be reviewed—and studied and absorbed—are the policies, practices, history, and ideas of the Cuban revolution, by all those serious about affecting the outcome of events in a world that is rapidly changing, in the only way possible: through massive, collective, organized resistance.

Whatever difficulties all those who fight may encounter, whatever honest mistakes they make as they engage in struggle and learn from their errors while rejecting President Bush’s imperial arrogance that "either you are with us or you are with the terrorists," history will absolve them.

It will not be so generous with those who jump ship at the first sound of battle.

_____________

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