William Pfaff: Sticking with Raúl
Posted by: “Walter Lippmann” walterlx@earthlink.net walterlx
Date: Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:52 pm (PDT)
(Thoughtful commentary from the International Herald Tribune
though very hostile to the Revolution. In a letter the writer, from
Miami, says Cuba will receive aid from the “free world” after the
fall of what he calls “Communism”. What the writer’s eyes are
closed to is that if Cuba were ever to “fall”, it would receive about as
much aid as Iraq is getting now, or Lebanon after the recent invasion by
the Israelis. Not much. Indeed, about the only aid I’ve heard of for
Lebanon today has come from…the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Anyway, this is one of the few recent commentaries I’ve seen directly
linking Fidel Castro’s illness and Washington’s nearly five decades-long
incapacity to defeat the Cubans, with Israel’s failure to defeat Hezbollah
based on its misplaced hope that the Lebanese would be grateful to the
Israelis. People don’t like liberators who come bearing bayonets. How many
times does this simple idea have to be repeated???)
===============================================
William Pfaff: Sticking with Raúl
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/21/opinion/edpfaff.php
William Pfaff
Tribune Media Services
Published: August 21, 2006
PARIS American analysts of Cuban affairs are surprised that Fidel
Castro’s “temporary” transfer of power to his brother Raúl has not
produced unrest in Cuba – or even a revolution.
The U.S. government was ready. The State Department said it
had a plan “to aid Cuba” if Castro “moves along in a natural way”
(President George W. Bush’s words). The White House said there
are no plans “too reach out to Raúl.” Policy is to “undermine” him.
But nothing has happened.
Philip Peters, an expert at the conservative Lexington Institute in
Virginia, said, “There is this predicate in our policies that the
Cuban system is one that can be pushed over with one finger.”
“We were ill prepared for the eventuality of continuity rather than
change,” says Damian Fernandez, director of the Cuban Research
Institute at Florida International University. “All our policies have been
built on a foundation of wishful thinking.”
Wishful thinking usually characterizes the thinking of political exiles,
and of the governments that back them, but in this case it would seem to
owe less to bias than to a profound misunderstanding of nationalism.
This underestimation of nationalism persistently makes itself felt in U.S.
foreign policy. It comes from a failure of political imagination and sense
of history, but is also a consequence of American ideology, which assumes
that American values are universal values: that they are the ideals that
everyone would adopt if political constraints and repression were removed.
They override national commitments and emotions.
This illusion has been taken up by America’s allies in Israel, who
went to war against Lebanon a month ago thinking that ordinary
Lebanese would be grateful to Israel for attacking and (as the
Israelis supposed) defeating Hezbollah, which was thought to owe its
power to its backing by Syria and Iran.
One would think the Israelis would have taken a lesson from the
absence in Iraq of the predicted popular wave of gratitude after the
United States overturned Saddam Hussein. There was not much
gratitude in Afghanistan after B-52s and an American-led coalition
liberated the Afghans from the Taliban, which is now on the return.
One might think the Cubans are ready for change, after 47 years of
absolute rule by Fidel Castro and persisting or worsening penury, due less
to Castro than to a congressionally mandated U.S. blockade and persecution
of the Cubans, to punish them for allowing Fidel Castro to rule them.
Change will come; second-generation revolutionary regimes are not
notable for stability or longevity. (Although with Raúl, Cuba remains
under the first revolutionary generation, as he is one of the last of the
original band of rebels from the Sierra Maestra.)
Nationalism was the most important political force at work in the
20th century, and may prove the most important in the 21st. This
often fails to be understood because nationalism’s expression is
often mistaken for something else. Nationalism picks up autonomous
movements and exploits them because they augment its power.
Communism in Asia was a negligible force until the 1930s, mostly
confined to Western-educated intellectuals. Marx himself, and Lenin,
maintained that Communism could succeed only by mobilizing an
industrial working class, which did not exist in Asia.
The genius of Mao Zedong was to redefine the ideology to give
leadership to the abused peasantry, and that turned it into a
fighting doctrine that mobilized the peasant nationalism of both
China and Vietnam, kindled by more than a century of Western
colonial exploitation.
The bitterness of Muslims in Asia and the Middle East at Western
control and manipulation has today found its expression in radical
religion and a utopian notion of expelling the West from the Islamic
world and recreating the Islamic empires of the Middle Ages. It
provides a dream that justifies sacrifice.
Americans went into Cuba in 1898 to back a nationalist uprising
against Spanish imperial control. This followed an earlier 10-year
nationalist revolt that had ended in 1878 with promises to banish
slavery, which happened, and of political reforms, many of which
Spain did not carry out.
After Spain’s defeat in 1898, Cuba, under U.S. military occupation,
became a republic, but its sovereignty was limited by a
constitutional provision, insisted upon by Washington, giving the
United States right to military intervention. This was invoked in
1906 and again in 1912.
From 1933, the country was dominated by a populist, American-trained
army sergeant, promoted to general, Fulgencio Batista, who enjoyed
varying degrees of U.S. patronage until 1958, when the U.S. withdrew
military aid from his government. In 1959 he fled the country and
Castro and his men took power, which they have not given up.
Confronted with the current U.S. government’s plan to “aid” Cuba to
become a democracy, it may be that Cubans will be inclined to rally
to the side of Raúl Castro.
***
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14656.htm
Israel Must Win
“You Cannot Promise Victory, Produce a Humiliating Defeat and Stay in
Power”
By GILAD ATZMON
“The ceasefire in Lebanon was holding by a thread last night after
Israel
sanctioned a commando raid in the east of the country. Kofi Annan, the
United Nations Secretary General, said Israel had violated the truce, and
he was ‘deeply concerned’ about it.” – The Guardian
08/22/06 “Information Clearing House” — — For those familiar with
Israeli aggression, the IDF violation was no surprise at all. For a week
or so, every Israeli cabinet member and military official promised
publicly that it is just a question of time before there is a ‘second
round’. Indeed, they must come up with something. Since the end of the
hostilities, all Israeli political analysts and polls suggest that
Israel’s political and military leadership failed completely. If elections
were to be held soon, both Labor and Kadima would simply disappear. It is
no secret that with each passing day, Olmert’s and Peretz’s popularity
continually slumps to new lows. Jerusalem Post.
One may wonder whether the Israelis are changing their spots, do they stop
approving Olmert’s policies just because peace is what they really prefer?
The influential political commentator Ari Shavit provided an answer two
weeks ago. Mr Olmert, so he says, had ‘failed shamefully’ and should
resign. Shavit continues, “You cannot lead an entire nation to war
promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power.” As I
mentioned more than once before, the Israeli politician has to cope with a
demanding, bloodthirsty crowd.
This realisation throws some light over the reasons behind the failed
Israeli operation in Lebanon just three days ago. Israelis are simply
desperate to win. But it may also explain why Israeli government decided
to expand its military operation pretty much at the same time it accepted
the UN ceasefire resolution. Olmert knew that he must serve his voters
with what they interpret as a clear-cut victory. This would mean either
some severe form of revenge with lots of Arab casualties or a significant
land invasion. Olmert, his ‘national unity’ government and the army
leadership have to do something that would cover up four weeks of
disastrous military campaign that failed to serve the Israeli public with
even a single second of glory.
Indeed, the IDF military offensive doctrine is grounded on one basic axiom
that was defined by David Ben Gurion in the early fifties: whatever it
takes, Israel must always win! This axiom is indeed very powerful, yet, in
reality, the Israeli army can’t provide the goods anymore. In the last
three decades the Israeli army is constantly being beaten time after time
by enemies that are getting smaller and smaller.
Yet, one may mention that the IDF isn’t very original in being defeated.
The IDF fails exactly where the American army has been failing since
Vietnam. Shockingly, the IDF has managed to copy every possible American
mistake. It religiously adopted the new American military philosophy of a
‘compact highly sophisticated fighting force’. Undeniably, this very
doctrine is very effective in producing some gigantic collateral damage
i.e., war crimes. Yet, in the long run, it fails miserably in wining wars.
The new American military doctrine may win a battle or two but no more
than that. In the most recent years it has been totally beaten in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza and obviously in Lebanon.
Though the early stages of the Israeli campaign in Lebanon looked much
like the first few days of the second Gulf War (major air assault on
civilian infrastructure and populated areas), there is at least one major
noticeable difference. While America can stand and even ignore
international criticism referring to its own war crimes, it isn’t willing
to suffer much international criticism for Israeli atrocities. While in
the early stages of the war America was rushing to provide Israel with air
convoys loaded with its most lethal conventional arsenal, we have learned
towards the last week of the war that the American administration changed
its mind, it suddenly refused to provide the IDF with a shipment of
cluster bombs because it “would endanger the civilian population”.
Seemingly, there is a limit to what the Americans are willing to do for
their ‘closest friend’ in the Middle East.
This is exactly where the Israeli limbo is. In order to maintain its
status as a winning regional super power, Israel needs the blind support
of America (politically, financially and logistically). Yet American blind
support can be grunted to Israel only if the Jewish State is indeed a
regional super power to start with. Olmert and his government are fully
aware of this very complexity. They know that without being a regional
super power in the first place, they have nothing to offer their almighty
American brothers. Israel is crucial for the strategy of the Americans as
long as it can wipe out all its enemies in six days at the most. The way
things appear now, the Israeli Army is basically defeated by the two
smallest nations in the Arab world, the Palestinian and the Lebanese ones.
As much as it clear to the Israelis, it is clear to the Americans that
unlike the bold Hezbollah, the IDF soldier has lost his will to fight. The
IDF is a spoiled, confused and tired army that is specializing solely in
terrorizing civilian populations while being engaged in constant tactical
withdraw. This Israeli Army is not trained to win wars anymore. Instead,
its tank battalions are mainly engaged in daily shelling of schools and
hospitals. Its Air Force uses the best American fighter planes to flatten
neighborhoods and shoot deadly rockets at cars in the streets of Gaza. Its
command units are expert in abducting democratically elected middle-aged
Palestinian politicians. The IDF is basically a heavy army specializing in
merciless regional bullying. Yet, it cannot win a war, and as such it has
nothing to offer the American empire.
But the Israeli military defeat has some further implications. Israel
without a victorious army, has nothing to offer to world Jewry either. It
can never present itself as the ultimate cosmic Judeo bunker. It is pretty
shocking to prospect the relative silence of the infamous Zionist media
shield. While just six weeks ago the loud supporters of Anglo-American
interventionism were still pushing for democracy in the Arab world and
beyond, they were enthusiastic about killing in the name of human rights
and about Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East. Somehow,
since the war began, since Israel revealed once again its murderous
tendencies and Hezbollah proved to be the new Robin Hood, these voices are
caving in. Many among the global Zionists do already understand now that
the Anglo-American assault on the Arab world just suffered a major blow.
Some of them probably grasp that it is just a question of time before more
and more Europeans and Americans join the sacred battle against the
Americanized Global Zionism, i.e., neo-conservatism.
The recent victory of the Hezbollah therefore must be realized as a major
event with some global implications. While the Hezbollah regards itself a
paramilitary organization concerned mainly with some local issues having
to do with Israeli expansionism, it has managed to cause a serious blow to
neo-conservatism as a political praxis as well as a philosophy. It has
beaten the Zionized Anglo-American worldview. Standing up to Zionism and
Americanism, it is the Lebanese, the Palestinians, the Iraqis, the
Afghanis and the Iranians who happen to be at the vanguard of the war for
humanity and humanism. For those who are yet to be convinced that this
indeed the case, I will mention that the fact that it is Iran who rushed
to pay 3 billion dollars to rebuild Lebanon after the destruction made by
‘American interventionism’ leaves no room for interpretation. While
America spreads destruction and death all over the world, it is Iran and
the Hezbollah that offers a new beginning.
Olmert knows very well that if Israel doesn’t win this war, it is global
Zionism that is defeated, he knows as well that without the backing of
global Zionism, Israel is basically a dead entity. Olmert knows that
without America, it won’t take long before Israel turns into an historic
event. Israel will have to win its mighty regional power status whatever
it takes. Israeli is indeed in the very eye of the neo-conservative storm.
And the Hezbollah is threatening something far greater than just the
Jewish State. As the Israelis keep telling us, the fight in Lebanon will
resume soon and every European leader knows it.
Even now, they all know who is going to be the aggressor when violence
spreads again in the region. They are all clever enough to hesitate about
whether they want to send their soldiers to the region. They know that if
Israel must win, it is better to stay out of its way.
Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He is
the author of two novels: A Guide to the Perplexed and the recently
released My One and Only Love. Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished
jazz saxophonists in Europe. His recent CD, Exile, was named the year’s
best jazz CD by the BBC. He now lives in London and can be reached at:
atz@onetel.net.uk
—
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“Our German forbearers in the 1930s sat around, blamed their rulers, said ‘maybe everything’s going to be alright.’ That is something we cannot do. I do not want my grandchildren asking me years from now, ‘why didn’t you do something to stop all this?” –Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst of 27 years, referring to the actions and crimes of the Bush Administration
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