THE PAVILION ANNEX

[FrankChurch]

Nason, looks like Mitch Daniels and you may get along:

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties ... es-history

No censorship, eh?

[Robert Nason]

Frank -- the article said that Daniels tried to ban the Zinn book from Indiana's educational libraries and classrooms, not from bookstores or regular public libraries or private citizens' possession. And he didn't succeed. That itself demonstrates the vast difference between Anerica and Cuba. Just because one governor is an ass, it doesn't make the US a totalitarian state like.Cuba. Come on, use your sense of judgment and proportion, for heaven's sake.

[FrankChurch]

Quit demonizing the people of Cuba because you don't like Castro. That's the real problem--we hurt innocents and use their leaders as an excuse. Think Chavez, think Palestinians, think Iran. Hurting the people just give the authoritarian leaders more clout. I wish the empire would get that simple fact.

[FrankChurch]

Cuba's not all bad:

http://www.hellomagazine.com/travel/201 ... adventure/

[Robert Nason]

I thought I made it very clear that my criticisms were directed at Castro and the goverment of Cuba, not the Cuban people.

[Moderator]

Frank, you're mistaking a disdain for dictatorships for a disdain of countries and peoples.

Cuba is a beautiful land with people who are among the most gracious on the planet.

They also drive 60 year old cars and live relatively harsh lives because of the policies of the dictatorship.

If Castro truly loved his people he would give them power.

Sorry, thought it should be repeated. No one is picking on Cubans. They are the repressed. We're picking on their governors.

And anyone who supports the dictatorships, of course...

[FrankChurch]

Nason, loving William Goldman is one thing but mentioning a bad movie he wrote didn't help. Marathon Man is unwatchable. I detest dentists, maybe that's it.

[FrankChurch]

By hurting Castro we hurt the people more. Think sanctions against Saddam.

[Moderator]

By hurting Castro we hurt the people more. Think sanctions against Saddam.

So we should appease dictators to help make them more popular with their people?

Frank, you are making no sense. If your position is power to the people, telling us to accommodate the oppressing dictator is contradictory.

[FrankChurch]

We don't care about Castro. We want to control Cuba. That's how imperialist countries act. We want to run shit. If Castro obeyed, it wouldn't matter what he did. Castro told us to fuck off so we retaliated. We only care about naked power, that's it.

States are not moral agents.

[Mark Tiedemann]

It must be nice to see the world so...starkly. No nuance, no place for maybes or what-if-I'm-wrongs.

Seems to me the fact that we didn't send in the regular army back in the 60s or even under Reagan kind of begs your question about imperialism. It wouldn't be that hard to take it. Bay of Pigs was a CIA operation that got out of hand, it was not administration policy, and even though "Americans were killed" we didn't retaliate. We've pretty much let them stew. You set up a state run on principles with which we do not agree and then set about badmouthing us as part of your state camouflage of the fact that the land reform promised did not in fact occur and that the prisons will still hold political prisons, and we say "Fine. That's the way you want it, be that way. NO HELP FROM US. When your people get fed up with the bullshit and back a change, we'll talk."

Now, you can say we've got no right to dictate to them what kind of government they have and that's true. Conversely, we don't have to acknowledge it or have any truck with it. We get to say who we do business with.

We're not always (or even often) very good at that, but part of the "run your own country your way" philosophy means that shitheels will end up in charge too often.

We backed Saddam first because he was anti-communist, next because he was an enemy of Iran. We didn't back him because of his internal policies being in sync with ours but because he faced our enemies. Personally, I think that's bad policy, but we didn't tell him how to run his country.

We didn't get anything from Castro, so why should we do business with him?

Now, that's black-and-white the other way. It's just as sucky as always blaming the US for the catastrophes of others.

[FrankChurch]

The President has to sign off on anything the CIA does. They do not do anything rogue, there's a chain of command. It's what authoritarian regimes do. Like when Carter signed off on paying Islamic crazies to attack Russia to get them to invade Afghanistan, which they did.

Castro has been open to talks with us but we refuse. He certainly allowed the Pope to visit. The Pope was pretty nice to Castro, which no American elite went after.

We have been doing terrorism against Cuba since 60. We let Cuba be free and they would. Democracy has to bloom because the people fight for it. We certainly don't care about them. We only care about our power.

Castro does bad things but he also does many good things. I'd call that very nuanced.

[Mark Tiedemann]

Yes, the president signs off now, but there is more than ample evidence that there was a miscommunication over the Bay of Pigs. The system broke down then and all Kennedy was told was that the operation had been approved by Eisenhower (it hadn't, but it hadn't been killed by him either) and everything was in order. The CIA was restructured in the aftermath. Some cowboys got too big for their britches and expected everything to go right. It didn't. Don't know what happened to them.

[Mark Tiedemann]

Like when Carter signed off on paying Islamic crazies to attack Russia to get them to invade Afghanistan, which they did.

Huh? The pro-Soviet government in Kabul was facing critics, a failing economy, and demonstrations and thought there might be a coup. He asked for promised Soviet help, which turned into the invasion. Carter may well have signed off on such a program but that's not what prompted the Soviets to invade.

The only reason I know this is because of a recent conversation I had with Khaled Hosseini, who knows a wee bit more about his own country than most of us do.

[Moderator]

This is the problem with your arguments, Frank: you insist historical precedent is essential except when it contradicts your point of view.

Take, for example, your comment regarding the CIA and the presidential approvals. Do you know why the policy was put into place? The actual incidents which required, in the government's view, that civilian oversight and Presidential responsibility? Mark gives you a portion of the answer, but not all of it.

Check into that. You're fond of conspiracies, here's a new one for you to play with. It will complicate your perspective of the world, but you will thank me for putting you onto it. (This is one of those events I've alluded to before when I mentioned that you don't need the false conspiracies because some of the things our government does really WOULD curl your hair.)

But I have to insist you do your own research and draw your own conclusions. Part of the whole "informed opinion" thingy.