You are the one who insulted my intelligence by saying that I favored the Miami Cubans by default because I oppose the Castro regime. In another e-mail you insulted my politics with the age old canard about anarchism being juvenile: "But then I never thought that anarchism anywhere was anything but a childish pipe dream."
Yet, in the snippet above you admit that there are alternatives to another Castro regime or a regime set up by the U.S. government. Of course, as an anarchist I'd like to see Cuba move back in the direction towards anarchism, but I don't see that happening in a conscious way. However, I think that the Cuban people will play out an anarchist strategy, at least in terms of asserting their own right to self-determination. The people of Cuba should have the freedom to design their own future.
I really don't think that the political situation in post-Castro Cuba is as two-dimensional as the U.S. left makes it out to be. The U.S. and the Miami Cubans have designs on Cuba, but that doesn't translate into a cakewalk for their seizure of power. The U.S. is right on Cuba's doorstep, but it now has to deal with the geopolitical blowback created by the Bush regime. Any overt intervention by the U.S. in Cuba will be opposed by the rest of the world. Many Americans will oppose it. The U.S. military won't like it. The U.S. would also risk getting into a regional war with South American countries that might back Cuba. U.S. intervention in Cuba could further unsettle the situation in Mexico, which would not play well come the 2008 election.
If the U.S. did intervene in Cuba, there would probably be widespread resistance. Certainly Cubans, like most people around the world, understand that the U.S. is not as powerful as it used to be. It's badly losing a war in Iraq and Afghanistan is only a little better. Any opposition by Cubans would be emboldened by the recognition that the U.S. government has its hands tied by widespread domestic opposition to future U.S. intervention around the world.
What happens if Castro dies and the U.S. doesn't do anything? Will the Castro regime continue? What happens if Cubans get antsy and start demanding political changes? What happens if they have a "velvet" revolution or something more violent? How about the possibility that Cuba makes a gradual transition to a market economy? Will that provide a covert opening for the Miami Cubans to return?
I'd like to read what other LBOster think about how this will all play out.
Chuck
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