Another Cuba Book To Avoid (More Bullshit From "Scholars")

Another Book on Cuba to Avoid.

“The Bay of Pigs,” is the tile, Univ of Alabama prof Howard Jones is the author, Oxford Univ. Press is the publisher. The book, naturally, starts with the premise that the invasion itself was a criminal act. “Cuba had given the U.S. little cause to go to war under international law,” asserts the eminently scholarly book.

You would have hoped that an eminent PHD, and even more so, his fact checkers at Oxford University, (widely regarded as the world' oldest and most prestigious center of learning, certainly in the English-speaking world,) might have been aware that within three months of taking power Castro launched unprovoked invasions of four neighboring countries, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Panama, Nicaragua. At this time the U.S. was subsidizing his regime to the tune of $200 million, and U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, Phil Bonsal , was alerting Castro of plots against his regime by anti-communist Cubans.

Moreover, Castro's invasions of his neighboring nations--in sharp contrast to the Bay of Pigs invasion which involved only Cubans—involved very few nationals of the nations invaded. Most of the invader/aggressors were Castroite Cubans. Alas, these hapless jackasses had been trained in military skills by an even bigger jackass, Che Guevara. So they were stomped out by the native Latin American and Caribbean forces with all the exertion and difficulty most people use to stomp out a cigar butt.

This brings us to The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, (also known as the Rio Treaty) ratified by most nations of the Western Hemisphere in 1947. Here's article 3 of this treaty:

“The High Contracting Parties agree that an armed attack by any State against an American State shall be considered as an attack against all the American States and, consequently, each one of the said Contracting Parties undertakes to assist in meeting the attack in the exercise of the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations."This treaty also declared “Marxism-Leninism incompatible with the Inter-American System.”

Again you would have hoped that either a PHD author or an Oxford Univ. editor might have been aware of this treaty, which gave the U.S. every legal right to invade Castro's Cuba—and not only in April of 1961-- but even at the time the U.S. was subsidizing Castro and alerting him to threats against his rule.

The Oxford published book continues the “Idiot's Guide” manual in Cuban history by rationalizing Castro's Stalinist regime from the get-go. “U.S. business owned much of the prime land.”

In fact, of Cuba's 161 sugar mills and properties in 1958, only 40 were U.S. owned. And United Fruit -- the outfit generally cast as the Boss Hog/Luigi Barzini/JR Ewing/Snidely Whiplash/Hannibal Lecter in this episode-- owned only a third of these.

“Prior to Castro's Revolution,” continues the Oxford published book, “Cuba's governments' ignored their peoples welfare.. the great masses of peasants were dirt poor.”

“44 per cent of Cubans—a higher percentage than Americans-- are covered by social legislation,” starts a report on Cuba at the time. "One feature of the Cuban social structure is a large middle class. Cuban workers are more unionized (proportional to the population) than U.S. workers. The average wage for an 8 hour day in Cuba in 1957 is higher than for workers in Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany. According to the Geneva-based International Labor Organization, the average daily wage for an agricultural worker was also among the highest in the world, higher than in than in France, Belgium, Denmark, or West Germany. Cuban labor receives 66.6 per cent of gross national income. In the U.S. the figure is 70 per cent, in Switzerland 64 per cent."

Prior to Castro, Cuban industrial workers had the 8th highest wages—not in Latin America, not in the hemisphere—but in the world. Cuba had established an 8 hour work-day in 1933 – five years before FDR's New Dealers got around to it. The much-lauded (by liberals) Social-Democracies of Western Europe didn't manage this till 30 years later.

Oxford and Univ. of Alabama, please take note: these aren't the ravings of a “Cuban exile crackpot!” this crackpot is only regurgitating a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) report on Cuba from 1957.

When no New York Times reporters, CNN correspondents, and eminent American Ivy League and Think-Tank scholars are within hearing range, Commies can be extremely frank with each other.

Early in the Cuban revolution, for instance, Czech economist Radoslav Selucky visited Cuba and was rudely awakened: “We thought Cuba was underdeveloped except for a few sugar refineries,” he wrote when he got home to Prague. “This is false. Almost a quarter of Cuba's labor force was employed in industry where the salaries were equal to those in the U.S.”

I'm pleased to report that my book on Che is being published in Bulagaria, Poland and Brazil, the section of my book dealing with pre-Castro Cuba provoked my publishers in those nations to express almost identical epiphanies to your humble and faithful servant here.

Now here's Che Guevara himself n 1961 after he returned to Cuba with his Cuban underlings from a lengthly tour of Eastern Europe: “We're not going to say we only saw marvels in those countries, “ admitted Che who had undoubtedly heard much scoffing and snickering from his Cuban subalterns during the trip. “ Naturally for a 20 th Century Cuban with all the luxuries which Imperialism has accustomed him, much of what he saw (in eastern Europe) struck him as belonging to an uncivilized country.”

We turn now to a United Nations (no less!) study of Cuba circa 1958. “Cuba has a tremendous advantage in national integration over other Latin American countries because of a largely homogeneous white Spanish immigrant base. Cuba's smaller Negro population is also culturally integrated. Those feudal modes of labor that exist in the rest of Latin America, don't exist in Cuba. The Cuban campesino does not resemble the one in the rest of Latin America who is tied to the land, and is profoundly tradition-bound and opposed to innovations which would link him to a market economy. The Cuban campesino, in all respects, is a modern man. They have an educational level and a familiarity with modern methods unseen in the rest of Latin America.”

PLEASE NOTE!! A professor/U.N. technician named Juan Noyola (Mexican, no less!) wrote this—not me! So bash HIM as a “racist” or a Falangist if you like.

Best of all, this book published by Oxford Univ. in the year of our Lord 2008, still claims that “Castro took office as a result of a guerrilla war.” No comment, any more than I'd attempt argument with a Scientologist, a crystal-gazer or hardshell Evangelist regarding their most cherished superstitions.

In most historical genres any outfit with a title like: “Veterans Association of (the military event you're covering)” might have been consulted during the writing of any book involving this military event, wouldn't ya think, especially when such veterans are relatively rare?

Hah! Jones' book deals with Cuba you see, so an outfit known as The Bay of Pigs Veterans Assoc, consisting of hundreds of participants in this invasion all of them (now) perfectly free to talk about the things they experienced and witnessed first hand, was shunned completely, in perfect keeping with most “scholarly” research on all matters Cuban.

Posted by Humberto at August 13, 2008 04:10 PM

Comments

Posted by: narciso79 at August 13, 2008 08:23 PM