South Africa was forced to pull out of Angola and Namibia. ibid.
Little Cuba: 110,000 square kilometres and it acted almost like a super-power in the international arena. Castro vs The World II: The Charm Offensive, old dude
Even when the Berlin Wall came down and Russian abandoned him, Fidel would not give up the fight … The island began to suffer drastic shortages of petrol, medicine and food. ibid.
Castro seized the opportunity: he allowed Cuban-Americans to sail to the island in their small crafts and return to Florida with their Cuban passengers. ibid.
From 1945 to 2003 the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair. William Blum
For more than 70 years, the United States convinced much of the world that … it somehow needed the United States to save it from communist darkness. ‘Just buy our weapons,’ said Washington, ‘let our military and our corporations roam freely across your land, and give us veto power over who your leaders will be, and we’ll protect you.’ William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower p1, third ed 2006
Between 1945 and 2005 the United States has attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair. ibid.
No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine. ibid.
There have also been cases where the United States, while (perhaps) not interfering in the election process, was, however, involved in overthrowing a democratically-elected government, such as in Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, the Congo 1960, Ecuador 1961, Bolivia 1964, Greece 1967 and Fiji 1987. ibid.
It was in the early days of the fighting in Vietnam that a Vietcong officer said to his American prisoner: ‘You were our heroes after the War. We read American books and saw American films, and a common phrase in those days was ‘to be as rich and as wise as an American’. What happened?’ An American might have been asked something similar by a Guatemalan, an Indonesian or a Cuban during the ten years previous, or by a Uruguayan, a Chilean or a Greek in the decade subsequent. The remarkable international goodwill and credibility enjoyed by the United States at the close of the Second World War was dissipated country by country, intervention by intervention. The opportunity to build the war-ravaged world anew, to lay the foundations for peace, prosperity and justice, collapsed under the awful weight of anti-communism. William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military & CIA Interventions Since World War I
Cuba: Throughout the 1960s, the Caribbean island was subjected to countless sea and air commando raids by exiles, at times accompanied by their CIA supervisors, inflicting damage upon oil refineries, chemical plants and railroad bridges, cane fields, sugar mills and sugar warehouses; infiltrating spies, saboteurs and assassins … anything to damage the Cuban economy, promote disaffection, or make the revolution look bad … taking the lives of Cuban militia members and others in the process … Pirate attacks on Cuban fishing boats and merchant ships, bombardments of Soviet vessels docked in Cuba, an assault upon a Soviet army camp with 12 Russian soldiers reported wounded … a hotel and a theatre shelled from offshore because Russians and East Europeans were supposed to be present there. ibid. ch 30: Cuba 1959 to 1980s: The Unforgivable Revolution
These actions were not always carried out on the direct order of the CIA or with its foreknowledge, but the Agency could hardly plead ‘rogue elephant’. It had created an operations headquarters in Miami that was truly a state within a city — over, above, and outside the laws of the United States, not to mention international law, with a staff of several hundred Americans directing many more Cuban agents in just such types of actions, with a budget in excess of $50 million a year, and an arrangement with the local press to keep operations in Florida secret except when the CIA wanted something publicized. ibid.
Title 18 of the US Code declares it to be a crime to launch a ‘military or naval expedition or enterprise’ from the United States against a country with which the United States is not (officially) at war. ibid.
1The commando raids were combined with a total US trade and credit embargo, which continues to this day, and which genuinely hurt the Cuban economy and chipped away at the society’s standard of living. ibid.
Moreover, pressure was brought to bear upon other countries to conform to the embargo, and goods destined for Cuba were sabotaged: machinery damaged, chemicals added to lubricating fluids to cause rapid wear on diesel engines, a manufacturer in West Germany paid to produce ball-bearings off-center, another to do the same with balanced wheel gears – ‘You’re talking about big money,’ said a CIA officer involved in the sabotage efforts, ‘when you ask a manufacturer to go along with you on that kind of project because he has to reset his whole mold. And he is probably going to worry about the effect on future business. You might have to pay him several hundred thousand dollars or more.’ ibid.
What undoubtedly was an even more sensitive venture was the use of chemical and biological weapons against Cuba by the United States … The full extent of American chemical and biological warfare against Cuba will never be known. Over the years, the Castro government has in fact blamed the United States for a number of other plagues which afflicted various animals and crops. And in 1977 newly released CIA documents disclosed that the Agency ‘maintained a clandestine anti-crop warfare research program targeted during the 1960s at a number of countries …’ ibid.
Cuba had become what Washington had always feared from the Third World — a good example. Parallel to the military and economic belligerence, the United States has long maintained a relentless propaganda offensive against Cuba. A number of examples of this occurring in other countries can be found in other chapters of this book. In addition to its vast overseas journalistic empire, the CIA has maintained anti-Castro news-article factories in the United States for decades. ibid.
The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup, 1953. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book 28
Grenada: the Americans are pulling out, the invasion mission accomplished. In the capital life gets back to normal … but there’s still the problem of reconciliation because the men now wearing blindfolds were yesterday the men in charge. TV Eye: US Invasion of Grenada, Thames TV 1983
The days of the revolutionary government were over. ibid.
A population of 110,000 people. ibid.
The price of peace is roadblock vigilance. ibid.
The Americans called their invasion of Grenada Operation Urgent Fury. ibid.
October 19th: That was the day that prime minister Maurice Bishop was killed by rivals in the revolutionary government. ibid.
For the third time in the last hundred years, the US has invaded and occupied Haiti. Working behind the scenes the US conducted a destabilization campaign aimed at toppling the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. This is a message to the rest of the region: If you don't obey, the US will impose sanctions, overthrow your government, install a client regime, and support death squads to crush any resistance. Ashley Smith