Perhaps other motivations included expanding the American slave economy when their own country was being increasingly dominated by Abolitionist sympathies. It was the slaves who really “payed the price”.

I just watched the Disney film about Davy Crockett’s heroic last stand at the Alamo. I’m not surprised that the role expanding slave territories played in “Manifest Destiny” wasn’t brought up there either. History is written by the winners.

As for Puerto Rico, I lived there for a year, back in the 70s, working as an undercover colonial official (without portfolio). I’ve already bored everyone here innumerable times with that story.

As a territory, Cuba would not have been as fragile by now as is Puerto Rico, due to massive tourist appeal, for one thing. The island also has significant reserves of nickel and cobalt, top five in the world for nickel by many estimates. In any case, I think you generalize too much about “experimentation”. Only so much can be done with small post-colonial regions. Costa Rica has far, far better institutions than Cuba and still it is relying on agriculture and tourism.

RE northern Mexico in 1848: Josiah Gregg, who was with the American army in northern Mexico, said that “the whole country from New Mexico to the borders of Durango is almost entirely depopulated.” That is close to exactly the Tropic of Cancer latitude.

You join those who frowned on Manifest Destiny (a condition of “then”, not “now”), but considering the fate of that country under the control of about a dozen criminal families following the so-called revolution (1910-1920), a development following the pattern of the other southwest states would have been preferable.

Your reference to “paying the price” means demographic stresses I suppose (with all the attendant racial rhetoric). Those would have been present in this century in the US in any case, as in Europe. There is always irony and paradox in social phenomena, especially on a large scale.

Castro was mostly known as a bonchista, a member of a “bunch”, a term borrowed from English for politically organized radicals, opportunists and troublemakers of both Left and Right. There was even a Right-Wing Catholic bonche!

Whether he became a full-fledged Marxist-Leninist due to prior conviction or merely to ingratiate himself with his Soviet masters in the 60s is still a matter of debate. At any rate, it really doesn’t matter.

It is often said, as you imply, that the US drove him to the Soviets solely because of our inflexible opposition to his nationalizing of private industries and businesses, and particularly because of his Agrarian Reform program which broke up the big estates and landholdings. But this may be an oversimplification of a much more complex evolution.

All we know for sure is he publicly declared full Marxist principles AFTER he completely liquidated the old USSR-dominated Cuban Communist Party and all other Socialist, Left-wing and Anarchist groups. Until then, the average Cuban really had no clue as to his alleged Communist connections. Essentially, he played us off against the Soviets, and they won. We might have kept Fidel out of the Soviet orbit if we had met him half-way, but no one really knows for sure.

My own opinion, (and that’s all it is, an opinion) is that Castro would have preferred a middle-of-the-road, Socialist government, but he felt obliged to break up the big landholdings, and the big industrial interests, many of which were American-owned. But this was not possible in the late 50s and early 60s. Even the slightest hint of “nationalization” was immediately interpreted as Communism by the Americans, and would not be tolerated. Castro knew he got lucky during the Bay of Pigs. He knew the next time, the Yanquis would come in force.

As I recall, Castro himself wasn’t Communist. However, the demands of the emigre Cubans for an embargo necessitated that Cuba turn to the Communist bloc as a market for it’s sugar and a source for oil.
So it was the emigres and the blockade upon which they insisted which created the Communist country which has so vexed many Americans.
Thanks again. Well done. 4.0. And if you’ve done it before I missed it.

And if Cuba had ever become a US territory, it would have turned out just like Puerto Rico.

Vargas Llosa said, “Libertarian ideas are not going to be easy to install in Latin America, because for centuries the whole continent was molded with the philosophy of statism, socialism, corporatism, so we need a new revolution but with the purification of the meaning for us of blood, death and demagogy, and impregnated with ideas, creation, freedom, rationality, pluralism and legality.” These might be the too-idealistic words of a literary person, but Llosa is a respected voice. The defeat of Neves in Brazil (the only real nation of substance in Latin America), was a good practical example of Llosa’s “not going to be easy”. And in that ridiculous farce of what is left of Venezuela, Lopez is jailed by the bus driver and his military toadies. A similar toadyism has kept Fidel in power; let’s not be naïve.

Winston Churchill said, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” In societies such as in Europe, this stark estimation is mitigated by various virtues rooted in tradition. But in Latin America there are no such stabilizing virtues, and the stereotype is manifested as both tragedy and farce.

RE Cuba, the Teller Amendment (1898), authored by a Colorado Senator who wanted to make sure that Cuba’s sugar would not compete with his state’s crop of beet sugar, prohibited the president annexing Cuba. Too bad; Cuba would have flourished as a US territory. For that matter, in 1848 the US should have annexed what is now northern Mexico, setting our southern border at the Tropic of Cancer.

Its fortunate this analysis comes to us from the Jerusalem Post, and not the liberal-leaning mainstream media, or the Klown Kar would already be mobilizing to denounce it. The idea that Obama might actually be working to protect and further American interests (even ineptly) is anathema to that crowd. It threatens their entire view of reality and reason for existence.

I suspect the major motivation here is not necessarily Russian militarism, but Chinese commercial expansion into Cuba. They already have a jump on us in Africa (does that help explain our noble assault on Ebola, in the countries surrounding oil-rich Nigeria?)

The Great Game continues, the players are different but the rules remain the same, and the prize is still trade.

Rapprochement with Cuba is not ‘ideological’ (on the part of myopic leftist-progressives), but a step initiated by Pentagon and State Department with respect to Russian moves.

Everyone in Cuba knew Batista was a butcher and a killer, allied with the American gangsters who were so heavily invested in the island, the Yankee businessmen who exploited its people and its resources, and the Monroe Doctrinists, Manifest-Destined, Imperialists and Cold Warriors who have always seen Cuba as a coaling station for its squadrons, an outpost for defense of the Canal, intimidation of the Caribbean Basin and protection for the United Fruit Company. But that had always been Cuba’s fate, since the days the Spaniards left and the Yankees and the Platt Amendment replaced them. Even the democratically elected Cuban presidents played this role.

Batista was a dictator who took power in a coup d’etat, he ruled by decree and secret death squads, and the Americans looked the other way because he was friendly to US interests. It is a familiar scenario in Latin America. Except for the relative few who owed their positions and wealth directly to Batista and his patronage, (like the Army) he had no constituency. You will recall, my stepfather was in the Army and had to flee Cuba with a price on his head when Castro took over.

Most Cubans despised Batista, but because his policies favored the middle classes, they never rose up against him as a united front. Sure, some fought bravely against him, even joined Castro and other rebels in the bush and in the cities, but most just looked the other way. As I said, fascism is the dictatorship of the middle class, but it doesn’t demand their participation, just their acquiescence. If you opposed Batista, you risked torture and death. If you tolerated him, you got to keep your business and run it the way you wanted, or work for the Americans, keep your property, travel abroad, worship as you pleased, keep your money in a US bank, and send your kids to whatever private school you wanted. It is estimated 20,000 people were secretly executed by the Batista regime. His opponents were many, of all political persuasions, but they were poorly organized. Castro was just one of many rebel fronts.

No one knew Castro was a Communist, at least at first. In fact, one of his first acts was to dismantle the Cuban Communist Party and other Socialist groups because he saw them as a threat. The CCP had long ago sold out to Batista, trading tacit support of his dictatorship in return for control of the labor unions and a guarantee they would cause no labor troubles. The Americans looked the other way. Other Socialists and leftists, including Cuba’s proud century-old Anarchist movement (which had played a role in the defeat of the Spanish and in the cigar industry strikes of my own home town, Tampa) were decimated. Whether Castro was a Red from the beginning, or if he just went that way when he lost US support because of his Agrarian Reform confiscation of American sugar and cattle interests, is still being debated today. But it is irrelevant, he soon became the only Red in Cuba, all his opposition on the Left was liquidated simultaneously with his rivals on the Right. Only then did he wage war on the Liberals and Moderates. Even many of those anonymous groups that had fought alongside him in the mountains or in urban guerrilla operations found themselves dismantled and persecuted.

I have direct evidence of this. One of the families who sheltered my stepfather (one night, actually hiding him while Fidel came to visit, c. 1960) were CCP, Communists. He often told the story of hiding behind a door, gripping his Luger and making his peace with his Maker, while Castro and his bodyguards made small talk with his terrified hosts in the parlor.

After Castro consolidated power, eliminating other rebel groups which might have challenged his authority,
the true nature of his dictatorship slowly became apparent. In the confusion of the first year of Revolution, no one knew what was going on. To this day, people, particularly Americans, still believe Castro defeated Batista. No. Castro fought Batista, then outmaneuvered and defeated his comrades, on both Left and Right. Everyone was tired of fighting and relieved to see the dictator gone. Fidel was just getting started, his aim was not to depose Batista, it was to seize power.

True, in the first year or so, the exiles who came to Miami were the Batista collaborators, the rich and powerful who owed their power and fortunes to him. Many of the business and professional elite supported Castro at first, but soon saw their civil and economic position erode under the new dictatorship. They came to America in a second wave. Soon, the middle class followed them, and by the mid-sixties, the working class. By the time of the Mariel boatlift, anyone who could make his escape, even the underclass, was getting out, any way they could. There are many who escaped in this diaspora who once fought alongside Castro, or in other groups that were allied with him.

Even some of Castro’s staunchest allies and associates, like the American adventurer Morgan, wound up on the wrong side of a firing squad, while others, like Cienfuegos and Guevara, perished as Revolutionary heroes, but under suspicious circumstances.

Americans have a very simplistic view of Cuban history.
We “liberated them from Spanish rule”, we established its free institutions, and then Castro went to the Russians. The Cubans fought a century-long struggle against Spain which cost hundreds of thousands of lives, which we jumped into at the last minute, and with the loss of a few hundred Rough Riders. We then took over making the island a virtual economic colony and military outpost for half a century.

Its not surprising we were clueless about the events that followed, and that ignorance persists to this day. In our pathetic, simplistic view of the world, there is no history, just virtuous Americans nobly fighting evil Commies, bringing freedom and free enterprise to the unwashed and unenlightened (and ungrateful) world. If we could get events in a tiny new country on our own doorstep so wrong, is it any wonder we have fucked up so catastrophically in the Middle East?

The Batista regime was as corrupt and cruel as any of the time. It catered to an American gangster element and Castro’s successful revolution was against this.

The emegre Cubans supported Batista, supported his corrupt regime, supported his secret police, supported the American gangsters. And encouraged an embargo which did no damage to Castro but caused unmeasurable suffering for the average Cuban.

The emegres cared nothing for Cubans, their suffering, and actively supported a corrupt Batista. Why?

The conclusions one can draw from that are simply damning. And leaves one with no repeat NO sympathy for the emegre Cubans, or at least as much sympathy they have for Cubans.