Harry Targ
The
Rag Blog
And from time to time during this militarization of his foreign policy Trump has implied or stated directly that Cuba would be next. Cuba is confronting the worst economic crisis in its history. The United States now is blockading oil shipments to Cuba which is resulting in hospital blackouts, increased danger of patient deaths, and Cubans living in rural areas not even making it to hospitals. This is an extension of an economic embargo of the island which began in 1960. The stated US policy has been to starve the Cuban people until they decide to overthrow their government.
As material aid group Global Health Partners recently wrote:
“The U.S. is using its spurious inclusion of Cuba on the list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism” to wield increasingly punitive measures that limit the supply of food, fuel and basic medical supplies. To bolster this inhumane policy, right-wing members of Congress are slipping new, outrageous sanctions into broad budget legislation aimed at keeping the U.S. government running.
The U.S. is refusing to remove Cuba from its “terrorism list” even as Washington and Havana regularly hold counter-terrorism cooperation talks instituted during the Obama administration. This “terrorism” designation blocks Cuba from accessing the international banking system and prevents other countries from carrying on normal trade with Havana.”
(https://ghpartners.org/no-letup-as-us-embargo-strangles-cuba/)
Direct killing now is being coupled with hybrid war virtually everywhere around the globe.
Perhaps the task for the peace movement is to include in the project of building a progressive majority ideas about challenging the US as an imperial power, proclaiming that a progressive agenda requires the dismantling of the permanent war economy. These are truly troubled times, with to a substantial degree the survival of humanity and nature at stake. The war system is a significant part of what the struggle is about.
