Donald Trump: Cold War Anachronism By Jacob G. Hornberger!!
(2017-06-26 at 14:50:43 )

Donald Trump: Cold War Anachronism by Jacob G. Hornberger

Perhaps President Trump thinks that by further destroying the freedom of the American people to travel and spend money in Cuba, he can ingratiate himself with the national-security establishment in the hopes they will lay off him with their Russia meddling investigation. Regardless, Trumps actions are not only a classic throwback to the old Cold War, when the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency filled everyone with a deep fear of communism and the Soviet Union, they also demonstrate the rank hypocrisy that has infected United States interventionist foreign policy since the advent of the United States national-security state after World War II.

In a speech last week to a Cuban American crowd in Miami that could easily have been made scrimped from some old Cold War speech in 1965, Trump reminded the crowd that Cuba is ruled by a communist dictatorship, one that will not permit elections, suppresses free speech, incarcerates dissidents, and violates civil liberties. When the communist regime reforms, Trump told the crowd, then Americans will finally be free to travel to Cuba and spend money there.

Really? Then what about Vietnam? That is a communist regime, one that, in fact, killed some 58,000 American men after the United States national-security state invaded that country to keep the United States and South Vietnam from going Red. That communist regime does all the things that the communist regime in Cuba does.

How come, then, the United States government has normal relations with the commies in Vietnam?

In fact, the hypocrisy is even worse than that. Take a look at "this picture". It shows the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, saluting and paying respects to Vietnamese communist troops three years ago.

Did you ever think you would see the day when something like that would happen? I wonder how many United States soldiers who were sacrificed for nothing in Vietnam turned over in their graves when Dempsey did that.

What was Dempsey doing in Vietnam paying homage to communist troops? He was serving as a United States military diplomat, trying to establish closer ties between the Pentagon and the Vietnamese Reds. In fact, according to the article in which the photograph appeared, the United States government was even considering selling arms to the Vietnamese communist regime and engaging in in a military partnership with the commies.

The natural question arises: If communist tyranny in Cuba is justification for Trumps renewal of hostilities against Cuba (and on the freedom of the American people), what gives with the lovey-dovey attitude toward the communist regime in Vietnam?

And let us not forget: Vietnam is not the only totalitarian regime that the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the rest of the national-security establishment respect, partner with, and support. Consider Egypt, which has long been governed by one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world, one that does the same things that Cubas communist regime does.

Why do the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency love Egypts dictatorship, supply it with weaponry, and make it a United States partner and ally?

Two reasons: The big one is: The Egyptian regime will do the bidding of the United States government in international affairs. The smaller one is: The Egyptian regime is a right-wing military dictatorship and the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have long loved right-wing military dictatorships.

The same holds true, of course for the United States governments embrace of the dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain, and many others.

In fact, one of the Pentagons and the Central Intelligence Agencys favorite military dictatorships was the one they installed into power in Chile, headed by a general named Augusto Pinochet. They loved Pinochet, whose forces kidnapped, rounded up, tortured, raped, sexually assaulted, executed, or disappeared tens of thousands of innocent Chileans and two innocent American citizens, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi. Like Castro, Pinochet would not permit elections, suppressed free speech, jailed dissidents, and destroyed civil liberties.

But United States officials (as well as American and Chilean conservatives) loved Pinochet because the people his forces were doing all those horrific things to were communists, socialists, leftists, or supporters of the democratically elected president of Chile who the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, and Pinochet ousted from power, Salvador Allende.

While we are on the subject of United States hypocrisy and pro-United States brutal dictators, we would be remiss if we did not mention the one who Fidel Castro ousted from power, Gen. Fulgencio Batista, another military dictator who the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency loved.

Like the Central Intelligence Agency later on, Batista entered into a partnership with the Mafia, one of the biggest criminal organizations in history. In return for letting the Mafia run the casinos in Havana and run heroin through Cuba on its way to the United States, Batista got a cut of the action. As part of the deal, Batistas forces would often kidnap young (i.e., minor) Cuban girls to serve as sexual mates for well-heeled American gamblers in those Mafia casinos. It was considered a casino perk.

United States officials loved Batista because he was their man in Havana. That is the type of "freedom" they would love to see restored to Cuba, one in which the Cuban people get to suffer under a brutal pro-United States dictatorship rather than an independent communist one.

While we are on the subject of socialism, it is worth mentioning another aspect of the hypocrisy that has long infected United States policy toward Cuba. Notice that Trump did not criticize Cubas socialist programs. Neither do American conservatives. Same goes for the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency.

There is a simple reason for that: they all believe in Social Security, public schooling, government-provided health care, redistribution of wealth, jobs programs, paper money, central bank, national-security apparatus, income taxation, and other aspects of Cubas socialist system.

In fact, the two programs that Cuban communists are most proud of - health care and education - are ones that are also near and dear to Trumps heart as well as the hearts of Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency officials (as well as American leftists, of course).

That is the ultimate irony of the Cold War, of course. The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency waged the Cold War to save America from communism and socialism, and yet today you could never find one Pentagon or Central Intelligence Agency official who favors the abolition of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, farm subsidies, the Federal Reserve, and other programs that the United States government has in common with the communist-socialist regime in Cuba.

Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention how the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency manage their section of Cuba. As bad as people have it in Cubas communist prisons, things are certainly not any better for American prisoners at Guantanamo.

No trial by jury. Indefinite incarceration. No speedy trial. Torture. Not even kangaroo tribunals. The fact is that the Pentagons and Central Intelligence Agencys prison camp would fit perfectly well within any communist or totalitarian regime.

Donald Trump, the Pentagon, and the Central Intelligence Agency need to be reminded that when they point an accusatory finger at Cuba, there are three fingers pointed back at themselves. They also need to be reminded that when they attack Cuba, they simultaneously "destroy the freedom of the American people".

Printed here with permission from Mr. Jacob G. Hornberger of The Future of Freedom Foundation!! Their Great Website!!