A Century Later
Cuba , the Caribbean, and Latin
by Noam Chomsky
Peace Review, September, 1998
Norman Graebner opens a major review of
U.S. diplomatic history with the observation that "1898
was a turning point in the history of the Republic." For
a century, Americans had, as Thomas Bailey wrote in 1969, "concentrated
on the task of felling trees and Indians and of rounding out
their natural boundaries." By the century's end the U.S.
had become by far the greatest economy in the world, though not
yet a major actor in the international arena. The year 1898 indeed
marked a turning point in that regard.
Ten years before, Secretary of State
James Blaine had observed that "there are only three places
that are of value enough to be taken. One is Hawaii. The others
are Cuba and Puerto Rico." Shortly after, the United States
Minister informed Washington that "[t]he Hawaiian pear is
now fully ripe and this is the golden hour for the United States
to pluck it." In July 1898, troops imposed martial law followed
by formal annexation. Celebrating their victory over the indigenous
population, a journal of the American planters proclaimed Hawaii
to be "The First Outpost of a Greater America."
Seventy years earlier, John Quincy Adams
had described Cuba as a "ripe fruit" that would fall
into U.S. hands once the British deterrent was removed. By 1898,
Cubans had effectively won their war of liberation against Spain,
threatening "more than colonial rule and traditional property
relations," historian Louis Perez notes, adding that "Cubans
also endangered the United States' aspiration to sovereignty."
Cuban independence had been "anathema to all North American
policymakers since Thomas Jefferson."
In 1898, McKinley averted the disaster
by invading Cuba, a war, Perez states, "ostensibly against
Spain, but in fact against Cubans" -- the Spanish-American
war in standard doctrine. Historians Ernest May and Philip Zelikow,
in The Kennedy Tapes, remark that until 1959 Cuba remained
"a virtual colony of the United States." The fanaticism
of the Cuba policies of successive administrations, starting
with Eisenhower, cannot be understood without recognition of
their historical depth.
Even before invading Cuba, McKinley had
moved to liberate the Philippines -- soon liberating hundreds
of thousands of souls from life's sorrows. The press of the time
remarked that "slaughtering the natives in English fashion"
would allow "the misguided creatures" who resist us
to "respect our arms" and ultimately recognize that
we wish them "liberty" and "happiness."
A more sophisticated version was articulated
by sociologist Franklin Henry Giddings, who argued that "if
in later years, [the conquered people] see and admit that the
disputed relation was for the highest interest, it may be reasonably
held that authority has been imposed with the consent of the
governed." This doctrine of "consent without consent,"
has respectable origins in British moral philosophy and captures
a good part of the operative content of "consent of the
governed," however obtained.
The third "place of value,"
Puerto Rico, was taken over in 1898 as well, and also remained
a "virtual colony," though in different form than the
others. Puerto Rican independence fighters were kept out of the
capital city so that Spain's surrender would be, unambiguously,
to the new rulers. Puerto Rico was turned into a plantation for
U.S. agribusiness, later an export platform for taxpayer-subsidized
U.S. corporations, and the site of major U.S. military bases
and petroleum refineries.
By regional standards, Puerto Rican per
capita income is relatively high as a result of U.S. taxpayer
subsidies. Nonetheless, 40% of the population had emigrated to
U.S. urban slums by the mid-1980s, an indication of what would
happen in the other virtual colonies if the U.S. were to accept
the free circulation of labor, one of the foundations of free
trade doctrine. As economist Richard Weisskoff described the
process, "the U.S. public underwrites the Puerto Rican people,
while U.S. corporations shift profits through their Puerto Rican
plants and back to the United States, tax free," leaving
a "bankrupt, dismembered economy heavily dependent on welfare,"
ridden with crime and drugs, and with dim prospects if Washington's
industrial policies shift.
The Caribbean and Pacific phases of the
new colonial ventures were related. The ultimate goal was to
ensure an isthmian route to the Pacific, which would be "converted
... to an American lake," as explained by McKinley's chief
negotiator with Spain. Soon Panama was wrested from Colombia
and the canal constructed. Similar U.S. interests motivated intervention
in Nicaragua, the Roosevelt Corollary, Woodrow Wilson's murderous
invasions of Haiti and the Dominican Republic and other exploits
too numerous to mention. In the background were concerns over
recurrent economic crises, which convinced U.S. elites that access
to raw materials and the export of overproduction were vital
to the U.S. economy.
An important case was Wilson's expulsion
of Britain from Venezuela. In the years that followed, Washington
supported brutal dictatorships while Venezuela made substantial
contributions to corporate profits and the U.S. economy generally.
In secret discussions with top planners during the Cuban missile
crisis, the Kennedy brothers expressed their concern that Castro
might use the missiles to deter U.S. military intervention in
Venezuela. "The Bay of Pigs was really right," JFK
At that time, plans for a more successful
invasion of Cuba were already on the agenda, and remained so.
Washington made no pledge not to invade, public or private, during
the Cuban Missile Crisis. After the crisis, Kennedy terror operations
returned to the levels of 1962, when the administration had secretly
determined that "final success" of terror and subversion
"will require decisive U.S. military intervention."
The decision to overthrow the government of Cuba had been made
formally in March 1960, and effectively only a few months after
Cuba had lost its status as a "virtual colony" in January
World War II was another turning point.
The war left the U.S. in a position of unprecedented global power,
and U.S. planners intended to use this power to further dominant
domestic interests. As explained by historian Gerald Haines,
also senior historian of the CIA, "the United States assumed,
out of self-interest, responsibility for the welfare of the world
Concerns about overproduction and access
to international resources gained new urgency. Each region of
the world was assigned a place within the global economic system.
Reconstruction of the industrial societies was of primary concern,
and traditional order was restored in those countries by reducing
anti-fascist resistance and labor movements to a subordinate
role. Africa was to be "exploited" for the reconstruction
of Europe. The "major function" of Southeast Asia was
to provide raw materials to the former colonial masters. The
U.S. would take over Latin America and Middle East oil fields,
though the British junior partner was to play a role in the Middle
East which would slowly diminish over the years.
It was recognized that fulfilling the
"responsibility" would not be easy. As Winston Churchill
had secretly warned his cabinet during British global dominance,
"our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast
and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely
maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than
to us." In George Kennan's 1948 paraphrase, "We should
cease to talk about vague and ... unreal objectives such as human
rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization,"
and must "deal in straight power concepts," not "hampered
by idealistic slogans" about "altruism and world-benefaction."
"We should cease to talk" -- apart from public rhetoric.
Too intricate to review here is the record of aggression, terror,
subversion, economic warfare and other crimes that followed,
along with conflicts and alliances with other power centers,
regularly engaged in their own atrocities.
The case of Cuba is again instructive.
Arthur Schlesinger, reporting the conclusions of a Latin American
study group to President Kennedy in early 1961, described the
Cuban threat as "the spread of the Castro idea of taking
matters into one's own hands;" a serious problem, he elaborated,
when "[t]he distribution of land and other forms of national
wealth [in Latin America] greatly favors the propertied classes
... [and] ... The poor and underprivileged, stimulated by the
example of the Cuban revolution, are now demanding opportunities
for a decent living." "Meanwhile, the Soviet Union
hovers in the wings, flourishing large development loans and
presenting itself as the model for achieving modernization in
a single generation." In public Schlesinger now describes
the problem faced by Kennedy as Castro's "troublemaking
in the hemisphere" and "the Soviet connection."
From the origins of the Cold War eighty
years ago, such "troublemaking" and the "Soviet
connection" were perceived in a similar light by Washington
and London. High level U.S. planning documents identify the primary
threat to their global plans as "nationalistic regimes"
that are responsive to popular pressures for "immediate
improvement in the low living standards of the masses."
These tendencies conflicted with the demand for "a political
and economic climate conducive to private investment," with
adequate repatriation of profits and "protection of our
At a hemispheric conference in February
1945, the U.S. called for "An Economic Charter of the Americas"
that would eliminate economic nationalism "in all its forms."
Officials recognized that it would be necessary to overcome the
"philosophy of the New Nationalism [that] embraces policies
designed to bring about a broader distribution of wealth and
to raise the standard of living of the masses." Latin Americans,
the State Department warned, "are convinced that the first
beneficiaries of the development of a country's resources should
be the people of that country." Given power relations, the
U.S. position prevailed -- the first beneficiaries were to be
U.S. investors and domestic elites. Latin America was to fulfill
its service function without "excessive industrial development"
that would encroach on U.S. interests.
The same principles can be observed in
a long list of cases around the world. To mention one, they lie
behind U.S. wars in Central America in the 1980s, when hundreds
of thousands of people were killed and much of the region was
destroyed. These wars were, in large part, against the Church,
which was guilty of adopting "the preferential option for
the poor" and trying to help people "fighting for their
most fundamental human rights," in the words of Salvadoran
Archbishop Oscar Romero calling on Washington to end its support
for the military junta, which added him to the grim list a few
It is symbolic that the terrible decade
opened with the murder of an archbishop who had become "a
voice for the voiceless" when his own priests were being
murdered, and closed with the assassination of six leading Jesuit
intellectuals by terrorist forces armed and trained by the victors
of the crusade for democracy, who now sit in judgment over the
crimes of others, basking in self-adulation. One should take
careful note of the fact that the Archbishop and other leading
Central American dissidents were doubly assassinated: both murdered
and silenced. Their words, indeed their very existence, are scarcely
known in the U.S. -- unlike dissidents in enemy states, who are
greatly honored. The way all of this is reconstructed within
the doctrinal system is truly a marvel to behold.
Another instructive case is Haiti, once
the richest colony in the world, now sinking into disaster. After
Wilson's war and two decades of Marine occupation, the ruined
country was left in the hands of brutal military forces and dictators
and ravaged still further by U.S. development programs. An unexpected
victory for democracy in 1990 elicited Washington's instant hostility
and efforts to subvert the reformist regime. The military coup
that followed was tacitly supported by the Bush and Clinton administrations,
which not only undermined the Organization of American States'
(OAS) embargo and maintained contacts with the killers and torturers,
but secretly authorized illegal shipments of oil to the coup
leaders and their wealthy backers.
In 1994 "democracy was restored"
with much fanfare. It was overlooked that the restoration was
conditional on acceptance of the socioeconomic programs of the
U.S.-backed candidate in the 1989 elections, who had received
just 14% of the vote. State Department spokesperson Strobe Talbott
assured Congress that after U.S. troops left Haiti, "we
will remain in charge by means of USAID [United States Agency
for International Development] and the private sector,"
imposing "consent without consent" in the familiar
Contemporary U.S. policies toward Cuba
provide further instruction. After the Cold War ended, and with
a remarkably smooth doctrinal shift, the U.S. attack against
Cuba intensified, especially the economic warfare. Terror operations
also continued, including bombs targeting tourists in 1997. An
intensive investigation by the Miami Herald (November
17, 1997) traced the bombings to Salvadoran criminals and ex-military
elements directed and financed from El Salvador and Miami. Luis
Posada Carriles, arguably the world champion in international
terrorism, was described as a "key link" in the bombings.
Posada Carriles' career includes Reaganite operations in El Salvador
aimed at Nicaragua after his escape from a Venezuelan prison,
where he was implicated in the bombing of a Cuban commercial
airliner in which 73 people were killed, and recent participation
in military terror in Honduras. It is unnecessary to comment
on what the reaction would be to comparable disclosures implicating
an official enemy.
As the U.S. took control over Latin America
in the 1940s, Brazil became a primary interest, recognized to
be the potential "Colossus of the South." Brazil was
to be a "testing area for modern scientific methods of industrial
development," Haines wrote in 1989, describing the results
as "a real American success story" that brought about
"impressive economic growth based solidly on capitalism."
In the eyes of the business world, 1989 was "the golden
year," with profits tripling over 1988 while industrial
wages, already among the lowest in the world, declined another
20%. The UN Report on Human Development ranked Brazil next to
Albania. When economic disaster began to hit the wealthy as well,
the "modern scientific methods of development based solidly
on capitalism" suddenly became proof of the evils of statism
and socialism. Nonetheless, the success was real enough for those
who count -- U.S. investors, the wealthy elite and the military
dictators nurtured by Washington.
One component of the postwar task was
the design of an international economic order. Its goal was to
liberalize trade, but not capital flow, which was to be regulated.
There were two basic reasons for this decision. The first was
the belief that liberalization of finance often interferes with
free trade, then expected to benefit U.S. industry after 150
years of protectionism. The second was the recognition that free
movement of capital would undermine the welfare state, which
had enormous popular support, particularly in Europe. Without
capital controls, governments would be unable to conduct fiscal
and social policies for fear of capital flight to evade the costs.
Not merely the social contract that had been won by bitter struggle,
but even meaningful democracy, requires control on capital movements.
The system was dismantled by the Nixon
administration -- a major factor in the explosion of foreign
exchange transactions in the years that followed. The composition
of these transactions also changed radically. In 1970, 90% of
transactions were related to the real economy (trade and long-term
investment); by 1995, 95% were speculative, mostly very short
term. The outcome generally confirms the expectations of postwar
Led by the Reagan administration, there
has been a serious attack on social support systems and an increase
in protectionism and other market interventions. It was also
predicted that financial liberalization would harm growth and
income. This happened too. Growth rates have declined sharply.
In the U.S., wages and income have stagnated or declined for
the majority of the population. The top few percent have gained
enormously. Britain has followed the same course, and similar,
though less extreme, consequences extend to other OECD countries.
The effects have been far more dire in
"developing countries." A comparison of East Asia and
Latin America is illuminating. Latin America, the "success
story" for American capitalism, has the world's worst record
for inequality; East Asia ranks among the best. The same holds
for education, health and general social welfare. Imports to
Latin America have been skewed towards consumption for the rich;
in East Asia, towards productive investment. Capital flight in
Latin America approaches the scale of the crushing debt; in East
Asia it was controlled. In Latin America, the wealthy are generally
exempt from social obligations: a "subjection of the state
to the rich," as Brazilian economist Bresser Pereira pointed
out. East Asia did differ significantly.
More recently, financial liberalization
has spread to Asia. South Korea, the most important of the "Tigers,"
reduced capital controls to qualify for entry into the OECD.
That is widely regarded as a factor in the recent crisis in South
Korea, as in the region generally, along with a range of market
failures, corruption and structural problems.
In Third World countries that have not
controlled their wealthy classes, the debt, which is growing
rapidly despite huge interest payments, has created a stranglehold
on social and economic development. Debt cancellation, not unprecedented
historically, has been considered. When the U.S. took over Cuba
it canceled Cuba's debt to Spain on the grounds that it was an
"odious debt," with no standing because it had been
forcibly imposed upon the Cuban people.
The same reasonable argument extends
to the current Third World debt. Another option is the capitalist
principle that those who borrow and lend are held responsible.
The money was not borrowed by campesinos, workers, or slum dwellers;
they gained little from it and often suffered grievously as a
result. But they are held responsible for repayment -- along
with western taxpayers -- not the banks who made bad loans or
the economic and military elites that enriched themselves while
transferring their wealth to New York and London.
The debt is an ideological construct,
not a simple economic fact. As understood long ago, free capital
movements provide a powerful weapon against social justice and
democracy. There is nothing inevitable about any of the developments
that are reshaping the international order. They are not laws
of nature or economics, but the results of decisions, which can
be changed, made within human institutions that can be replaced
by others that are more free and more just, as has often happened
in the past.
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