Constant pattern
Russia's friendships are strictly rational. Russia is LOUDLY maintaining FIRM friendship with Cuba. Maduro gets a much more cautious and tentative embrace.

Why? Competence. The Castro regime is competent. It knows how to serve its people, and has done a remarkable job of breaking Graybill's Law for 60 years now. Maduro wants to be on Russia's side, but does a shitty job of serving his own people.

This reminded me of the calendar. I looked up 7/26** to verify that this month is the actual 60th anniversary of the revolution, and found an astonishing fact.

Castro was originally a CIA asset.

Batista had been loyal for a long time, but after Castro began to make inroads, Batista attempted to answer the people's complaints by nationalizing the oil company. This displeased CIA. We placed sanctions on BATISTA, and CIA sent Frank Sturgis (later famous for other things) to train and organize Castro's ragged band. With improved training and weapons, Castro was able to defeat the disloyal Batista. But soon after victory, Castro started to serve Cuba instead of CIA. He was now just as bad as Batista, so we reimposed sanctions and kept them in place, with a brief break in 2015.

I was listening to shortwave in '59, so I picked up the general sense that Castro had switched from Our SOB to Russia's SOB, but I'd never heard or read the Sturgis connection until right now.

= = = = =

This pattern repeats over and over. We always train the revolutionaries to weaken a government that displeases us, then we smash the revolutionaries after they disappoint us.

The most famous example is Osama, but history is full of hidden examples, from Robespierre in 1789 to Khomeini in 1979.

More subtle question: Clearly we haven't learned anything from this pattern. We keep on supporting revolutionaries, and they keep on disappointing us or even attacking us. Have the revolutionaries learned? Yes, in some cases. Castro and Khomeini have served their own people well enough that they were able to resist our smashing. The initial support may have been worth the later trouble.

= = = = =

** Fussy footnote: I had always thought of 7/26/59 as the finish of the revolution. That's not right. 7/26 was the start of the revolution in 1953. The culmination was less precise.

Labels: defensible times, From rights to duties

  ¶ 5:58 AM