On Patriotism - Why 11 Million Cubans Love Fidel

Originally posted by Muaddib
Where is the evidence?... You have got to be kidding, there are accounts of Vietnamese people telling the world how the Vietcong/Communists murdered civilian Vietnamese.... But i am sure you will try to deny this....

And there are very many people telling the world of mass murders ( not by air as that certainly happened) perpetrated by American forces in Vietnam which i do not believe because there is nothing but alleged first hand accounts. At least i give both sides the benefit of doubt considering my absence at the scene of the crime at the time.

Over 2,000 victims of the red massacre have been found, many of them unidentified. It is estimated that more than 3,000 residents of Hue perished at the hands of the Communists during their occupation of this former imperial city.

www.saigon.com...

And what i am supposed to make of this information? Who knows who killed those people and who can prove it? Allegations may be true but i have no interest in simply believing what happens to suit my view. If we are not going to deal with facts just tell me so i can go dig up every alleged account of American atrocity in Vietnam.

That link tells of what happened in one city in South Vietnam, the city of Hue.

It actually tells us very little we can verify.

Here is another link to what happened in that battle.

Or as Douglas Pike, head of psychological warfare in Vietnam,28 claims in his booklet The Vietcong Strategy of Terror, terror is not unknown on our side, but "there is an essential difference in such acts between the two sides, one of outcome or result."

www.statecraft.org...

So basically i am expected to take this man's word even thought he worked for the US information agency at the time? Any chance we will see notes on other atrocities or atrocities not reported by US intelligence agents?

Professor Pike was a renowned scholar who produced an extensive body of writings about Communist doctrine, strategies and tactics in Vietnam. A former Foreign Service Officer, he brought his imposing background to Texas Tech's Vietnam Center in 1997 following a stint as director of Indochina Studies at the University of California at Berkeley (1982-1996). While at Tech he continued publishing the Indochina Chronology, a quarterly which he began in 1982 and which was widely read by officials and others keeping abreast of developments in Southeast Asia.

Professor Pike was Associate Director of Research at The Vietnam Center, where he worked until suffering a stroke in November 2001. The illness ended an illustrious career which had included Foreign Service assignments in Saigon, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Taipei. Regarded a leading expert on Vietnam, he had written six books, contributed to 24 edited volumes, and authored many scholarly articles, monographs, and conference papers on Indochina and Southeast Asia.

www.vietnam.ttu.edu...

So if he is a considered a leading expert on Vietnam by the media that should give us pause; lasting at least a few minutes imo. If you want to trust a known government agent with something as valuable as the truth feel free but i wont trust this mans word on anything i can not independently verify.

The Communist fighting for the people?... what a joke...

They were nationalist trying to get the imperial criminals out of their country? Does it matter what their religion or political motivation for self defense were?

If anyone has to learn from history and from the people who have suffered under such regimes it is obviously you, alongside some others who seem to adore Communism...

Communism sucks especially if you happened to live in something branded as such by the US national security state people who would have liked likely set up training schools for some terrorist to attack anyone in that country who oppose to local US backed dictatorship.... Your bashing those straw men bloody but i am not behind them and i am certainly not going to pretend propping them up for you.

There were some Americans who did commit atrocities against Vietnamese civilians,

Every American in a plane bombing villages in the South is a war criminal as you can not legally wage war on your own population any more than you can on foreigners. The fact that they were pretending to save the South by laying waste to it is quite ironic if not the obvious lie it seems to be.

but the Vietcong killed Vietnamese as a general rule, it was not the exception....

The North Vietnamese ( which is a funny thing to call them since there was no North to start with) HAD support among the population hence they did not have to involve in such atrocity;the reason the US armed forces and the French before had to indulge in such to gain some support trough terror&fear.

Mass counterterror is described as the cement of resistance: When people's lives are threatened without regard for their allegiances, their guilt or innocence, active resistance ensues. Zawodny argues:

The rate of recruitment is directly related to the intensity of terror applied by the enemy in suppressing the movement. Any counter-terror by the enemy brings to the ranks of the unconventional fighters new recruits who are escaping from the reprisals or who wish revenge.... Unless the guerrillas are also using terror against the population, the more terror the enemy applies, the more fighters he produces.22

Other American writers warned of the moral and political costs implicit in methods of counterinsurgency and psychological warfare involving terror and coercion, and they challenged the assertion that internal war had become indistinguishable from the larger Cold War. Paret, for example, argues: "Although modern war has blurred the dividing lines between internal and external operations, these still exist."23 And like some British theorists, Paret finds upholding the rule of law (at home and abroad) a tactical and strategic imperative, what he calls "the boomerang effect of extreme coercion" was cause enough for the Western powers to "stick to more conventional psychological weapons."24 Paret complains:

[I]t cannot be overlooked that techniques of extreme moral and physical coercion... may help defeat certain types of opposition, but it is hard to see how their widespread employment could fail to modify and eventually destroy such institutions as the rule of law on which a free society is based.25

www.statecraft.org...

Would this not best explain why the US kept killing people and kept right on losing the fight despite millions dying at their behest?

You are wrong...and I can't believe some people claiming such obvious lies....
If the U.S. hadn't intervened there would have been a genocide on the South Vietnamese, which did happen at the hands of the Vietcong to a lesser extend..

Pure nonsense. There is absolutely NO evidence this would have happened as the majority of the South also backed Ho Chi Minh. I don't know what sort of nonsense propaganda you read but this is so far out a claim that i would be surprised if you can find anything remotely credible in declassified US intelligence documents that suggest this was ever a consideration or motive.

First of all, we do have accounts of South Vietnamese people telling of what the Vietcong did to them and their families....

Sure did as i imagine not every VC member thought it fair that they were actively fighting while some others in the South were still trying to avoid having to do that against the obvious enemy. I am still unsure why you think this matters as without the US or French there would be no one or no reason to coerce anyone into supporting the VC...

Do you know that this is the standard in such wars? How many Irish are killed by their fellow Irish due to stories circulated by British agents or just general suspicion of them not doing their part? Why is it that black residents of South Africa tended to vent their anger and frustration on each other instead of on the nearest white person they could find? Your pretending that this is simply or that it's not somehow the standard throughout history...

Are you going to claim like donwhite that "the statements from dissidents of such countries don't have any credence"?....

No i am not and i did not see him doing that either. He merely suggested that we not trust just everyone who flee's Vietnam and thus avoids fighting for their national sovereignty... If you can flee to America and the west you probably have money and influence and probably a vested interest in serving whatever imperial power promises to protect your right to ill gotten goods and property. I would say many of those who could flee so far and speak out probably had ample reason to fear some reprisal for their earlier actions in support of foreign occupiers.

Stellar

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
You're wrong, again, Stellar and this time you are making a personal attack.

The truth can sometimes be quite personal just like killing foreigners on their own home soil can be personal to them if not to you.

American intervention in Vietnam came as a result of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization which bound member states to hold any invasion of a member nation as an invasion of their own country. New Zealand, Australia, and North Korea all had troops in South Vietnam.

That the type of agreements no one should make as it bounds you to the choices of others which some governments will obviously use to justify their own crimes. I care not what agreements the American government signed if they resulted in open aggression against a mostly defenseless ( in the strategic sense) nation.

Who invaded 'south' Vietnam anyways in 1950 at around the time when the US started sending advisers and paying French bills?

And I don't appreciate your calling me a war criminal

Well who would appreciate being called a war criminal? I imagine some would take pride in it but i did leave you ample room to not mention to what level you were involved.

and in fact I'm just a little tired of your baseless tirades here. If you can't post the truth, then find a forum that has lower standards.

Luckily your level of enthusiasm is quite irrelevant to our investigation of this matter and if you don't feel like discovering how you and so many others were lied to ( which i assume to be the case? ) stop reading and find something less stressful and disconcerting to do.

Stellar

Originally posted by StellarX
Every American in a plane bombing villages in the South is a war criminal as you can not legally wage war on your own population any more than you can on foreigners. The fact that they were pretending to save the South by laying waste to it is quite ironic if not the obvious lie it seems to be.

You persist in making baseless statements about those who participated in the war in Vietnam.

Calling America imperialist criminals is without merit and negates the rest of your arguments.

Please, limit your posts to factual content.

Et Tu, Cuba?

Obviously passions will tend to run high over a subject like this, especially among members with close personal ties to Cuba.

Where this runs afoul of the T&C, however, is when the opinions shift away from the topic and toward members themselves.

PTS, like ATS, is a place where members should feel free to express their candid opinions without fear of abuse or reprisal.

We should all respect the rights of members to believe whatever they want, even if those beliefs conflict with our own.

To do otherwise is to reject the foundation upon which our community has been built.

What The People Say

Meanwhile, as for the topic, and getting to my own personal views on it (I'm taking my moderator hat off now), I still haven't seen anything which establishes that 11 million Cubans love Fidel.

Who says?

Certainly not the 11 million people themselves -- there aren't enough posts in this thread for that.

The claim proudly emblazoned in this topic's title is as credible as saying "300 million Americans love Bush".

There's something Orwellian about putting words into the mouths of those who can't speak for themselves out of fear of brutal repression, which definitely exists in Cuba today.

Even the OP's glowing review of the Castro regime hints at what dissidents can expect under Fidel, and the Wikipedia article cited conveniently points to more information on human rights in Cuba.

And the fact that so many people risk their lives to escape from Cuba -- and often die doing so -- does not require interpretation.

It speaks quite poignantly enough for itself.

Tough Love

I think we as PTSers can expose some of what is true and some of what is false about the government of Cuba, and I'm sure that more than a few Cubans would have some choice not-so-loving words for Fidel if they could express them without facing indefinite imprisonment and torture simply for saying them.

Meanwhile, I have no doubt that many Cubans do indeed love Fidel. To them, he is a savior and the proud leader of a free country which has stood bravely against foreign oppression.

Just as on PTS, individual Cubans have their own opinions on this topic, and I'm sure they vary widely.

If we can avoid falling into the trap of pointing fingers at each other, putting words in other people's mouths and focus on the question of Cuba itself, I think we can all learn something from this discussion.

Edit... Started typing this post a few hours ago but only got around to finishing it now .. Will do my best to stay on topic but i'm not sure if that will lower the temperature much if at all.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
You persist in making baseless statements about those who participated in the war in Vietnam.

Taking part in a illegal war makes you morally suspect and actually assisting in any deaths caused certainly makes you by proxy a war criminal even if you will never face prosecution under the current world order that loves war, death and destruction so much.

Calling America imperialist criminals is without merit and negates the rest of your arguments.

Well as i said you are most certainly free to disagree ( you do have a vested interest here so it's understandable) but that will not in the end change the historic record which clearly points to the USA as the largest terror state in recent history. Even the pathetically useless UN had no choice but to act and thus America stands today convicted of state terrorism against Guatemala i believe. Go double check and maybe learn something about the country you chose to defend against a non existent threat.

Please, limit your posts to factual content.

Why should i bother when no one else does? I share your concern but just how much difference can actual honest to god facts matter when up against such entrenched self serving ignorance? I'll include some facts but i think this issue can probably best be decided by using simply old fashioned reason.

Stellar


[edit on 5-11-2006 by StellarX]

Yes there are Cubans who fall to the Communist indoctrination which they have been a victim to since childhood, while others realize that in order for themselves, and maybe even their immediate family if they have any, to survive, they have to side with the regime even if it means going against other family members, i know this because part of my family in Cuba has turned against the other just for what they think will help them survive better in the island.

I have heard some people in here claim that "Cubans are not going hungry and are not starving" without having any first hand account of this, they just want to trust what the Cuban government says, for whatever motives these people might have.

The truth is quite the oposite, people do go hungry in Cuba. Normally there is not enough food for eveyone in Cuba, and people have to resort to going from the cities into the farmlands, where castro's thugs don't go so often anymore, and they might be able to trade or buy a pig, or chickens, with dollars, or with enough Cuban pesos which family members send them from other countries, family members don't send Cuban pesos they send dollars which then Cubans can exchange for pesos. Not all Cubans are able to do this, more so small families.

Large families who for the most part do tend to stay together, split chores to be able to survive, but i know of for example a friend of mine who was living only with her mother, and they would go hungry with nothing to eat for three days sometimes. Even though she is a friend of my family, and at times my family have helped them, there are days they feel ashamed of having to ask for food without being able to give anything in return.

This friend of mine was an english teacher in the island. When I went to the island to visit my family in 2001, we spoke pretty much every day. One of the things she told me was her situation, and how desperate she was to leave, although doing so meant leaving her mother and father behind, who had separated. She is one of those majority of Cubans who is against the government of Cuba, but she could never talk against the regime because that would mean she would lose her job, and the ability to buy food, when there is any, in the bodegas in Cuba.

I am still amazed that some people in this thread are trying to blame the United States for the sins of the Communist regime of Cuba, just because they want to keep believing that "Communism is great and it fights for the people", but the truth is quite the oposite. No Communist nation in the history of the world has given to the people what was promised, these regimes just brought more death, suffering and destruction than any other economic system has ever brought, yet some people still want to cling to the illusion that "it s a great economic system", and more often than not these people live in countries that have never seen nor experienced what Communism is.

----Added comment---- Since this friend of mine "was" a professional on the island the regime would not let her leave the island, so she had to use other ways to leave the island, which i won't speak of here. She is now living in the U.S., and she is not going hungry anymore, she is able to send more aid to her mother from here, which was another reason for her to want to leave the island, so she could send money to her mother and father in the island.

[edit on 5-11-2006 by Muaddib]

Proxy Warfare

Originally posted by StellarX
Taking part in a illegal war makes you morally suspect and actually assisting in any deaths caused certainly makes you by proxy a war criminal even if you will never face prosecution under the current world order that loves war, death and destruction so much.

This is [email protected] (PTS), not the International Criminal Court, so let's please reserve personal indictments for the appropriate venue.

I think the topic of U.S. war crimes and sponsored atrocities (such as the death squads in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and other countries) is very worthy of detailed discussion and analysis, but I think we're getting away from the topic of this thread, which is:

On Patriotism - Why 11 Million Cubans Love Fidel

For other topics, I recommend other threads.

Originally posted by Majic
.............
PTS, like ATS, is a place where members should feel free to express their candid opinions without fear of abuse or reprisal.

We should all respect the rights of members to believe whatever they want, even if those beliefs conflict with our own.

To do otherwise is to reject the foundation upon which our community has been built.

Well, when some people go to the extreme of claming "all immigrant/dissidents from such regimes do not have any credence and are lackeys of the United States", that is taken by someone like myself as an insult, because I am one of those "immigrant/dissidents", but i am sure not a lackey of anyone and noone is paying me to post the experiences i have had with the Communist regime.

Not only that, but when that same person/people claim lies about a regime they have no real knowledge about, and want to keep claiming they know better, it rubs me in a very bad way because there are family members of mine still under that regime which"are suffering because of the regime", but these same people want to claim "it is all because of the United States" which is the same motto being puked by the Communist regime of the island.

Do people have a right to express their opinion? yes, but does that mean they have a right to insult and make claims which are outright lies?.... i don't think so.

[edit on 5-11-2006 by Muaddib]

"You People Are The Problem!"

Originally posted by Muaddib
Do people have a right to express their opinion? yes, but does that mean they have a right to insult and make claims which are outright lies?.... i don't think so.

Yeah, there's a lot of finger-pointing both direct and indirect in this thread, to be sure. The fact that I tend to be guilty of it myself more often than I'd like doesn't help.

This method of insult takes this general form:

"Anyone who believes X is wrong/ignorant/stupid/evil/etc."

Or:

"Anyone who is a member of group X is wrong/ignorant/stupid/evil/etc."

Quite often, it takes this specific form:

"Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong/ignorant/stupid/evil/etc."

In each case, the insult isn't direct in the sense of naming individual names, but this is a common tactic for getting digs in "under the radar".

Of course, now I have made it publicly known that I as a member of the staff am aware of it, and I ask that members refrain from doing this in general, and in this topic in particular, because it derails the topic and violates our standards for courtesy.

So let's please try to avoid using this tactic.

And if you see me doing it, please call me on it.

Originally posted by Majic
so let's please reserve personal indictments for the appropriate venue.

Well I'm sorry if anyone got the idea that this is somehow personal... I don't know GP personally so all i can go buy is what he tells me and that indicates in my mind ( and according to most conventions) that he is what i said he is. Then again i have no personal interest in the matter so i will shut up about it...

I think the topic of U.S. war crimes and sponsored atrocities (such as the death squads in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and other countries) is very worthy of detailed discussion and analysis, but I think we're getting away from the topic of this thread, which is

Well after reading this thread it's clear that is all just communist propaganda which the liberal ( communist owned) US and western media spread because it hates what America stands for and wants to destroy it.... No reason for any more threads clearly!

If i did not say it before i don't think eleven million Cubans 'love' ( hey i have dated people i did not love-become obvious later anyways- so the term is strange when used to refer to the leader of a country imo) Castro but i am pretty sure there were even less people who loved Stalin and they still fought the obvious enemy in the German army. While the US sponsors open terror against Cuba nothing will change and Castro will not have to resort to lies and deception to convince Cubans that there is a far more menacing enemy just over the horizon that might do to to them what western backed forces did in Indonesia when presented with a chance to take revenge.

Sure you know this so just keep up the good work.

Stellar

Muaddib,

The very fact that you have won the WATS award twice in a row, should be an indication to people that you know what you speak of.

Unless people have lived (as we did) in such oppresion, they have no idea, except for books with agendas what the truth is. There are many books out there promoting Cuba, the ideology, the revolution and antiamericanism, and people swallow this hook, line and sinker.

I can testify that every word Muaddib has said is true. We know it to be true. It doesnt matter really what anyone else "learned" through reading or books, college, etc. None of it is true.

The truth is people there are hungry, miserable, uncared for, and everyone by now (most) have been indoctrinated to believe that hunger is preferable to the evil sins of the free world.
Castro likes to be referred to as "Father" If you speak ill of the dictator, you will go to a camp to hand cut sugarcane or God knows what for years at a time.
Therefore, after 40 some years of pretending and living with what they have, yes, they get accostumed to it.
As far as "caring" for his people- I guess we cant make you understand IT DONT WORK THAT WAY. Its a lie.

I highly suggest you people go to Cuba for your next vacation. They'll be more than happy to have you and take your money. Step out of the vacation spots created for tourists, and you will have stepped into the land that time forgot.
Oh, and try to eat if you dare. Bring your own food.

Basically, i know i'm just typing to see my own words because there are those who do not believe one word of what two real Cubans have been saying here.
Its my outlet, i guess.

Freedom is the most wonderful and desirable thing in this world. I pray to God America stays "free" of any dictator, because you had to have been there to understand what a dictatorship can mean. This is why i'm so passionate with this current government and where it "may" lead.

Originally posted by Muaddib

Originally posted by denythestatusquo
one half of the population is paid off to police the other half of the population. That is why half the people will support the leader and the other half will hate him.

Is actually less than half of the population that is being paid to supress the other half. Some families have been turned against each other, as some people will betray relatives for the survival of their immediate family, or themselves.
[edit on 3-11-2006 by Muaddib]

If you wish to argue numbers then so be it, but anybody that gets any perk of any kind in a totalitarian regime is in effect being paid off no matter how cheaply it may appear.

For example the daily caloric intake of the average Cuban adult is but a fraction of what the average american consumes. In that case a well fed Cuban is paid off by the state for his or her implicit support.

If you know an exact number then please tell us.

My first experience about Vietnam came in the spring of 1954, when I was flying back to Kimpo AB from 7 days R&R at Nagoya and Mr. Fuji. Kimpo was the airport to serve Seoul built by the Japanese and the only airport in all of Korea before War 2. I was a passenger on a Douglas C124 Globemaster transport. The flight was delayed when the ground crew had to change spark plugs in one of the P&W R4360 engines. 28 cylinders, 2 spark plugs each. There were 15 passengers on board a plane that could carry 200 troops, but the center section was loaded with crates. The Loadmaster explained they were on their way to Indo China with medicine for the French. This was before Diem Bien Phu fell in May. I assume the plane would have refueled at Taiwan.

Aside: the US military are masters of packing. The wooden boxes were works of art!

Resume: After the battle started in March, it was on the news that the French had committed that inexcusable military blunder; failed to take the high ground. As soon as the Vietnamese opened up with field artillery placed about 2000 feet above the airbase the French Foreign Legion was defending, it was apartment what would be the outcome. It was just a question how many Legionaries had to die before the French ordered a surrender. It turned out, quite a few and all died in vain. Whydon't we common folk hold trials of those upper folk who so casually cause these miscues? Hello Dr. Guillotine. It was also reported but never admitted that US Douglas A3Ds flying off American carriers were doing close ground support for the French.

Deja Vu?
Under President Nixon's Vietnamization strategy which began in 1969-1970, the US began to withdraw its forces in stages from Vietnam, turning over most of the responsibility for fighting the war to the Vietnamese themselves. As part of this strategy, substantial numbers of American combat aircraft were turned over to the Vietnamese Air Force. The Skyraider equipped 522nd had converted to Northrop F-5s.
After the fall of Saigon, several VNAF Skyraiders fell into the hands of the North Vietnamese, but it is not believed that they ever made any attempt to put them into service. home.att.net...

Change "Vietnam" to "Iraq" and you can glimpse the future!


[edit on 11/5/2006 by donwhite]

Originally posted by donwhite[/]


Change "Vietnam" to "Iraq" and you can glimpse the future!


[edit on 11/5/2006 by donwhite]

That is can also be debated.

Vietnam communist, Iraq terrorist and muslim insurgents.Vietnam tens of thousands dead soldiers, In Iraq about 3,000 soldiers dead. In Iraq the goverment was destroyed and its leaders killed or caught and put on trial not so in Vietnam. In Iraq the invasion was over in a month not so in Vietnam. Insurgents also not in Vietnam. Ethnic division also not in Vietnam. Religous divide not in Vietnam and so on and so on.

Iraq is nothing like Vietnam. The main thing in common is what the public thinks but that can change in an instant.