Maybe the Cuban president should ensure vital infrastructure can be maintained and holds an inventory of spares?
Something that’d be significantly easier to do if it weren’t for the US’s continued immoral blockade and sanctions? Cuba does not have the resources to maintain the plant purely on their own, and they can’t hit a magic button that will suddenly let them find an abundance of spare tools and equipment to repair their infrastructure in a disaster scenario without wider access to international trade.
They are in trade with China. They can import what ever the hell they want. They did not import the components for the plant out of incompetence and are producing propaganda to deflect blame.
The embargo does not block food and medicine goods to Cuba from the United States, and other countries besides the US trade with Cuba (notably, China). But apart from that, great point.
As per the Reuters article I linked, Russia is their preferred trade partner and sent oxygen. Perhaps they should choose trade partners more carefully if they insist on relying on US components.
I’d guess they’d get a lot more help if they held free and fair elections
I’d guess they’d get a lot more help if they held free and fair elections
Yes because THAT’S what the US cares about. Like supporting ‘free and fair elections’ by overthrowing democratically elected governments in Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Bolivia, Iran, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Nicaragua…
In each case they installed (or tried to install) a puppet dictator they could control. But no, please go on about how Cuba are actually THE BADDIES here.
Since feudal times the landholding system in Afghanistan had remained unchanged, with more than 75 percent of the land owned by big landlords who comprised only 3 percent of the rural population. In the mid-1960s, democratic revolutionary elements coalesced to form the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). In 1973, the king was deposed, but the government that replaced him proved to be autocratic, corrupt, and unpopular. It in turn was forced out in 1978 after a massive demonstration in front of the presidential palace, and after the army intervened on the side of the demonstrators.
The military officers who took charge invited the PDP to form a new government under the leadership of Noor Mohammed Taraki, a poet and novelist. This is how a Marxist-led coalition of national democratic forces came into office. “It was a totally indigenous happening. Not even the CIA blamed the USSR for it,” writes John Ryan, a retired professor at the University of Winnipeg, who was conducting an agricultural research project in Afghanistan at about that time.
The Taraki government proceeded to legalize labor unions, and set up a minimum wage, a progressive income tax, a literacy campaign, and programs that gave ordinary people greater access to health care, housing, and public sanitation. Fledgling peasant cooperatives were started and price reductions on some key foods were imposed…
Because of its egalitarian and collectivist economic policies the Taraki government also incurred the opposition of the US national security state. Almost immediately after the PDP coalition came to power, the CIA, assisted by Saudi and Pakistani military, launched a large scale intervention into Afghanistan on the side of the ousted feudal lords, reactionary tribal chieftains, mullahs, and opium traffickers.
A top official within the Taraki government was Hafizulla Amin, believed by many to have been recruited by the CIA during the several years he spent in the United States as a student. In September 1979, Amin seized state power in an armed coup. He executed Taraki, halted the reforms, and murdered, jailed, or exiled thousands of Taraki supporters as he moved toward establishing a fundamentalist Islamic state. But within two months, he was overthrown by PDP remnants including elements within the military.
It should be noted that all this happened before the Soviet military intervention. National security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski publicly admitted–months before Soviet troops entered the country–that the Carter administration was providing huge sums to Muslim extremists to subvert the reformist government. Part of that effort involved brutal attacks by the CIA-backed mujahideen against schools and teachers in rural areas.
In late 1979, the seriously besieged PDP government asked Moscow to send a contingent of troops to help ward off the mujahideen (Islamic guerrilla fighters) and foreign mercenaries, all recruited, financed, and well-armed by the CIA. The Soviets already had been sending aid for projects in mining, education, agriculture, and public health. Deploying troops represented a commitment of a more serious and politically dangerous sort. It took repeated requests from Kabul before Moscow agreed to intervene militarily.
TL;DR: An organic, popular left-wing government deposed the king and made some serious reforms that challenged capital. Then – and stop me if you’ve heard this one before – capital interests and social reactionaries allied with the U.S. and its client states to attack said popular left-wing government. This pushed the left-wing government into the USSR’s camp (again, stop me if this sounds familiar) and it asked the Soviet Union for more and more help, up to and including military assistance.
Now please log off, read theory, then come back and join the adults
For most of its existence, the party was split between the hardline Khalq and moderate Parcham factions, each of which claimed to represent the “true” PDPA
Classic leftists, can always be relied upon to divide and conquer themselves
In its final years, the party gradually moved away from Marxism–Leninism and towards Afghan nationalism
History may not repeat, but socialism sure does rhyme every time
And I don’t need to read theory, theory is for the birds. Facts are what matters, and there is precisely one mildly successful communist country, Vietnam.
“hmm blockaded country that can’t import food/crops can’t feed their people. maybe they should simply grow crops and feed their people”
Why can’t they import food/crops? Do you believe that Cuba has 0 trade partners? Can you source any evidence of a “blockade” in place? I don’t recall seeing ships surrounding Cuba stopping all boat shipments. You realize that the last real blockade that was established around Cuba was dismantled in the 1980’s right? 6.6% of their current imports are from the USA. So not only is there no Blockade… but just an embargo… and not only is there an embargo, but one that’s so toothless that we are on their major importer list even though they’ve had decades to work without the USA.
I don’t get this article, Cuba’s only oxygen plant breaks down and it’s the US’ fault?
Maybe the Cuban president should ensure vital infrastructure can be maintained and holds an inventory of spares?
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cuba-struggles-get-oxygen-sick-vaccines-healthy-2021-08-17/
Something that’d be significantly easier to do if it weren’t for the US’s continued immoral blockade and sanctions? Cuba does not have the resources to maintain the plant purely on their own, and they can’t hit a magic button that will suddenly let them find an abundance of spare tools and equipment to repair their infrastructure in a disaster scenario without wider access to international trade.
They are in trade with China. They can import what ever the hell they want. They did not import the components for the plant out of incompetence and are producing propaganda to deflect blame.
glad to see we have the history understander here!
“hmm blockaded country that can’t import food/crops can’t feed their people. maybe they should simply grow crops and feed their people”
The embargo does not block food and medicine goods to Cuba from the United States, and other countries besides the US trade with Cuba (notably, China). But apart from that, great point.
As per the Reuters article I linked, Russia is their preferred trade partner and sent oxygen. Perhaps they should choose trade partners more carefully if they insist on relying on US components.
I’d guess they’d get a lot more help if they held free and fair elections
Yes because THAT’S what the US cares about. Like supporting ‘free and fair elections’ by overthrowing democratically elected governments in Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Bolivia, Iran, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Nicaragua…
In each case they installed (or tried to install) a puppet dictator they could control. But no, please go on about how Cuba are actually THE BADDIES here.
Afghanistan? Lol, the Taliban?
Nice whataboutism though.
It’s still more likely that the US would help Cuba if they introduced democracy
Oh damn dawg, I guess you haven’t heard of the PDP before. All good, I gotchu
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2008/12/02/afghanistan-another-untold-story
TL;DR: An organic, popular left-wing government deposed the king and made some serious reforms that challenged capital. Then – and stop me if you’ve heard this one before – capital interests and social reactionaries allied with the U.S. and its client states to attack said popular left-wing government. This pushed the left-wing government into the USSR’s camp (again, stop me if this sounds familiar) and it asked the Soviet Union for more and more help, up to and including military assistance.
Now please log off, read theory, then come back and join the adults
Classic leftists, can always be relied upon to divide and conquer themselves
History may not repeat, but socialism sure does rhyme every time
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People’s_Democratic_Party_of_Afghanistan
I prefer my sources to be balanced, yours is a touch too far I’m afraid. I’m a lazy daoist, the centre is the path.
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/common-dreams-media-bias
And I don’t need to read theory, theory is for the birds. Facts are what matters, and there is precisely one mildly successful communist country, Vietnam.
One.
Why can’t they import food/crops? Do you believe that Cuba has 0 trade partners? Can you source any evidence of a “blockade” in place? I don’t recall seeing ships surrounding Cuba stopping all boat shipments. You realize that the last real blockade that was established around Cuba was dismantled in the 1980’s right? 6.6% of their current imports are from the USA. So not only is there no Blockade… but just an embargo… and not only is there an embargo, but one that’s so toothless that we are on their major importer list even though they’ve had decades to work without the USA.