Home > Will the Bombs in Baghdad Explode in Havana?
By Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
10/14/2003 © Tribune Media Service
A car bomb kills six and wounds 35 in Baghdad. Al-Qaeda is reportedly
planning new assaults on the United States. Clearly Fidel Castro is in
trouble.
Fidel Castro? What does he have to do with Iraq and Osama bin Laden?
Nothing, of course, but that may just be the point. Bush’s preemptive
war on Iraq has led to an occupation that isn’t going well. American
casualties and suicides are up. The Army brass is in virtual public
revolt, with half of our forces mired in Iraq, and brutally long
assignments raising fears about re-enlistments and recruiting.
Republicans are chafing at the $87 billion Bush wants for next year in
Iraq, building schools in Baghdad while school budgets are cut across
the country. And the president’s prewar statements painting Iraq as an
imminent threat to the U.S. have been exposed as false.
The administration’s response to the debacle has been to roll out an
aggressive public relations campaign. National Security advisor Condi
Rice is named head of a new coordinating structure (which Defense
Secretary Don Rumsfeld dismisses as paper shuffling). Bush, Cheney and
Rice hit the airwaves to recycle increasingly threadbare
justifications for the unilateral war.
A form letter to the editor praising U.S. efforts in Iraq is sent to
newspapers as if written individually by U.S. soldiers, some of whom
didn’t even know about the letter until it appeared in print over
their name.
In the midst of all this, the president appeared in the Rose Garden on
Oct. 10 to announce a renewed offensive against ... Fidel Castro. "The
Cuban regime," he warned, "will not change by its own choice." He
announced a program "to hasten the arrival of a new, free, democratic
Cuba." He ordered the Department of Homeland Security to increase
inspections of travels and shipments to and from Cuba. This is the
same department that doesn’t have the resources to inspect shipments
coming in and out of the United States. The same department unable to
afford training and equipment for our frontline defenders — local
police and firefighters.
As the New York Times reported, it is easy to dismiss this as
politics, a ploy to "shore up the president’s support among Florida’s
Cuban Americans." Bush needs Florida in 2004; Cuban American votes are
essential. So throw a stick and a few harsh words at Fidel. Establish
a commission headed by the good-soldier Secretary of State Colin
Powell, his credibility already compromised over Iraq; and the Cuban-
American Housing Secretary Mel Martinez to plan for "Cuba’s transition
from Stalinist rule to a free and open society" and to "identify ways
to hasten the arrival of that day." Ratchet up the failed 40-year
embargo that, if anything, has only consolidated Castro’s nationalist
credentials.
> But there is a more ominous possibility. In the 1980s, Ronald
Reagan, despite the skepticism of the professional military,
dispatched U.S. forces to Lebanon and started lobbing artillery into
the civil war there. A shocking terrorist attack killed over 200
foolishly exposed U.S. soldiers. Reagan figured he’d better change the
subject. Suddenly the little island of Grenada became a threat to
freedom in the hemisphere. An armada and U.S. troops were dispatched
to invade the tourist paradise and overthrow the rowdy nationalists
that had taken over. U.S. troops got out of Lebanon under the cover of
victory in Grenada. American students studying in Grenada were
"rescued," bolstering President’s Reagan’s polls, if not his
credibility.
Now in Iraq, much of the professional military wants the
administration to put Iraqis in charge, and get U.S. troops out of
there as fast as possible. That won’t be easy, given the chaos that
we’d leave behind in a critical region. The administration is pushing
to make it work in Iraq.
But if what the military is now calling a "classic guerilla war"
continues to escalate, if U.S. troops continue to die in an occupation
for which they are not trained, the president’s political operatives
will be looking for a way out - and a little cover. Iran might be too
dangerous. But with Fidel Castro now 77 years old, the Cuban economy
ground down from mismanagement and from the embargo, the Cuban people
increasingly restless, Florida in play in 2004, Cuba just might be
auditioned as a modern-day Grenada. The Cuba experts I’ve talked to
are skeptical. Cuba is just too tough. Castro still has too much
support. The international community would be outraged. They are
probably right.
But if the president isn’t cooking up a crisis over Cuba, why are we
spending the resources of the already overwhelmed Department on
Homeland Security inspecting shipments going in and out of Cuba rather
than those coming in and out of the United States?