re: Cuba/Castro: No one saw this coming, right?

My dad saw Gloria Estefan at Gitmo in 1995.

He's got some good Cuban prisoner stories

quote:

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This is what happens when a woman gives birth to a fatherless child, and then as a young boy is schooled in a madrasa, and later immigrates to America and is mentored by Saul Alinsky, Frank Marshall Davis, Rev Wright and the like, becomes a pseudo constitutional lawyer, later a community rabble rouser/organizer, runs for public office and is elected Senator of Illinois, and thanks to low info voters is elected twice to the highest office in the US.

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I hate it when that happens to kids. It is a mess.

The Spanish–American War (Spanish: Guerra hispano-estadounidense) was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, the result of American intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. American attacks on Spain's Pacific possessions led to involvement in the Philippine Revolution and ultimately to the Philippine–American War.[9]

Revolts against Spanish rule had occurred for some years in Cuba. There had been war scares before, as in the Virginius Affair in 1873. In the late 1890s, American public opinion was agitated by anti-Spanish propaganda led by journalists such as Joseph Pulitzer and William Hearst which used yellow journalism to criticize Spanish administration of Cuba. After the mysterious sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana harbor, political pressures from the Democratic Party and certain industrialists pushed the administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war he had wished to avoid.[10] Compromise was sought by Spain, but rejected by the United States which sent an ultimatum to Spain demanding it surrender control of Cuba. First Madrid, then Washington, formally declared war.[11]

Although the main issue was Cuban independence, the ten-week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. American naval power proved decisive, allowing U.S. expeditionary forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already brought to its knees by nationwide Cuban insurgent attacks and further wasted by yellow fever.[12] Numerically superior Cuban, Philippine, and American forces obtained the surrender of Santiago de Cuba and Manila despite the good performance of some Spanish infantry units and fierce fighting for positions such as San Juan Hill.[13] With two obsolete Spanish squadrons sunk in Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay and a third, more modern fleet recalled home to protect the Spanish coasts, Madrid sued for peace.[14]


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funny how policy was manipulated by weaponry.

Guam and the other spoils in the Pacific were kept primarily as coal fueling stations for our battleships. If Cuba were further away we would have kept it.

Ah, if it were a state, the diving I could do in those waters.

I think he's trying to say the Cubans were getting themselves independence anyway.

Without American Naval Power, the Cubans could have been dead in the water, or had a much longer and bloodier time getting their Nationhood.

A better analogy than the China one, would have been if France had made a condition of helping the 13 colonies that they be allowed a small coaling station in an unpopulated area of Maine. We would have said yes in a heartbeat.

Just putting a few facts out there before the spin machine hit high. We didn't go to war because of some benevolent love for Cubans freedom. We went in to take colonial possessions from Spain in the Caribbean and Pacific.

banana republics

I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be interested in transporting some of those 50s cars back for my consumption.

Okay, did I mention I spent 4+ years in the Marines. I actually served in Smedley Butler on Okinawa in 1985.