Washington’s Many Policy Failures

Elio Delgado Legon

HAVANA TIMES — When, on December 17, 2014, President Barack Obama announced the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba and acknowledged that the embargo (or blockade) policy applied on Cuba for more than 50 years was a failed strategy that had to be changed, a number of futile international policies pursued by Washington came to mind, even though these were never publicly recognized as such.

In the Americas, the policy of imposing and supporting military dictatorships in many countries, coupled with the systematic murder of many leading revolutionaries met with the resistance of the people. The situation was no longer sustainable and they decided to change the dictatorial system for more or less democratic elections, where they always tried to impose their candidates on these countries, without ever acknowledging that the previous systems had failed.

Only in Cuba and Nicaragua, the dictatorships of Batista and Somoza were overthrown by popular uprisings, despite Washington’s failed military support for these regimes.

The invasion of Vietnam brought incalculable human losses, both American and Vietnamese, and the campaign’s failure was resounding. People still recall the images of US soldiers clinging to helicopters, trying to flee the country anyway they could.

More recently, following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States proclaimed it was declaring war on terrorism and, despite the fact that Fidel Castro publicly warned them that a war was no way to combat terrorism, then President George W. Bush decided to start a war that ended in failure. The result of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan completely devastated those countries and made them ungovernable, where terrorists have become stronger, precisely thanks to the weapons supplied by the United States, and now threaten the security of the entire Middle East.

The war on Libya had a result similar to the previous two: a country plunged into chaos, where weapons supplied by the United States ended up in the hands of terrorists.

Despite these failures, the policy of overthrowing governments that do not appeal to Washington was applied in Syria, where terrorist groups received weapons and training to topple the legitimate government of Bashar al Asad. The situation in Syria became more complicated with the entry of other terrorist forces belonging to the so-called Islamic State.

The United States continued to supply weapons and munitions to groups set on overthrowing the government, but these weapons and many of the operatives ended up in the Islamic State, which everyone believes should be stopped. The United States has attempted to combat them, but has maintained its objective of overthrowing the government, not realizing that, this way, it has strengthened the terrorists and worsened the country’s situation, to such an extent that millions of Syrians are emigrating to neighboring countries and Europe, fleeing from the conflict.

Incredibly, after having created and aggravated the crisis in Syria, the United States has approached the Greek and Bulgarian governments to have them deny Russian airplanes carrying humanitarian aid to Syria access to their air spaces.

Meanwhile, only Russian bombers have successfully hit the Islamic State, having worked in coordination with the Syrian government. However, the Western press distorts the facts to minimize the importance of this success. Finally, however, the Pentagon has had to hold talks with the Russian high command to coordinate actions with them. Likewise the Obama government admitted the United States failed in its attempts to overthrow the Syrian government. Yet another failure. Let us hope they finally learn their lesson.