I Hate You (Part II)
Rosa Martinez
HAVANA TIMES — Some months ago, I don’t recall when, exactly, I published a post that prompted many comments criticizing the title and focus of my piece.
I Hate You upset a number of readers and other Havana Times bloggers, who wrote me to say that hatred is a negative emotion and that my article did not contribute to the reconciliation between the people of Cuba and the United States that we have been working towards for so long.
I cannot but agree with my readers: feelings of hatred, even towards those who would try to do us harm or destroy us, are far from positive. Hatred does more harm to those who harbor the feeling than to the person or thing they hate.
I will not, however, take back my comments. They express my thoughts, my character and my mood at a given point in time. My ideas will not always be good and not everyone will always agree with them. We don’t always do what we should and we aren’t always right. Nor will we always have the same opinions.
I am very sorry if our friends in the United States who read these posts felt offended. I have several friends there, and I know my post did not strike them as offensive. My intention will never be to offend anyone, or to attack any specific people or culture. I respect and will always respect all of the world’s different peoples and cultures, in the same way that I would want others to respect mine.
I too – perhaps more than anyone – want to see the people of Cuba and the United States, who have been separated for too long (and not only by the ocean), become reconciled. I open my heart to the people of the United States, but not to their government.
I am a peace-loving person who condemns all types of violent conflict. I have tried to forget the crimes and affronts of the past. I try not to blame them for today’s orphans, for the wars of yesteryear.
I tell myself that Obama and his cabinet have nothing to do with the war in Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia, and I hope they will not intervene in Syria – that this country will not be remembered as yet another place where thousands of young US citizens lost their lives.
Don’t fret about all those who prattle about hatred is a negative emotion; on the contrary, it is a very refreshing and annealing emotion. I was trying to find the quote from the late Alexander Cockburn (one of my favorite writers) who, when he met a young new intern at THE NATION magazine, where he was a columnist, would always ask: “Is your class hatred strong enough yet?!” Those who love justice hate injustice. Those who love beauty hate ugliness and vulgarity. Hatred is as essential to life as is sunlight, water, air and fire. I’m sure even Jesus himself hated plenty (e.g. purging the money-changers from the temple, to name but one example). Keep on hating!
Moses and Griffin need to do some history research. Take a look at “Killing Hope” by William Blum, then come back and lecture to the victims to the “vicitms of government propaganda” in Cuba … if you have la cara.
First of all Rosa, I hope you were able to read the comments to your prior post that were written in English. If so, you should have been able to correct some misinformation regarding the US involvement in Vietnam, the use of nuclear weapons in WWII and the events which led to the US entering the war in Europe. Your hatred of the US role in these events was based on lies your government told you. Second of all, hating the US government and liking American people is normal. Most successful US Presidents never enjoy approval ratings among fellow Americans above 45%. Only in totalitarian regimes like Cuba is there an expectation that citizens must ‘love’ their leaders. Finally, our involvement in Syria is clearly unresolved and evolving daily. The lesson you should take from this is that in a democracy, not even the President is all-powerful.
A detailed account of exactly what the US mission to Benghazi was really doing one year ago today.
The CIA was working to find and remove weapons floating around the chaotic North African country. The problem was, they were then selling them on to Syrian rebels via Turkey. This is the reason why the Obama administration has been avoiding answering any questions about Benghazi.
http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/09/11/One-Year-Later-Why-We-Were-in-Benghazi
So, was Rwanda the right move where the US and everybody else stayed away and the the government slaughtered a half million to a million people in the greatest case of modern day genocide?
I don’t know the answer to the Syrian crisis. But, I am very confident that the problem is much more complex than Rosa’s simplistic one sided solution.
Dear Rosa,
Go ahead and vent your hatred towards the US, but it sounds to me you are taking a very narrow & selective view of the conflict in Syria. I do hope you have some to share with all the people who have contributed to this vicious civil war. The Syrian government of Bashir el-Assad deserves the most, but then so do all those who have given his regime support. That includes Russia, China, Iran and Cuba. For a while, the Obama administration pursued an ill-advised scheme of engaging Syria diplomatically. Shame on them. The rebels and all those who support them (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar & the US) are also to blame for atrocities against civilians.
The intervention President Obama has proposed will not involve US ground troops, so the risk to US troops is small. However, once involved, circumstances may draw the US military in further than intended at this moment. With the constantly confused & mixed messages coming from his administration, Obama has failed to impress anybody that he is in control of the situation.
That said, the bombing Obama proposes will kill Syrians, on top of the over 100,000 Syrians already killed in the vicious civil war. Personally, I am against any kind of intervention by the US. Nothing good will come of it. That the Syrian army used chemical weapons is ghastly, but firing a few cruise missiles at them won’t change anything.
The Russian proposal to have Syria surrender their chemical weapons (which were supplied to them by Russia in the first place, by the way) sounds nice, but is technically a very difficult process to carry out in the best of times. In Syria during a time of war, it will be impossible. The risk that these weapons might fall into the hands of one or more of the many terrorist organizations involved in the fighting (Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Nusra) increases by day.
Whoever is arming whom, these weapons are being used to kill Syrians. Stop the weapons and the fighting will reduce, if not stop entirely.The only rational policy is for all countries to stop arming the various factions. The US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia & Qatar are arming the rebels. Russia, China & Iran are arming the Assad regime. Iranian IIRG troops and Hezbollah soldiers are currently in Syria helping Assad. They won’t leave just because the UN tells them to.
The US did not start the war in Syria and no matter what they do, they cannot end it. The US should focus their efforts on providing humanitarian relief to Syrian refugees. They should also help the neighbouring countries avoid getting drawn into the conflict, or to prevent the conflict spilling over borders.