Parallels between Cuba and Iraq

Why we have failed to learn the national security lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis in our current War on Terror

From some stuff I read recently about the similarities with the 2003 Iraq
invasion and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis:

Of course living in the West, we take most of the credit for averting nuclear
holocaust, but the more we learn – the less realistic that conclusion
becomes. Yes, even for a JFK fan, it’s easy to admit. At the 40th
anniversary, National Security Archives representative Thomas Blanton states
that Soviet sub officer Vasili Arkhipov basically saved the world on 10/27/62
by disobeying the order to fire nuclear torpedoes in response to depth charge
attacks by overzealous US destroyers exceeding the naval quarantine of Cuba.

Apparently, after the botched Bay of Pigs and the ever-escalating Operation
Mongoose (terror/insurgency ops conducted by the CIA and Cuban exiles against
the Castro regime, but mostly hurt the populace and economic infrastructure),
a larger aggressive action against Cuba was planned for late 1962 … until
the U2 photographed the missiles.

Of course war was averted when diplomatic back channels arranged for JFK and
Khruschev to agree to dismantle the Jupiter nuke missiles in East Turkey and
make a tacit promise to never invade Cuba (the strength of this agreement is
unclear), in exchange for the USSR missile pullout on Cuba. The Russians held
up their part of the bargain, but of course the USA replaced the Jupiter nukes
with even more lethal and elusive sub-based Polaris missiles lurking just
outside Soviet waters. And some reports suggest that JFK approved resuming and
even intensifying anti-Cuban clandestine ops just weeks after CMC. It got
worse under Republican presidents, regime change was the official State Dept
stance with Castro, and Cuba was officially regarded as a rogue/terror state
for decades.

I do not know why it’s “OK” for the USA in 1961-2 to threateningly place
WMDs at the Soviet’s doorstep in plain sight of everyone except the US
public (thanks, mass media), but when the Reds try to even the score with
Cuba-based missiles to fulfill the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine, we
have a shit fit. What would you do if you were Khruschev? We CANNOT justify
the Turkish nukes as defensive measures to improve the security of the USA and
her allies. Nor can we expect other nations (minus Israel and Japan maybe) to
remain calm as our nukes (strategically placed in their backyards) are only
meant to keep the peace. We can understand why Koreans, Filipinos, and others
protest to get US troops the heck off their land. Turkey and Central Asia were
never even on the drawing board for Soviet aggression until the Afghan
invasion, so there was no need for deterrence (plus Israel probably had nukes
by ’62 and covered the Middle East region for us). Of course when we flex our
muscles, the world is supposed to trust us that our intentions are good, but
if our opponents do the same, it’s a war crime.

Sure, it’s quite possible that the USSR was planning to install Cuban nukes
irrespective of what we did in Turkey – but a lot of countries come up with
a lot of zany ideas, though that does not constitute a direct security threat.
Saddam was “trying” to acquire WMD and who knows what he wanted to use
them for, even though his direct neighbors (and bitter enemies like Israel,
Kuwait, Saudi & Iran) were not on high alert at all – until we invaded. When
we attempt to justify preventative/pre-emptive war based on our shoddy intel
and Bush-like psychic gut feeling, we run into dangerous hypocrisy. Ever since
the Castro-led revolution, the USA has made no attempt to disguise its
intentions for Cuba. For Castro to follow American doctrine, it would be
perfectly fine to seek protection from other powers like China and Russia. In
fact, once nukes could be operational – it also follows the Bush paradigm to
wipe out DC, even if it means cataclysmic American reprisal attacks. As
depicted in “The Fog of War”, when Castro and McNamara met years after
CMC, Castro told him that he would have recommended the Soviets launch the
nukes, if they were operational once the Yanks found out – even if it meant
Armageddon for his people. McNamara said that was crazy, but Castro told him
that JFK would do the same thing in his shoes. McNamara agreed; if you’re
facing certain destruction anyway (and all indicators suggested that was
America’s goal for Castro, just like Saddam today), you need to strike first
if you can. That is the end result of the Bush doctrine, and that is why it
can’t be tolerated. Supposedly Al Qaeda types will never rest until all
Westerners are dead or worshipping Allah, so we have to get them before they
get us. But that is the “logical illogicality” of such a conflict (the
phrase was coined by the US War Dept in ’45 during the budding Cold War).
Defense becomes attack and vice versa. To save ourselves we must destroy
external threats, but picking fights everywhere only increases our chances of
annihilation (a la CMC). To defeat int’l communism or terrorism, we need to
deprive them of resources, manpower, and friendly regimes – so following the
Neoconservative dogma, we set up “democratic” puppet states run by “our SOBs”
all over the place (even if it means violating int’l laws/treaties and
committing war crimes & atrocities, or condoning such measures by our allies).
But that nonsense seems logical if we believe that the enemy will take those
exact measures if we don’t, and no superpower wants to miss the boat.

Since the ‘50s, an aggressive neighboring enemy that harbored
terrorists (I’ll expand on this later but trust me for now), was guilty of
multiple unpunished war crimes, and had fearsome WMD threatened Cuba. The US has claimed
repeatedly that their goal is regime change, military if necessary. By
contemporary thinking, Castro had the right, if not the obligation, to arm
himself with Soviet WMD and strike the US before it was too late. Sounds
ridiculous, right? But this is the world according to Bush types, and I’m
sure we don’t want anything to do with it. As I said before, the Neoconservative
doctrine and preventative war policy would be almost valid if the USA was an
infallibly just, wise, and moral nation – though our foreign policy in the
last 100 years would suggest otherwise. I know perfection is impossible, but
the major problem with the Bush line of thinking is one unlucky slip-up and
you get a major costly scare (like CMC) if not outright nuclear war.

Say Iraq went splendidly (and it possibly could have, with only a handful of
different decisions), and Bush is riding high and getting a big head. So his
cabinet targets Iran next. The students are fighting for more democracy, their
leaders are repressive and hate America (and sponsor int'l terror), they have
a shit load of oil, and their WMD program is indeterminate, so it seems like a
reasonable candidate for Neoconservative-style regime change by force. So we bomb and
invade, but it turns out Tehran does have nukes, and launches them at Tel
Aviv. Hamas, Hezbollah, Qaeda, and others retaliate by attacking every
American installation in the Middle East. Israel responds by nuking Damascus,
Beirut, Cairo, plus Riyadh for good measure. Saudi/Iraqi oil production is
stifled, and what’s left of the Iranian military cuts off the Strait of
Hormuz so no Gulf oil reaches the West for weeks. China and the EU (minus UK)
cut off all economic and diplomatic ties with the rogue USA to avoid Islamist
backlash. After we seize Venezuelan oil wells, still gas-starved and
infuriated Americans demand that Russia divert its European and Chinese bound
oil to the USA or face bitter consequences. Hardliners overthrow Putin or
convince him to nuke America to “save Russia”. Endgame. It is fairly
preposterous, but also frighteningly plausible if cooler heads don’t prevail
(and “coolheaded” is not one of the first qualities that come to mind
about the current Admin).

We saw how “doves” like JFK barely avoided nuclear war in 1962, with so
many things going wrong as fear and aggression boiled over (overzealous
blockaders, ill-timed nuclear testing and saber-rattling troop exercises on
the Gulf Coast, the USAF increasing DEFCON status without White House
approval, a possible foiled coup in Moscow, a U2 getting shot down). It would
have been doom had Arkhipov followed his orders from Stavka. Now consider that
Bush is far from dovish and makes no qualms about overt aggression in the
logically illogical cause of security. 9/11 was bad enough and caused such
panic/paranoia/belligerence, but one CMC-esque slip-up and no telling what his
trigger-happy war cabinet will do. America cannot be defeated by any foreign
foe, but we have seen how easy it would be for us to destroy ourselves
(ironically in the name of our own preservation).

McNamara also said that JFK asked his staff to prepare a Cuban invasion months
before CMC, and the plan was ready to execute in a week’s notice (from The
Kennedy Tapes, Harvard). He said, “Cuba was justified in fearing an
attack.” The CIA managed bombing and incendiary raids by Cuban exile pilots
since 1959. In response, Cuba went to the UN Security Council in 1960 with
rock solid documentation of 20 attacks, but to no avail. US Ambassador Lodge
promised that America had no aggressive purpose against Cuba; all the while
Bay of Pigs was being planned. Castro understandably prepared to defend
himself, but CIA chief Dulles asked Britain and other Euro allies to deny him
arms shipments – to deliberately push Cuba towards the Soviets. Cuba armed
with Soviet weapons would provide an excellent pretext for escalation if not
invasion, as was the case with Guatemala (stop the spread of int'l bolshevism
and all that jazz, heck even selectively invoke Monroe Doctrine while you're
at it). In a memorandum to JFK in ’61, Arthur Schlesinger warned Kennedy of
a major diplomatic fallout from a proxy army invasion of Cuba (a la Bay of
Pigs, which did in fact happen). So it would be better to bait Castro into
sending troops to a neighbor like Haiti (as the CIA helped bait the USSR into
invading Afghan), trying to encourage more communism revolts and morally
justifying American intervention. The Joint Chiefs had similar thoughts, and
provided McNamara with even more extreme & devious plans in Feb ’62. Some
ideas were staging the destruction of a navy vessel in Guantanámo to repeat
“Remember the Maine” fervor, shooting down a drone plane near Cuban
airspace that was supposedly transporting US college students on spring break,
or using Soviet incendiaries to bomb crops on Cuba’s neighbors to frame them
for aggression.

By Aug ’62 anti-Cuban hostilities increased, such as strafing of a beach
hotel where Soviet contractors were known to be staying, and destroying sugar
exports. All this was done by exiled Cuban paramilitaries given safe haven in
the States. Is it any wonder why Castro asked for help and CMC ensued 2 months
later? Supposedly JFK and Khruschev agreed on 10/30 to abort sabotage
operations, but some continued in secret. Just before his murder, JFK approved
a CIA plan for proxy forces to destroy major shipping and production
facilities (Garthoff, “Reflections”). They obviously didn’t learn
anything from CMC. Plans to kill Castro were prolific, and sadly the exploding
cigar ploy was real. One of Nixon’s first measures as president was to
increase covert ops in Cuba, and anti-Cuban terror peaked under his Admin.
Bombings and raids persisted into the ‘90s, with Miami based fronts like
Cuban-American National Foundation distributing CIA funding. Known south
American criminals like Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch organized raids
and bombings on DC's behalf, the worst being the downing of a Cubana passenger
airliner. The FBI had documented over 30 counts of terrorism against Bosch,
but in ’89 Bush I gave him a presidential pardon at the behest of
Governor Jeb and South Florida Cuban expatriates. So it’s a bit hypocritical for
Bush II to accuse the Taleban of harboring Osama and other terrorists while we
did the same thing (even though Bosch probably is responsible for fewer
murders than OBL, and both were CIA-trained anticommunists). Under kind
Clinton’s leadership, the Cuban threat was downgraded to “negligible” in
’98, but economic sanctions persisted. Now Bush II is resuming anti-Cuban
animosity.

Sorry I’ve gone on so long, but it’s an interesting story – and of
course this is only the tip of the iceberg. I’ll end with this quote from
the Mexican ambassador in ‘61 to JFK when he was trying to rally support in
the Americas for anti-Cuba action, “if we publicly declare that Cuba is a
threat to our security, 40 million Mexicans will die laughing.” (Leacock,
“Requiem for Revolution”) This is especially fitting, considering the
USA’s aggressive history with Cuba and the fact that no Cuban attack has
taken place on US soil as far as we know (unless you buy into the JFK
assassination Cuba connection – which was more likely perpetrated by
anticommunist Cuban exiles than Castro’s actual agents). So we can
understand if most of the world finds it sadly humorous that we disguise our
imperialist aggression as defensive precautions.

Similar to the buildup to the Iraq invasion, Europe was not consulted by the
USA during the CMC. The US NATO commander put our air forces on high alert
without discussing the consequences with other treaty nations. I know we have
the "right" to protect ourselves without passing the "international test"
(vintage 2004 campaign rhetoric), but what is the point of an alliance that
you don't utilize? JFK’s NSA McGeorge Bundy suggested that Euros “feel
that they are a part of it … that they know,” but basically limit their
involvement to observers (even though Europe’s destruction during CMC was as
imminent as ours). But JFK’s ExComm was concerned that Europe’s pleas for
calm would undermine potential aggression against Cuba. America’s hysteria
over Cuba seem a bit foolish, considering the fact that Europe
had lived peacefully for over a decade (without freaking out) under the very
real and closer threat of Soviet nuclear missiles. JFK even said that any dissent or vetoes of US
actions during CMC were unacceptable, sadly akin to W’s treatment of our
noncommittal allies prior to Iraq. So I guess the take home message is:
nuclear holocaust almost took place, and its origins can be traced to sloppy,
unlawful efforts for regime change of an unfriendly but basically
harmless/insignificant nation. Things can spiral out of control very easily in
geopolitics. Obviously we would like to think we are more educated, civil, and
secure these days, being the last superpower left. Devious secrets are harder
to keep with more high tech communication and a widespread press (that may or
may not report responsibly, even if they uncovered something juicy). Our
current trade deficit and foreign energy addiction are sources of concern -
they could be manipulated to motivate horrendous actions, just like the Cold
War land grab policy to counter the Reds. But again, W has sought regime
change in Afghan and Iraq, even though such nations posed “negligible” (at
best) threat to the USA and our security/economic interests in the Middle East
(apart from their oil reserves or proximity to oil). We narrowly avoided
disaster once, and these days the Kremlin can no longer keep us in check, and there may not be an Arkhipov to bail us out at the critical moment. Who knows where this clumsy, misguided, and sadly all-too-familiar effort will ultimately take us?