CIA-run Project Phoenix executed between ...
Project Phoenix involved South Vietnamese fighters and turned North Vietnamese fighters.
The Contras ...
A direct response by the Americans to the efforts made by the Cubans and Soviets to achieve the same exact ends. No better, no worse.
Fuck do you know how many land mines we sent to Angola? How many thousands we have killed and maimed DECADES after the war?
Seeing as I served in Angola and SWA for the better part of decade, yeah, I'm pretty familiar. Supporting Unita, who were Angolan nationals opposed to Cuba and the MPLA, is a far cry from what the destruction and cruelty levied on the Angolan people by the Cubans and MPLA for the sole purpose of ensuring their dominance over the will of the people.
SADF did not surround civilians with landmines and, during the day, shoot them if they moved and, during the night, shoot at them if they didn't. That would be the Cubans.
Well, yeah it kinda is a double standard when you have everyone committing and justifying atrocities during the Cold War, but afterwards claiming Cuba was 'special bad' because of all the bad things it did as part of that war.
It's not a double standard. Cuba had been fomenting war in the region for a long time. They were itching to get back into Africa after their failure and route in Congo. They are "special bad" because, had they just let Angola play out it's course, we would have stopped SWAPO from cross-border incursions and Unita would have been victorious. Why? Because Unita was the will of the Angolan people. It was the will of the poor Angolans who saw their entire support system collapse when Portugal bailed out in '74.
Not much of a force projection, we had military bases INSIDE Panama...
The Americans did to Panama what they did for a lot of reasons. But, given that they had been covertly supporting us and unita in Angola for years and given that Cuban and South Africa had just signed the Manhattan Accords to allow Cuba to have some sort of not a I-got-my-ass-kicked withdrawal from Angola and given that Cuba was still Angola where it could potentially decide to go full retard, it was a perfect opportunity to demonstrate to Cuba what America could and would do if CUBA decided to force project again.
On a side note, if you're really interested, you should take a look at '89 Panama City and '89 Havana and the start circling objectives on the map in Panama City and considering their corollary in Havana. It was an opportunity that had to be taken. Second best to actually taking Cuba.
Hey you know what? 60 some years of Sanctions haven't worked. Every repressive regime we manage to open up relations with falters, the pressure of the U.S. economy will transform Cuba in short order.
They have worked. Between the defeat in Angola, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Americans scaring the shit out of them with Panama; Cuba has been silent as church mouse for 25 years.
Maybe the US economy will transform Cuba? Or, maybe, it will just transform into miniature version of China? Same threat, bite-sized package? Sound familiar?
The only people who don't regard the people in charge of Cuba to be legitimate, are I guess people like you. We have supported far more brutal regimes than Castro's. He's not special.
I don't support it because I witnessed the abject barbarity, cruelty, and inhumanity of the Cuban regime under Castro (Fidel or Raul).
Why the Americans couldn't wait 10 more years for Castro to die or 20 for Raul, I don't know. The Cuban people need and deserve to come into their own under their own volition. They don't need the US economy to "transform" things. They need to have the opportunity to create their own destiny. The Americans could have supported that. Instead, they're propping up a corpse.