Cuba isn't exactly Switzerland. It has a long history of being a Soviet puppet state during the 20th century, and a nucleation site for anti-US activities elsewhere in Latin America. Furthermore, there would be no Maduro regime without the influence of Cuba, and that regime is expressly pro-Russia and destructive to Venezuela.
Let's not distill away the complexity of the situation.
If you're going to use that kind of argument, re: global/network effects of a government as complicit in negative outcomes of actions in other countries... the USA is by far the worst offender. It could be argued that the questiobnable actions Cuba has taken are justified in the context of trying to deal with an insidious and pervasive foreign influence over most of the globe: the US.
My question is what he USSR and Cuba would have ended up looking like without the insanely disruptive actions by the US. The USSR would have likely been an entirely different society if they were not compelled to spend such an enormous amount of their GDP on weapons and defense and Cuba would likewise have developed quite differently without dealing with the embargo.
I don't think that's a good-faith characterization of my prior comment. Please read carefully. I'm not suggesting network effects. I'm talking about direct activity. There is boundless information about this available online, but this is a start regarding the Venezuela link:
Separately, you can also read about the Cuban antecedents to Che's fatal incursion into Bolivia, and his team's lack of regard for the linguistic differences across regions in that country. There are seven decades worth of Cuban involvement in anti-American activity all over Latin America. I invite you to read about it from time to time when you are bored and curious.
Whether you support one side, the other, or neither, it's obvious that Cuba's "transgressions" are not a single-element list. That's what the parent comment says and it's 100% false.
I find it unreasonable that you suggest the USSR's massive stockpiling of weapons was not due to their own actions and strategy, but somehow the US's fault. How can you be circumspect when you suggest that two can tango but only one does the dancing?
Cuba also contributed to lots of anti-american activities in Africa, where along with the URSS supported the struggle against apartheid and colonialism. All these things can be seen as "transgressions" and reasons for retaliations. But if acting directly in foreign countries is not right, then I think that Cuba is not exactly the worst offender.
> I find it unreasonable that you suggest the USSR's massive stockpiling of weapons was not due to their own actions and strategy, but somehow the US's fault. How can you be circumspect when you suggest that two can tango but only one does the dancing?
Well, there were socialist countries and experiments that were more democratic and did not enter in an arms race. They were wiped out. Russian Revolution was after the massacre in the Paris Commune, so they knew what to expect and prepared accordingly, even before the cold war. But the USA always reinforced this, presenting plenty of examples of how it deals with socialist sympathies in less powerful countries.
If you understand the patchwork quilt of Latin American relations, then it is immediately obvious how those other countries are related to Cuba. Imagine discussing Cuban "transgressions" (under the present regime, no less) without considering the Soviet role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example.
Respectfully, this question sounds like it is coming from a context of the US being a nation that deals with other regimes fairly and in good faith. This is not at all the case, most especially in the Caribbean and Central America. The crimes of the US are unfathomably legion in these areas and well understood by pretty much everyone, except Americans. Millions of lives lost, dozens of democratically elected regimes deposed, the list goes on and on. Cuba holds this standing because the Castro regime has resisted the will of US foreign policy and survived. Everything that one could report that is wrong with Cuba: human rights issues, poverty... the US's policies are causal a great deal to all of these.
US investment is the single greatest causal factor for prosperity in Latin America. Look at Panama and Chile, for example. In fact, the midas touch of American investment is visible in several other places outside of the Americas, including Taiwan and South Korea.
In my view, it is hard to label the immense prosperity-inducing capacity of United States foreign investment as bad-faith or unfair dealing. Cuba's government has spent years working on projects to attract spend-happy American tourists. Elsewhere in the region, entire countries base their economies around remittances from the USA. The US government could crack down on remittances and illegal immigration far more than already happens, but it does not, and millions of people in the region benefit as a result.
Respectfully, it takes a great deal of time, study, and travel to learn the dynamics involved in a region before you can say with confidence that Influence A is good and Influence B is bad. People who lean left in the US should understand that 'socialist' isn't a catch-all phrase; it means something different when you're voting for Bernie Sanders in the Iowa Caucuses than it does when you're bartering with your uncle for soap in Camaguey. I have been all over Latin America and I personally still don't consider myself to know all there is to know about the region. What I do know is that the "USA bad" narrative tends rarely to be accompanied with a discussion of the counterfactual universe where American influence is hypothetically absent from the region.
If you look at the prior conversation, you'll see that it isn't centered on the question you are posing here.
There was a statement that Cuba's only "transgression" was a desire to not be a US puppet state. That is a false claim.
Ignoring the language of "vehement" this and "opposed" that, I believe that my prior comment addressed your question. The present regime in Cuba is a direct descendent of the 26th of July Movement that orchestrated the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s. Cuba continues to be governed by the same faction and ideology that governed the island for four decades of the USSR's existence.
