More Agents Tracked Castro Than Bin Laden

Horhey · Sep 12, 2012

The threat of terror just isnt a high priority for Washington:

The Associated Press: More Agents Track Castro Than Bin Laden

by John Solomon

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department agency entrusted with blocking the financial resources of terrorists has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden's and Saddam Hussein's money, documents show.

In addition, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said that between 1990 and 2003 it opened just 93 enforcement investigations related to terrorism. Since 1994 it has collected just $9,425 in fines for terrorism financing violations.

In contrast, OFAC opened 10,683 enforcement investigations since 1990 for possible violations of the long-standing economic embargo against Fidel Castro's regime, and collected more than $8 million in fines since 1994, mostly from people who sent money to, did business with or traveled to Cuba without permission.
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Why is strangling Cuba a far more higher priority than racking the finances of Al Qaeda? The basic reasons were explained in the internal documents when the Kennedy administration sought to bring:

Robert Kennedy and His Times

By Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

the terrors of the earth to Cuba.
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US planners and the CIA warned that:

Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976

By Piero Gleijeses

"The primary danger we face in Castro is the very existence of his regime has upon the leftist movement in many Latin American countries. The simple fact is that Castro represents a successful defiance of the US."
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Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume XII, American Republics, Document 7

Memorandum From the President's Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to President Kennedy

The hemisphere level of expectation continues to rise—stimulated both by the increase in conspicuous consumption and by the spread of the Castro idea of taking matters into one's own hand.
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Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America

By Walter LaFeber

"Cuba's experiment with almost total state socialism is being watched closely by other nations in the hemisphere," the Agency [C.I.A.] told the White House in April 1964, "and any appearance of success there could have an extensive impact on the statist trend elsewhere in the area."
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Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume XII, American Republics, Document 15

UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD LATIN AMERICA

Latin America today is in a state of deep unrest. Most of its countries are economically underdeveloped and socially backward. The distribution of land and other forms of national wealth greatly favors the propertied classes. The masses suffer from poor housing, malnutrition and illiteracy. In many countries large rural groups, which include most of the Indian peoples, are not integrated into the economic and social life of the nation. The poor and underprivileged, stimulated by the example of the Cuban revolution, are now demanding opportunities for a decent living.
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It had nothing to do with the Russians:

The United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An Empire of Liberty in an Age of National Liberation

By Jules R. Benjamin

Though State Department liberals were later pilloried by U.S. conservatives as pro-Castro dupes who had allowed a totalitarian regime to be constructed on the island, as early as October 1959 -- before there was any Soviet presence in Cuba and while opposition media still existed -- these liberals shifted policy to one of overthrowing Castro's regime. . . . "Not only have our business interests in Cuba been seriously affected," the [secret policy paper formulating the change] went on, "but the United States cannot hope to encourage and support sound economic policies in other Latin American countries and promote necessary private investments in Latin America if it is or appears to be simultaneously cooperating with the Castro program. . . ."
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See also:

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960 Volume VI, Cuba, Document 387

387. Memorandum From the Secretary of State to the President

SUBJECT
Current Basic United States Policy Toward Cuba

Not only have our business interests in Cuba been seriously affected but the United States cannot hope to encourage and support sound economic policies in other Latin American countries and promote necessary private investments in Latin America if it is or appears to be simultaneously cooperating with the Castro program.
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Notice, Castro didnt ally with the Soviet Union untill after the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Phoebe Bump · Sep 12, 2012

There isn't one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians.

--Dwayne Andreas, chairman of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM)
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I'm happy to see that quote. I've been saying the same thing for years.

Horhey · Sep 12, 2012

Phoebe Bump said: ↑

I'm happy to see that quote. I've been saying the same thing for years.
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State subsidized capitalism is what it is.

zimo · Sep 13, 2012

It was a simpler time.

Phoebe Bump · Sep 13, 2012

Horhey said: ↑

State subsidized capitalism is what it is.
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It's kinda always been that way. For certain, our kind of capitalism has nothing whatsover to do with market economics. Market economics doesn't enslave.

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More Agents Tracked Castro Than Bin Laden

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