America, go gently into Cuba's pockets

US President Barack Obama announced his plan to normalise relations with Cuba on Wednesday, ending a longstanding trade embargo and travel restrictions between the two countries. The announcement came in the wake of a high-level prisoner exchange between the US and Cuba, who have been at odds ever since Fidel Castro's revolution successfully toppled the pro-American Batista regime in 1959.

Since an act of Congress would be required to overturn the embargo, the debate has been raging in the proceeding days as to whether normalised relations are good for America, as if in a strange plot twist, politicians had taken a timeout from their pro-Wall Street policy positions to indulge in Cold War era nostalgia.

For all the DC opposition in establishing normalised relations with Cuba, one might think that American politicians have forgotten their duties in upholding an exploitative capitalist system, the same one firmly established in Cuba prior to the 1959 revolution when American business interests owned 25 per cent of the land. It's almost comical listening to Democrats and Republicans talking like Cold War warriors of the previous generation, as if the 50-plus year trade embargo they inherited on their watch was some dogmatic passage from the political bible left in the drawer of a Motel 6 bedside table. They miss the bittersweet irony.

Cuba represents the lone hold-out in the Western Hemisphere for American "democratisation" marked by decades of uninterrupted invasions and occupations, assassinations and coups, lopsided trade agreements and corporate manipulation of governments and peoples. Castro's revolution didn't lead to prosperity and essential freedoms, and hence all the confusion and distortions offered by pundits on both sides of the debate to whether normalised relations with Cuba would be a good thing for both nations. Many lack historical perspective on solutions for a free Cuban people in cooperation with an American government proven to lack credibility on the subject. One only has to look to Cuba's neighbours in the Caribbean and Latin America for numerous instances of sincere American backstabbing and profiteering.

In Mexico to the southwest, the FTAA expansion of the NAFTA trade agreement has exploited and harmed Mexican workers in unprecedented ways. Not only have these agreements led to the loss of more than 765,000 American jobs, poverty rates increased in Mexico along with a decrease of more than 20 per cent in manufacturing wages. The much hailed maquiladora industry in northern Mexico, part of the recent EU "free trade zone" along the US-Mexican border, has produced enormous profits in excess of US $12 billion annually from its 1,600 plants. These glorified slave-labour camps have been condemned by human rights organisations for horrendous working and living conditions for years. Like in any good PR campaign, corporate profits are considered the benchmark of success.

Suffering and indignation of millions of people are neatly tucked away into the annuals of conspiracy, while civil resistance and uprisings are put down by force. Besides making for lovely holiday destinations, Cuba's island nation neighbours offer insights into what American interests might have in store for an open Cuba apart from reinvigorating the tourist industry after installing a pro-American government. The Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and the Bahamas have become offshore tax havens for banks and corporations depriving their home countries, primarily the United States, of much-needed tax revenue for upkeep of infrastructure and basic necessities for the very people these companies employ.

In one study, Bermuda and the Bahamas accounted for more than 64 per cent of Fortune 500 companies opening subsidiaries there with collective holdings of $1.95 trillion, tax-free. Talk about pirates of the American Caribbean!

With the United States boasting the largest embassy in the world centred in Baghdad, it stands to reason that an American embassy in Havana shouldn't be an issue if we're to omit double-standards. On one hand, the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 failed to overthrow Castro. On the other, two wars in Iraq resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and a pro-American government. Undoubtedly, the thirst for revenge remains, but little mention of this grotesque contradiction in DC. They're too busy advocating for ghost politics from the Cold War era.

To end the American embargo in Cuba and to prevent any further military conflicts are valid reasons for normalised relations. And our Wall Street politicians shouldn't deprive American businessmen of Cohibas at a fair price, beach-front properties, and obscene tax deductions any longer than they already have - it's un-American. And while we're at it, we can reconnect Cuban exiles with their families in Cuba, and with any luck, promote basic freedoms without all the costly and self-serving strings attached. Even aging dictators and the Communist Party of Cuba could appreciate this statement once they've safely eroded away into the 21st Century.

Establish an embassy. Do it peacefully. But leave the Cuban people alone to allow them to determine their own destinies. This is the business of a legitimate democracy.