In the years following World War II the United States had many economic ties with Cuba. Most involved human exploitation and criminal activity in some way. The Mob moved in and legalized gambling in an attempt to lure American tourists. Prostitution and illegal narcotics were also promoted on the island. The tourist industry flourished.

The Cuban people experienced incredible poverty, however, because President Fulgencio Batista invested most of his nation’s money into the pockets of his questionable American business associates. Protests and street riots were commonplace. Batista held onto power through the aid of a brutal private militia funded by US tax dollars.

Fidel Castro realized that his country was being destroyed by an evil dictator and that the time was right for revolution. He assembled a rag-tag army which against all odds overthrew the Batista regime in 1959. The fight was fierce, but Castro was ultimately victorious with the help of revolutionary icons such as Che Guevera – an Argentinian-born physician and avowed Marxist.

Batista escaped Cuba with the help of US Intelligence agents and fled to Portugal; later to Spain – both fascist regimes.

Fidel Castro approached the U.S. after the revolution, asking that Cuba become a part of the United States like Guam and Puerto Rico are today, a ‘US Protectorate.’ Cuba was not a communist country at the time. Castro’s request was denied consideration because many American business interests were urging the US Government to seize Cuba so that they could regain their assets.

Castro’s next appeal was to the Soviet Socialist Republic, the U.S.S.R. Castro knew that he needed re-establish his country and care for his people and Chairman Khrushchev was more than happy to help – under certain conditions, of course…

One thing is certain: none of us would be here today if Richard Nixon had been elected President in 1960 instead of JFK. The Earth would be an uninhabitable nuclear wasteland right now floating lifeless in the emptiness of space. Nixon would surely have listened to unhinged cretins in the Joint Chiefs like General Curtis Le May and unleashed the full might of the US military during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 after the ‘failure’ at the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba two years prior. This would have triggered World War 3 and it would have meant the end of our so-called civilization.

Even after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the CIA still planned to invade and subdue the Cuban people by force – as punishment for choosing their own form of government. Under Le May’s arguably even more deluded successor Lyman Lemnitzer, the Pentagon doubled-down on the nuclear brinksmanship before and after the missile crisis brought civilization ever closer to extinction.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plan had the express approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It called for innocent civilians to be shot on American streets; for boatloads of ‘refugees’ to be sunk and  for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Miami and elsewhere – even the nation’s capital Washington, DC.

Commercial airliners would be hijacked; busy ports would be bombed. Using manufactured evidence it would all be blamed on Castro, giving Lemnitzer and his evil cabal the public support they needed to launch their insane war.

Operation Northwoods called for a domestic terror campaign in which many Americans and innocent Cubans would die senseless deaths. The Joint Chiefs recommended “Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots…the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government…”

The documents prove that deceiving the public and creating wars for Americans to fight and die in was the standard operating procedure approved at the highest levels of the Pentagon. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, which led to the massive build-up of US troops in Vietnam, is right out of the Operation Northwoods playbook.

Quoting the official document, “We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba…casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of indignation…”

It goes on: “We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” they wrote. “The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States…

After more than fifty years of unilateral sanctions and political hostility the US position has only served to isolate America internationally while Cuba has strengthened its own relations around the world and has gained international recognition for its humanitarian assistance in places such as Haiti and West Africa.