The Left, Fidel and Moral Equivalence

The Left, Fidel and Moral Equivalence

Chuck Morse
Thursday, April 24, 2003

Cuban dissidents are once again being arrested, tried, sentenced and thrown in prison for criticizing Fidel’s socialist paradise. In addition, on April 11, Fidel’s firing squads riddled three young Afro-Cubans with bullets for trying to escape to freedom in a rickety boat.

This has, of course, been standard practice in Cuba since 1959, when American leftists such as Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs William Weiland, New York Times Latin American correspondent Herbert Matthews and other elitist “liberals” helped to create and install Fidel.

Apparently the same cadre of hard-left rock-ribbed American cult followers are still serving as shock troops for Fidel. An April 15 article by fellow traveler Morgan State University radical professor Cliff DuRand entitled “Cuba Cracks Down on Dissidents” attempts to distract attention from the present Cuban troubles by drawing a moral equivalence between the actions of Fidel and those occurring in the free world.

This classic leftist tactic only works if the moral equation behind a stated action is removed, something that is not difficult for leftists, who are not constrained by conventional norms of morality.

DuRand explains Fidel’s latest actions as justified because the Cuban dissidents “conspired with the head of the U.S. Interest Section in Havana to subvert the Cuban state.” Putting aside the veracity of this charge, DuRand’s source is Fidel’s own foreign minister, Felipe Perez Roque, not exactly a disinterested party.

It’s ironic when leftists complain about subversion and conspiracy against the state. Back when the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration was honeycombed with communist subversives who were conspiring with the Kremlin to subvert this American republic, the DuRands of the day took quite a different view.

Of course, those subversives were “progressives” while today’s Cuban subversives are, well, just plain old subversives.

Roque is quoted in the article as claiming that the U.S. Interests Section in Havana had been “supplying them [the dissidents] with equipment and funds as part of the $8 million allocated this year to support the development of civil society in Cuba."

Is there a moral equivalence between America supporting Cubans in their attempt to develop a civil society, assuming this charge is true, and past Soviet communist support for American traitors conspiring to replace civil society with communism?

Using this rationale, one would have to condemn American support for Count Claus von Stauffenburg’s conspiracy to subvert the Nazi state when he attempted to kill Hitler.

In his article, DuRand complains about American interference in the affairs of other countries, especially Cuba. While there are admittedly many bad examples of American interference in other countries, nevertheless, when it comes to fighting communism, American interference is admirable for the same reason that American interference in the affairs of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan was admirable.

DuRand and his ilk hate the fact that America champions freedom by helping small and often defenseless nations fend off brutal and imperialistic steel-tipped jackbooted communist conspiracies.

I’m proud when America assists in regime changes if the result is the removal of oppressors such as Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Gorbachev or Allende. I hope Fidel is next, for the sake of the Cuban people. America is at its best when it throws its considerable moral force into the service of freedom.

DuRand complains that America has “for over 40 years and through 10 administrations” attempted a regime change in Cuba. Actually, if this is true, we’ve done a pretty lousy job up until now.

DuRand indulges in classic leftist agitprop by isolating this most recent example of Cuban repression, as if it occurred in a vacuum, and then proceeding to turn the tables with a frankly bizarre accusation that the U.S. is actually responsible for the brutality because of an alleged increase in “U.S. imperialism that is tending toward fascism.”

It’s always rich when authoritarians and internationalist leftists point an accusatory finger at others with an accusation like this. True believers, it’s understood, will avert their eyes, especially when the accused is America, the great Satan of the left.

DuRand is upset that the U.S. might be trying to “promote political division within Cuba.” Never mind that political division is the stock and trade of the left in its agenda of subverting the free world. He calls Cuba, a police state that hasn’t had a free election in over 40 years, “a participatory political culture” without a shred of evidence.

In order to create freedom in Cuba, DuRand does not advocate for the removal of his friend Fidel and his brutal gang of thugs. Instead he predictably calls for “struggle to curb that enemy, the current reactionary cabal in Washington.”

In other words, DuRand wants “regime change here at home,” not in Havana.