Fidel Castro And The Cuban Role In Defeating Apartheid

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Until the fall of the Portuguese dictatorship in 1974, apartheid in South Africa was secure. There was no substantial resistance anywhere in southern Africa. Pretoria’s neighbors comprised a buffer zone that protected the racist regime: Namibia, their immediate neighbor which they had occupied for 60 years; white-ruled Rhodesia; and the Portuguese-ruled colonies of Angola and Mozambique. The rebels who fought against minority rule in each of these countries, operating without any safe haven to organize and train, were powerless to challenge the status quo.

South Africa’s buffer would have remained intact for the foreseeable future, solidifying apartheid and preventing any significant opposition, but for one man: Fidel Castro.

In October of 1975, South Africa invaded Angola at the behest of the U.S. government to overthrow the left-wing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the soon-to-be independent country. Without Cuban assistance, the apartheid army would have easily cruised into Luanda, crushed the MPLA, and installed a puppet government friendly to the apartheid regime. Cuba’s intervention in Angola managed to change the course of that country and reverberate throughout Africa. By ensuring independence from the white supremacists, Angola was able to preserve its own revolution and maintain its role as a base for armed resistance groups fighting for liberation in nearby countries.

What’s The Real Threat To Washington Of A Nuclear Iran?

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There is much discussion in Western political discourse of the “threat” of Iran, spoken of as though it is a self-evident truth, an assumption that underlies the entire spectrum of debate. To question such an obvious truism is something that disciplined intellectuals understand is not proper of them to do. Most likely the thought doesn’t even cross their minds, thanks to dignified university education and the values instilled from it; there are some things not suitable for a respectable intellectual to discuss, after all. Former US Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters went so far as to say that “Iran is building a new Persian Empire.”

Furthermore, in order to slow down Iran’s progress towards a bomb, Netanyahu has threatened to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Threats which are credible, according to officials from the Obama administration. Obama, over the years, has used such threats by telling other world leaders that toughening sanctions on Iran is the only way to forestall an Israeli attack. Obama himself has argued that a nuclear Iran poses a “profound” national security threat to the US.

Given this ubiquitous rhetoric, there is an obvious question that arises, one which is seldom asked: what exactly is this “threat” that a nuclear Iran poses? What exactly is such a grave and existential threat that Western leaders would risk escalation and military confrontation by threatening the Iranian republic with an attack? Fortunately, we have an authoritative answer to this.

The U.S. Seeks The Proliferation Of Nuclear Weapons In The Middle East

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When Condoleeza Rice argued for a U.S. invasion of Iraq by claiming that “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” she touched on a real threat of nuclear war that could wipe out entire countries and destroy civilization as we know it.

Rice and the rest of the Bush administration knew that Iraq didn’t have nuclear weapons and never presented such a threat. They also knew that there was one country in the Middle East who did: a nuclear-armed rogue nation who has proven throughout its history to be possibly the most lawless and bellicose country of modern times.

That country, of course, is Israel.

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