Why is Cuba on the the list of "state sponsors of terrorism"?

 

The US government maintains a list of countries that it accuses of sponsoring terrorism. Cuba, a small island country (population around 11 million) which has no weapons industry, no navy or air force to speak of, and NO nuclear weapons, is on that list. 

Cuba is on that list even though it does not have military bases abroad. Even though it hasn’t invaded another country recently (actually, now that I think about it, it hasn’t ever invaded another country). It does send some of its citizens abroad, but they are doctors and other medical professionals, who are assisting mostly poor nations in dealing with health crises. The “weapons” they carry don’t wipe out wedding parties, but disease. 

It has a large University dedicated to training family doctors from countries around the world. And it has sent teachers to other poor countries, bringing weapons like books and knowledge, both of which are considered subversive by many in the US.

But still, according to the last two presidential administrations, Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism. What is it about the revolutionary government of Cuba that spreads terror in the highest circles of the US government and the wealthy power that dominates our politics? 

Is it the example of a country that has resisted every attempt of the US to reassert control for over 60 years? Is it the example of how under socialism, a government can focus resources (resources that are extremely limited because of a 500 history of exploitation by other countries and by a 60+ year embargo by the US) and respond to crisis after crisis and still continue its work towards that better world that the generation of revolutionaries fought and died for. 

But enough about Cuba. What about the country that accuses Cuba if being a state sponsor of terrorism. A country that has sponsored an invasion of Cuba; that has planned and attempted hundreds of assassinations against Cuba’s revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro; a country that supported direct terrorist attacks against both Cuban and US citizens who support the revolution including the downing of passenger planes and sabotaging vessels in Cuban ports. 

A country that invades other countries based on made up “evidence” of weapons of mass destruction, a country that has military bases in some 80 different countries and claims the “right” to intervene anywhere in the world to protect its interests ($$$), which it calls “a rules-based international order.”

Cuba has a museum that I visited called the Museum of the Denouncement. In two floors and a dozen or more exhibits it documents the terrorist attacks against Cuba, planned, executed and supported by the United States government during the last 63 years. The United States does not have a similar museum for the support of terrorism by Cuba, because its halls would be empty, its exhibits nonexistent.

We, who live in the belly of the beast, need to demand that the US remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Maybe in its place on the list, we could put the name of the real supporter of terrorism and build a Museum of Denouncement of our own. I have the ideal building for such a museum, which would have to be very, very large. It’s a five-sided building just across the Potomac from the nation’s capital. It probably already houses most of the documents we would need.