February 17, 2005
'U.S. Needs to Learn to
Live in a Diverse World'
Interview with Ricardo Alarcón (Part 2)
By SAUL LANDAU
(This is the second of a three part
interview conducted with Cuba’s president of the National Assembly Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada.)
Landau: How do you compare Bush’s discourse with that of
past presidents? And how do you compare them with his deeds?
Alarcon: Words are not his strongest quality. I think that
there are discrepancies in his second inaugural address. He talked about carrying the fire of freedom throughout the world. Without
sounding rude, I’d say this is, at the very least, an overstatement. He isn’t going to carry anything much
further. He’s already having difficulty in maintaining this fire in Iraq. If he wants to do that around the world
he will not succeed. Indeed, he’s not succeeding in Iraq.
Cuba is one of the places mentioned, not by him but by
[Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice the day before. I advise them not to try. It will cost a lot of lives if the Americans
would attack us, more than those dying in Iraq, because this is not a divided country or society that has been suffering under
a dictatorial regime. The opposite is true. You will find here a free society, finally emancipated from half a century
of oppression and corruption imposed by the U.S. We attainted our independence in 1959 – from U.S. domination. That
is a fact of history. From an ethnic or cultural point of view we are a unified country, an island on which a common culture
and common identity has evolved. We are prepared to make life impossible for an invader.
But more important, what is the meaning of this policy?
It is not just irrational, a product of arrogance or impulse, not just the product of a person that doesn’t read many
books. That explains only his strange selection of words.
Consider Bush’s simplistic view of the world; or
better, take the more analytical and conscious way the CIA views it. A CIA document published a couple months ago and another
in December 2000, forecasts based on research and analysis, consider scenarios of war, peace, turmoil and catastrophes. But
there is a common denominator expressed in one sentence: “U.S. influence will continue to decline.” By the
way, the CIA does not call for a change of policy, but simply states as a fact that U.S. influence is less today than 20 or
40 years ago.
The U.S. is not going to rise above the rest of the world.
It is the sole superpower in cold war terms. But the U.S. cannot exercise complete power over the rest of the world. Russia
continues to have nuclear weapons. Economically, for example, China has emerged as a power. Recently the Chinese president
toured Latin America and discussed granting Argentina a credit line of $20 billion. Forty years ago, at time of the Alliance
for Progress, Kennedy offered the entire continent $20 billion – over a ten year period. Cuba criticized this modest
offer at the time because it was too little. Remember, at that time this little island had established relations with that
big country China. The other countries in Latin America followed the U.S. line and refused to recognize the existence
of China. Now, 40 years later, that once non-recognized country’s head of state travels throughout the region and offers
much more than the U.S. could when it was at its peak. And the U.S. must accept that China plays that role in the world. The
Vice President of China was doing a similar thing in Africa.
Although the U.S. remains the biggest military power, it
has trouble controlling a rather small country like Iraq, which it almost destroyed by bombing and an economic embargo before
the war. The reality is that U.S. is only the most powerful entity in one area: information and communication.
It was the only dominant force at end of the Second World
War, the only nuclear power. Nagasaki and Hiroshima, by the way, are the only cases in which nuclear power has been used destructively.
They were not employed by a terrorist state, but by the U.S. democracy – allegedly to defeat Japan. At that time
and later, during the Marshall Plan, the U.S. was at the top. Since then it has been declining. That does not mean
it is a country in disarray, but it is going downward.
To answer this downhill slide, in my opinion, came the
neo-cons who believe that by using the United States’ comparatively limited economic and large military resources, but
especially by exploiting their advantage in terms of communication technology and near monopoly of information media, they
can reverse the trend. That is impossible. The U.S. cannot turn the world back to 1945 and reappear as the only power
in the world. The U.S. needs to learn to live in a diverse world with different players, different ideologies and interests
and not to pretend to be the owner of the planet.
Those times are gone forever. That is the way history
moves. But the new conservative trend departs form traditional conservatism and tries to reverse the world’s movement
by being interventionist, by sending troops here and there. It is an irrational approach. It’s obvious that they
will not succeed but their missionary and mythological approach could lead to mistakes even more grave than Iraq.
Landau: In 1945, the U.S. wrote the Nuremburg laws prohibiting
aggressive war and also drafted the UN and OAS charters that prohibit intervention. How do you explain U.S. behavior,
initiating those laws and then violating them?
Alarcon: The U.S. wrote all those important documents that became
the foundation of the international order when it was the most important power in the world. Now that the world has been
undergoing change those documents have become obstacles to U.S. interests. At the same time, U.S. officials try to manipulate
these documents, like the Human Rights Covenants. If you listen to U.S. officials, they are fulfilling a mission of spreading
human rights throughout the world. The ideas of freedom and democracy are in the UN charter, but together with the principle
of nonintervention, prohibition of war. The only thing the UN Charter recognizes as a legitimate reason for war is self defense,
a nation subjected to external aggression. Even in those circumstances, you have to ask the UN to intervene. Nobody else can
intervene. It’s a peaceful ideal. The Charter lacks some important points. It doesn’t mention colonialism, nor
recognize the right of colonial people to self-determination and independence. But the UN was transformed because after
WW II, no one could stop the emancipation of those countries. People became independent and then UN members. It was one of
the factors that helped transform the world. How to explain how the U.S. changed its mind after essentially drafting
these documents?
Those exercising power were not happy with what happened.
The reality problem is a serious one. Psychiatrists help those who have trouble dealing with reality. If you do not acknowledge
reality you may be suffering from a serious disturbance. I sometimes feel that some American politicians need professional
help to remember that they conceived the UN and its structure. Some American politicians now refer to the UN as something
to ignore or despise. Do they forget that it was a U.S. creation? To weaken or break this organization, which is what
Bush did, was a terrible thing. The UN does not exist any more because of what happened in Iraq. This is a very serious problem.
It is not true that it will reconstruct itself on new bases.
I don’t want to sound rude, but that is exactly what
Hitler did. He was angry with the League of Nations, with reality, after WWI. During the period between the two world
wars, Germany became the European superpower, economically, technologically, militarily.
When Hitler set the goal of conquering Europe in the mid
1930s, his dream matched the reality of Europe more than who Bush seeks to conquer the entire world with the current level
of U.S. power. Hitler’s irrational dream was more rational than the discourse you hear now from American leaders. Hitler
made a very big mistake, trying to conquer the USSR. Stalin committed many crimes. He was a dictator, but the Soviet people
stopped Hitler. It was the same mistake that Napoleon made, to try to conquer the East. If he had remained the master
of western and central Europe maybe he would have continued to hold power. But he overextended himself.
But fascism was rejected by most people. And resistance
to Nazism arose in many places. Our Yugoslav brothers and sisters offered heroic resistance in that period. The Nazis
never conquered that country. Later on it was made to explode, not by the Nazis, but by western democracies.
Landau: You use history as a guide.
Alarcon: History is important. Those who believe they can turn
history back should remember the origin of previous wars. The Germans didn’t accept Versailles and that was the origin
of Fascism.
