American Imperialism and Hegemony. A Vision from Cuba
American Imperialism and Hegemony. A Vision from Cuba Manuel Menéndez Díaz Editor-in-chief of Cuba Socialista Magazine
CUBA SOCIALISTA.Theoretical and Political Magazine. Edited by: Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba
The raw reality of the current world that plays us to live to the Cubans in these first years of the XXI century, induces us to the necessity of making some reflections we characterize to the American imperialism and its strategy toward Cuba about how. I don't seek to go into in analyzing if the current imperialism is it some they call "imperialism neomercantil” (James Petras), other "neoimperialismo” (Perry Anderson) and other denominations that today has by hand. I want if, in the first place, to leave sat down some budgets that we find absolutely necessary, for not getting lost in the strategic focuses. The descalabros of the system has left a point behind the sofisma of the globalization like new stage of the human society, where for spill, the development would extend toward the periphery of the system. Ibelieve that the countless national and regional crises, as well as the harrowing reality in that the humanity's immense majority subsists, they have been enough for if alone to silence those songs of sirens. We really attend today, I already eat previously we have pointed, before a stadium of the capitalism that is characterized by the capitalism monopolist's transnacionalización, where the financial capital and the financial speculation have passed to the domain on the essential links of the rotation of the global capital and the transnational corporations are the agents that impel the process. Let us don't forget that the capitalist world system was possible many years ago for that international vocation of the capital, that is to say the historical continuity of the tendency of that system that is erected on the economic premises and accumulated politicians. For all this we should leave that the capital has reached a transnational level of concentration whose main fellow is the transnational monopoly that is revealed in a new oligarchy and that the process of universalización of the relationships of all character, lapses under the exploitation of the salaried work and the marginación of the world population's wide fringes, amid growing economic and political confrontations among social sectors, nations and regions and among the different sectors of the bourgeoisie, as well as to the interior of them. She/he takes place an association of the transnational monopolies and the imperialistic State that it transforms it into the axis of the transnational concentration of the production, the property and the political power that it is at the present time the most distinctive feature in the capitalist society. (To the above-mentioned I want to add that asseveration of Lenin, of more than 90 years ago that locates us in the fair place of the correlato that takes place today in the endogenous processes of the system: "The capitalists are not distributed the taken world of a particular perversity, but because the concentration degree to that it has been arrived forces them to follow this road to obtain benefits; and they distribute it to him "according to the capital”, "according to the force”; another allotment procedure is impossible in the system of the mercantile production and of the capitalism.” I repeat now (MMD): "according to the capital” "according to the force.” Certainly the imperialism has not become its contrary one, neither it has been diluted in an international system or in the call globalization. Evidently she/he has modified, but it continues being imperialistic, the experienced mutations have not given place to the construction of an international economy that is not based on the imperialism. This can not take us to discern that there is all a "new” global logic of the different empire -their fundamental actors, their institutions, norms, rules and procedures - of the one that existed in the presumably deceased phase of the imperialism. As we already point there are features, characteristic new and it is undeniable that una fundamental continuity exists in the system. To the margin of certain novel appearances, the strategic factors of both periods are the same ones: the big transnational monopolies with national base, as well as the governments of the metropolises. The rules of the international system are those that dictate mainly from United States and the neoliberalismo. The institutions arisen with Bretton Woods continue occupying the same place in the strategy of the financial flows and the tax politicians. The system reproduces and it looks for to be perpetuated. The operation logic is the same one: to be based on the relationships of exploitation and oppression. It conserves their identity and structure, and it maintains their historical function of the world accumulation of the capital. Next to the desmitificación of the theses of a new idyllic world "global”, the reality is also very clear to ruin that idea of Empire without Imperialism that Toni Negri and Michael Hardt sold us in its work " Empire ". The authors wanted to make us see that the imperialism is something of the past. They argued that the " Empire " is a characterized search-imperialistic phenomenon because being possible disperses and no isolated nation can control the " Empire ". To finish off the sale of that "novelty” they arrive until making want to see that for just the opposite, that new stadium is part of the progress of the society, affirming that: The thing that we call the Empire is in fact an enormous historical improvement regarding the system and to the international imperialism." She/he stops later to make see that the Empire is imperial but not imperialistic. Here it is not lazy to locate the idea of the validity of the Leninist theses about the imperialism without denying that there are new conditions in the whole imperialistic spectrum, I eat we have already pointed. Now they appear with more force the concentration of the capital, the prevalence of the monopolies, the increment of the paper of the financial capital, the export of capitals and the allotment of the world in different "influence spheres.” Classic features analyzed by Lenin in their archiconocida work, although now relegated by some: "The imperialism superior phase of the capitalism.” The acceleration of the globalization process that has taken place in the last dozens of last century, far from dissolving the imperialistic structures of the world economy, what has made is extraordinarily potenciarlas. At the same time that a reduced group of developed capitalist countries secured its capacity to control, at least partially, the productive processes to world scale, the financiarización of the international economy and the growing circulation of goods and services, the enormous majority of the countries saw to deepen its external dependence and to enlarge, until unsuspected levels, the abyss between them and the metropolises. The neoliberal globalization in definitive has consolidated the imperialistic dominance and it secured the submission of the countries of the outlying capitalism, unable to impact decisively in the economic processes to the interior of its economies. In this context the economic power of the United States is overwhelming when its companies dominate the main world banks, the computer science first companies, software and the telecommunications, of the petroleum, the pharmacists, until of the trade retailer, for not speaking of its control in the world of the finances. And if to all this we added the military might for the control of the most sophisticated weapons and their chain of some 120 military bases deployed by all the continents, they are obvious the political implications of it. Now then, every day we read the countless problems that she/he has that "more powerful economy”, due to the serious difficulties, among other, with their growing internal budgetary deficit that ascends to about 370,000 million dollars, the enormous commercial desbalance that rubs the figure of 500,000 million dollars -here can not forget that the participation of the external trade in the conformation of the Internal Product Bruto of that country, spent in the last 30 years from 10 percent to 25 percent of that GDP -, the upward military budget to maintain the signal might, with the other face of the currency of constants cuttings of the social expenses, to what the continuous increment should be added from the subsidies to the domestic production and one increased practical protective. This without forgetting the topic of the unemployment the one that far from being solved, she/he becomes worse more. These and other many factors pay to the structural contradiction of the system between capital and work in the new dimensions that, ultimately –en the sense Engelsiano -, it is what causes that they are trapped in the search of the real solutions of the system. A sample of those current processes, is the raw reality of our region which continues being swindled and in the first years of this new century it takes paying, about 150,000 million dollars every year, like average for its foreign debt. There are studies that point that in the last decade the region surrendered more than 1 million millions of dollars for the services of that debt, the flight of capitals and the unequal exchange. In the past half a decade, every year 4 million Latin Americans augmented the "the poor's club”, to arrive to the figure of about 230 millions of integral, being located to the head about 90 million indigent. I take advantage here to aim that those realities are in the same bottom of the imperialistic strategy of the program of the RAZORBILL.: to appropriate of the Latin American markets, to monopolize them, expansionarse and to transform the neoliberalismo into juridical commitments of the states, like part of the great strategy of control hegemónico of the United States in our region. intimately linked with it is it the Plan Colombia, with their importance geoeconómica and politics, at the same time that also in the recovery, modernization and opening of military bases as the base of Military Engineering of Three Corners (Colombia), the Naval of Iquitos (Peru), the Air-naval base of Blanket and Tortoises (Ecuador), the base of the Paradise and Island of Easter (Chile) and the base of Marañón in Brazil. At the same time the not less strategic Plan Puebla Panamá whose essential objective is to endow to the transnational capital of the best conditions to exploit an abundant, cheap and needy manpower of employment estimated in about 20 million workers including the Central American, what drives together to other efforts of political control to that this whole scaffolding is he functional to the interests of United States of the imperialistic control on the current society. The American economy requires of a constant flow of capitals from the exterior that allows him to maintain the pointed déficits. It is trapped, because in the measure that grows she/he enters in deeper crisis. That contradiction is not of easy solution and less when the groups of political power at the present time, they are committed in the formation of an imperial nation for what the chosen road is more and more subsidies, more protectionism toward the interior, accompanied by the gain of new spaces of power in all the regions of the world. The exit to those internal contradictions of the system is looked for in the domain strategy Imperial, that is to say that this reality "it forces” to the American address to open up roads establishing a hegemony strategy, where the might reached in all you order them, it is the guarantee of its execution. The doctrine that Bush exposed in the "New Strategy of National Security”, approved in September of the 2002 an only sustainable model it promotes for the success by means of limitless wars, where the principle of the deterrence disappears and it is replaced by that of preventive attack, to face from an expedite and quick way to those governments that this Administration has defined as its enemies or at least, according to them, they offer coat to the terrorists. It is not lazy here to remember those words of Bush in West Point, in June of 2002 when it pointed: "If we hope the threats are materialized, we will have waited too much”... "We should take the battle to the enemy to transform their plans and to confront the threats before they arise.” This politics's threats, reach to the whole world that it is exactly the objective of the new imperial strategy of the North American Imperialism, that is to say, the global domain. To reach those objectives they take like pretext the actions of destruction of the terrorism of global reach and the definition of those states that themselves determines that they support them or simply that they don't satisfy their ideological requirements. What is even more preocupante and you grieve disclosed, it was that in that same one 2002 in September, the American President gives to Not know her Directive one. 4 or what is the same thing, the public version of the "National Strategy to Combat the Weapons of Massive Destruction”, where sharply the decision of the employment of nuclear weapons is picked up as part from all the options to its reach, something novel in the American official and public documentation. Equally in February of last year they proclaimed the "National Strategy to Combat the Terrorism” where they reaffirm their politics of preventive war and the idea of a war of long duration. Here they are well delineated the listings that regularly elaborates the Department of State of what they call "terrorist states.” The conception of military intervention, as long as preventive war, and in the first place, of course against those included in the call "axis of the mal”y the rest of countries announced until the number of 60, that they have proclaimed as white potentials of its strategy, is the foundation for the use of the military force of the state hegemónico, prefixing this exit like solution road to the crises and conflicts, and leaving to a side the diplomacy and the understandings. Of another part, the search of arguments that you/they facilitate the pretexts for that preventive war, is consustancial to the new doctrine. The recent war against Iraq was a classic example of being had built the reason, without discovering the evidences, for what was impossible to give to know the tests of the accusations, but that it was not obstacle to throw its attack of great reach, without previous declaration of war and to be involved in the armed classic conflicts of old court, was already before the stage of the call cold war, or in the contention politics's time. In the 45 years of existence of the Cuban Revolution, the American administrations have maintained a permanent attitude of trying to liquidate this process and to dominate the country. For already not speaking of the acquaintance historical conflict —desde the XIX century—of that imperialism against our town and their ambition of restraining. She/he would be necessary to say, for historical justice that the strategy deployed today for Washington for everybody is the one that, from 1959, essentially they come applying against Cuba. The justifications have been using one after other since the call Programs Cuba it became political in that year. The graveness of the topic is on one hand in that are before a more and more headstrong world as a result of the neoliberal politics applied during decades and of another part that in the groups of power in United States, with its strategy of world dominance, the fundamentalist, more retrograde sectors are, allied in turn of the reactionary ultra groups of Cuban origin in Miami, with several direct epresentatives in key positions of the current Administration. These factors converge to create a moment of specially dangerous threat for our country, because in the Cuban case they should never forget the historical pretenses and also the factor of being the only régime that applies socialist politicians in Latin America, strategic considered region for the North American Capital and on the one that seeks to consolidate and to deepen their control. In every year the essential documents of the United States, they have expressed clearly that they come in our country a threat to their national security. The reasons? they have varied according to the moment and the circumstances. I classify the pretexts fenced by them in two groups: the incidental ones and the certain ones for the character of our socialist system. In the first group historically can be: the support of Cuba to the revolutionary movement in Latin America, decade of the years 1960, the Cuban presence in África and the supposed linking with the traffic of drugs and satellite of the Soviet Union, leaves of the years 70 and 80, dangers for migratory massive exodus and I am in danger to the American national security, beginnings of the 90 and the present time, the possible production of biological weapons and our supposed character of terrorist state next to the linking and support to the terrorist movements, final of last decade and the first years of the current decade. And more recently the supposed Cuban actions to destabilize the region. Alone I have aimed some of the most significant, those that also some and other they are superimposed, for what we have scored in each moment the most significant that which doesn't mean that it has been the only one. Now then, among those that are given by the character of our system and the political conception, they have always maintained like a constant two topics: the absence in democracy Cuba and the one doesn't respect to the human rights. To explain each one would make very extensive this work and I don't believe that it is necessary, because they have been recurrent matters in the international debates. As all we know, today the topic but aided it is the character of terrorist state that we are applied by the reports that annually makes the Department of State, besides being part of those that they call the countries of the axis of the wrong that are the openly defined ones as possible targets of attacks, before the most minimum problem. Let us don't forget that there is not another country, in that group that Cuba, toward which the American domestic politics has so much incidence. They are strong their commitments with the reactionary anticubanos of Miami. On the other hand, neither for a moment she/he should forget that the fourth Document of Santa Faith picks up that the main enemies from the United States in Latin America are Cuba, Venezuela and the Colombian guerrilla. If we pass a brief one thumbed through to the facts and more excellent declarations in this last stage, we can observe that she/he makes alone some months, in passed April, the President's brother, Jeb Bush, declared: "After the success of the war in Iraq, States should return the look to the neighborhood and to use its power to press to the international community, in the sense that the Cuban régime can not continue.” Later months in October of last year, Bush creó a Commission, presided over by Colin Powell, to demolish the Cuban Revolution and to impose a menial régime to Washington. That commission hardly 3 months ago, in December, it made their first meeting and next May 1 will give a report about how to achieve the end of the Cuban régime, that is to say the liquidation of the Revolution is politic al of very defined State at the present time: I marry only in this world joint. Countless they are the declarations of the main personeros of the current American Administration, of how to guide their efforts to liquidate the Revolution in Cuba, with the employment of the pretexts linked to the democracy absence and I don't respect of the human rights. For an aggression they would be to appear coyunturalmente new pretexts of those that we have given in calling incidental that allowed them to accelerate the unfolding of actions based on their doctrine of "preventive war.” Some in this convulso world consider that we are lifting a ghost, these they are those but honest because the enemies speak that our argument on the topic of the aggression, is to distract the Cubans and their friends of the daily problems of the country. The experience of the process demonstrates that if in so many years they have not achieved its purposes, it has been alone because we have not fallen asleep and the preparation to face that possibility, together to the extraordinary continental and world solidarity, it has occupied the important deterrence paper. For that reason in the face of the real danger we get ready to avoid an adventure that although convinced that we would be able to defeat it, it would be at a high cost. With the result that our objective is to discourage them of such a stupidity. That is the challenge so that I/we are not imposed the language of the war. To the alone world revolutionary movement we alert him that you this attentive one because the reality of a possible aggression to Cuba this to the agenda of these gentlemen and their acolytes that are considered almighty. To the situation peculiar of the conflict with our country and die the systemic character of the world capitalism, neither for an instant we can forget that makes it more aggressive to that hegemony the exceptional graveness for which is crossed in the world and to the one that them anything can palliate, making that the social explosions are increased. We refer to that what you/they mean the 815 millions of hungry, the 1 200 million people that live in the extreme poverty, the 115 million children without access to the education, the 2 400 million people without basic reparation and the 854 million adults that don't know how to read neither to write, that which is a result that we are before a more and more regressive capitalism and reactionary in the social thing, the economic thing, the political thing and the cultural thing. The American imperialism with all its current might is not still the world omnipotent power, neither it is the omnipresent imperialism. If we observe what lapses in Iraq, we will see that the régime imposed by the aggressors, she/he is meeting with the massive popular resistance with multiple armed crashes every day and dozens of North American soldiers and of other countries, besides civil collaborators, wounded and died every week. The resistance is also increasing in Afghanistan. In Latin America, the diverse intents have been defeated of liquidating the process bolivariano in Venezuela, including two blows orchestrated by the American administration. She/he has not been possible to destroy the guerilla movement in Colombia and in Bolivia, big movement of masses was able to make jump the régime of Sánchez of Losada, between other many advances of the sectors and popular movements. This to see up to where the strategy of the new yank administration that acts practically as the superpower hegemónica, can impose us its designs. A precise definition on the structure and the operation of the current imperialistic system is what will allow us to the parties, social movements and organizations of all type that we fight for its overthrow, to face the new fight days with real possibility of success.
