Bryan (he/him) 🇺🇸 🏳️🌈History lesson for y'all (MAGA) cheering on an overthrow of the Cuban government. The "independence" we promised was always wrapped in our own interests.
1854: The Ostend Manifesto. A secret document suggesting that if Spain wouldn't sell Cuba, the US should take it by force. Why? Southern expansionists wanted to turn Cuba into a new slave state.
1868–1878: The Ten Years War. Cubans fought for independence from Spain. The US refused to recognize them, preferring "stability" and trade over Cuban freedom.
1896–1897: The Reconcentración Horror. Spanish General Valeriano "The Butcher" Weyler forced the rural population into concentration camps. ~400,000 Cubans died of starvation and disease. The US used this tragedy as the moral "in" for the Spanish-American War.
April 1898: The Teller Amendment. To prove we weren't just land grabbing, Congress passed a pinky swear claiming the US had no intention of exercising sovereignty over Cuba and would leave once it was "pacified."
December 1898: The Treaty of Paris. Spain officially gave up Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. The U.S. began a military occupation of Cuba that lasted almost four years.
1901: The Platt Amendment. This is the betrayal. The US forced Cuba to write it into their own Constitution as a condition for the US military leaving. It gave the US the legal right to intervene in Cuban affairs at will and established the naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
May 20, 1902: "Independence." The US withdrew its troops, but Cuba was left as a "protectorate," independent on paper, but tethered to U.S. policy until 1934.
1934: The Good Neighbor Policy. Under FDR, the US repealed the Platt Amendment, giving up its "legal" right to invade. The Catch? We kept the lease on Guantanamo Bay indefinitely and shifted from military control to economic dominance, backing "stable" dictators like Batista to protect U.S. sugar interests.
1952–1958: The US backed the brutal Batista dictatorship because he kept Cuba open for business for the Mafia and US sugar companies.
1960–Present: The Longest Embargo in History. After the 1959 Revolution nationalized US property, the U.S. shifted to "economic warfare."
2026: We are currently seeing an energy blockade so severe it has paralyzed the island's hospitals and schools. 120+ years after we "promised" independence, we are still using the island as a geopolitical chessboard.
When we talk about "independence" in this region, we have to look at the strings we've been pulling for 170 years.
#AntiWar #OffTheList #CubaBlockade #NoMasBloqueo #Cuba2026 #CubanHistory #USHistory #USImperialism #History #USPol #USA #Cuba #SpanishAmericanWar #ForeignPolicy
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