Remember that Bush's loyal retainer Don Gregg is on the scene in Seoul. From Bush's
point of view, if Korea is to be re-united, let it be in the wake of a war on the Korean
peninsula in which the north, and perhaps also the south, has been flattened. Such a
confrontation would also be an ideal means for intimidating Japan and imposing on that
country a new period of subservience to the dictates of Anglo-American finance and the
New World Order. China and the USSR (or, RSFSR) could also be throughly humiliated.
CUBA. A textual analysis of Bush's speeches and public remarks during 1991 leaves no
doubt about his compulsive obsession with overthrowing Fidel Castro. As we have seen,
this obsession is deeply rooted within his personal history, and is amplified by the
demands of his institutional network. Human rights violations in Cuba were one of the
key points in Bush's September 23 speech to the United Nations General Assembly. Here
Cuba was cited as a prime example of the communist dictatorships about to be swept
away by the revival of history. In all of Bush's meetings with Gorbachov, as well as with
Yeltsin, Bush has demanded that Moscow's economic assistance to Cuba be cut off, a
demand that has been largely fulfilled by the force majeure of the collapsing Soviet
economy. Bush has used the American propaganda organ Radio Marti to broadcast
appeals for free elections and other reforms into the island. On August 27 in
Kennebunkport, Bush gloated over the collapse of communism and the grim future ahead
for communists everywhere. "There must be one of them really sweating now in Cuba,"
Bush raved.
No one should be deluded that George Bush, the defender of world communism,
seriously intends to free Cuba of its present tyranny. There are indications that what Bush
has in mind for Cuba is a Romanian solution, in which the spectacular liquidation of
Castro is to be followed by a neo-communist regime run by the Cuban equivalents of
Petre Roman and Ion Iliescu, the duo that took over after the execution of Ceausescu and
his wife. The principle of oligarchical rule of Cuban society would remain unaltered. This
regime would then re-open Meyer Lansky's old gambling casinos and brothels, and
surpass even Poland in the application of the Jeffrey Sachs economic shock therapy. The
net result would be a falling standard of living for most Cubans.
There is no doubt that this Cuban project is very high on Bush's list of priorities. If
anything, the psychological impact of the fall of Castro has been pre-discounted by
Bush's frequent signals. If Castro is toppled by a palace coup, that would provide a few
brief moments of elation for US public opinion, but hardly enough to captivate those
waiting in long lines for their unemployment benefits. If Bush orders a US invasion of
Cuba in support of embattled freedom fighters, that would generate more excitement. If,
in the course of such hostilities, pro-Castro communist diehards were to let fly with Scud
missles or some such at Miami or cities along the US Gulf coast, Bush's dramaturgical
possibilities would be correspondingly greater.
The obsession with Cuba is so deeply ingrained in Bush's personality that an attempt to
overthrow Castro, most likely timed as an October surprise for 1992, is almost inevitable.
But with the public already thoroughly cynical about Bush's foreign adventurism, only