The Bay of Pigs Turns 50

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Posted on Apr 16, 2011

Flickr / welovepands

A memorial to the Cubans who died during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion at Playa Giron.

This weekend marked the 50th anniversary of Cuba’s defeat of a CIA-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs, and the communist nation remembered the occasion with a parade Saturday celebrating the bloody nose it delivered to its powerful neighbor. —JCL 

Associated Press via The Guardian:

Cuba kicked off a crucial Communist Party congress Saturday with a big military and civilian parade to mark 50 years since the defeat of CIA-backed exiles at the Bay of Pigs, still celebrated here as a landmark triumph over the island’s powerful neighbor to the north.

Thousands of soldiers high-stepped through sprawling Revolution Plaza as a military band played martial music, not far from an iconic sculpture of Ernesto “Che” Guevara that gazes down from the side of the Interior Ministry building. Helicopters whirred and jet fighters in combat formation roared overhead while freshly painted amphibious assault vehicles and rocket launchers rumbled past.

“Long live Fidel! Long live Raul! Long live the Communist Party of Cuba!” a female announcer shouted, and participants responded with shouts of approval.

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By FRTothus, April 17, 2011 at 7:40 pm Link to this comment

The Bay of Pigs operation was one of several CIA
operations to dispose of Castro and end the threat of
his good example, an operation brought to you by the
very same people who would later kill JFK. 

“Cuba has ... been condemned for not allowing its
people to flee the island. That so many want to leave
Cuba is treated as proof that Cuban socialism is a
harshly repressive system, rather than that the U.S.
embargo has made life difficult in Cuba. That so many
millions more want to leave capitalist countries like
Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, El Salvador, Philippines,
South Korea, Macedonia, and others too numerous to
list is never treated as grounds for questioning the
free-market system that inflicts such misery on the
Third World.”
(Dr. Michael Parenti)

@TDoff, can we please put to rest the notion that
VietNam won that war?  The US accomplished most of
its strategic goals in destroying the place and
killing millions.  VietNam is suffering to this day
from all the poisons we dumped there, all the
unexploded mines and ordinance, and the sweat-shop
the US turned the place into.  The US corporations
made millions in drug (heroin and the famed French
Connection) and covert weapons sales while social
needs were ignored for nearly two decades, and they
profit to this day from violently enforcing the Third
World protection racket and giving notice to anyone
else who might decide their country’s people and
resources are not for sale to Western thieves and
marauders.

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By MarthaA, April 16, 2011 at 9:33 pm Link to this comment

All I have to say about Cuba is that Cuba has
Medical for ALL their citizens and even helps
other countries medically,  which is not what
is being done in the United States, where a poor
class has been declared and a humongously poor
psuedo-middle class where if you don’t
have medical insurance, and/or money in your
pockets to pay for your medical, you are out of
luck for medical attention in the United
States.  The U.S. government can propagandize
all they want about how badly the people in
Cuba are treated, but it falls on deaf ears as long
as our nation can’t rise to the medical standard
set by Cuba for all U.S. citizens.

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By Robespierre115, April 16, 2011 at 7:34 pm Link to this comment

50 years later and the US still hasn’t learned a single lesson. Who’s going to kick our ass next? Venezuela? Iran? Afghanistan? All at once?

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By TDoff, April 16, 2011 at 3:06 pm Link to this comment

Let’s see, we’ll have to wait about 14 years for Vietnam to celebrate the 50th anniversary of it’s victory over the US.
I wonder if Iraq and Afghanistan’s 50th anniversary celebrations will occur in this century, or whether the current US plan for eternal war will deny them that celebration.

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