On his first trip to Cuba during his third term in office, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called the embargo imposed by the United States on the island "illegal" and denounced the island's inclusion on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
And rightfully so. The US isn’t the world police and doesn’t have the right to block entire countries just because they feel like it. Just imagine China or Russia doing the same to some random European country. The double standards speak volumes. This is not the way.
Well Russia is currently bombing a European country which I personally consider much worse than an embargo.
Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t see how two wrongs makes a right. This is some massive whataboutism. Both an embargo on Cuba and Russia bombing other countries are horrendous activities.
Sure, but the comment I was replying to made a direct comparison with Russia.
First and foremost, that was my comment. Secondly, it still doesn’t make it okay. It’s not a real argument. If the US can pull this shit off, why can’t Russia or China. I’m not excusing their actions, but just look at it from the perspective of someone from one of those countries. They see the US invading countries, putting embargos on others, and a bunch of other crap. Why shouldn’t they do the same? The invasion of Iraq was just as justified as the invasion of Ukraine. Same shit based on bullshit arguments. Yet somehow one is more acceptable than the other. I’d rather not have any of them. And I’m from Eastern Europe just for context :)
I’m not justifying anything. I was just reacting to this:
Which was a weird sentence - we don’t have to imagine anything, Russia is already doing much worse.
The US this year has launched airstrikes in Syria, Somalia and possibly Yemen. That is not somehow better, just because they’re not a European country. And even if it were better, another country doing really shitty things is not a good argument for why a separate country can do maybe-less-shitty-but-still-shitty things.
Cuba has been under full trade embargo by the US for over 60 years, after the US Bay of Pigs Invasion failure. Russia only has sanctions and embargoes by the US on some products though, despite invading a European country. How does that happen?
relevance?
the US isn’t blockading Cuba, they’re just embargoing it. There’s a difference.
It’s not a direct blockade, but the US has in the past threatened to cut off financial aid to any country that trades with Cuba, disallows foreign subsidiaries of US companies to trade, and even threatens sanctions upon foreign companies that do any trade in or with the US that also trade in Cuba.
The UN has cited to condemn it every year for many years, with usually only the US and Israel voting against. They say it is a violation of international law and the UN charter.
It is abhorrent and unjustifiable, and has a real cost in human lives and suffering.
Well the americans here seem to think that if they call one thing legal then it must be legal, because after all they’re playing world police. And then they wonder why two thirds of the world despise their government…