I failed. I failed in my first video by rushing to get it done and accidentally leaving in two mistakes. Therefore, this is a re-upload. But you know who else failed? John F. Kennedy and the C.I.A. Please don't fail to check out my sponsor? 🔒Remove your personal information from the web at joindeleteme.com/MRBEAT and use code MRBEAT for 20% off 🙌 DeleteMe international Plans: international.joindeleteme.com
you are more commendable for acknowledging your mistakes and correcting yourself. no one could ever make me hate you mr beat. ❤❤❤ THANK YOU FOR TEACHING ME
I don’t think it’s fair to say that the US initially tried to work with the Castro government, but stopped because of human rights abuses. I’m not saying that there were no such abuses, though of course the extent and justification can be argued. But it’s just silly to say that the US wasn’t antagonistic from the start, or that the reason for this wasn’t based on lobbying by special interests losing their assets in Cuba and general anti-communist ideology.
@@alejandrogarcia3227 I’m not saying there weren’t legitimate victims, but the ones with pull with the US government were the big players who’d been exploiting the Cuban people in one way or another, ie the large sugar plantation owners who’d been employing Cuban peasants in near slave-like conditions, the Mafia bosses running crime organizations out of Cuban casinos, etc. The US didn’t initiate the terrorism and sabotage campaign, the embargo, the invasion, etc to stand up for the property of nice small business owners and due process rights for people within the old Cuban regime who were subject to harsh justice from revolutionary tribunals, even if that was the PR framing they preferred. It was to maintain a profitably client state in Cuba and punish any move towards communism.
@@michaelk4295 you really underestimate the pull of the Cuban people who live in Miami that pushed for American involvement my dude. Honestly this is a very bad faith way of just saying this on your part because it kind of excuses the Cuban regime now to do whatever atrocities it wants to do. Especially because most Cubans did not want communism and it ended up continuing the same slavery that existed before, just with the fidel in charge.
@@alejandrogarcia3227 they became an influential voting block for sure, but I’m talking about the first year or two after the revolution. They weren’t established in this country yet. I’m not saying anything about what the Castro regime did in the decades since. Recognizing why historical actors did what they did is not an excuse for bad things, it’s just a necessary part of understanding our world. If we just say “these are bad guys, end of story” then we blind ourselves and end up repeating the same mistakes.
This is the first video in a while where Im disagreeing with Mr Beat. I think the interview itself is good valuable information that gets the perspective of somebody who partook in the Bay of Pigs. However I dont like the framing of the invasion and the exiles in a heroic light. The Bautisa government was overthrown by the Cuban people for a reason. He was a brutal dictator who allowed foreign companies and American mobsters to have free reign in the country at the expense of the people. Had the Bay of Pigs Invasion succeeded then Bautista or another right wing puppet dictator would've been installed which the Cuban exile "heroes" would've cheered for. Imperialism and puppet regimes are inherently bad and so naturally the Cuban people heavily supported Castro after they had just liberated themselves. Also a lot of the Cuban exiles and their descendants became more reactionary over time and are now mostly MAGA types who want a Trump dictatorship and love Ron Desantis Sure Castro himself eventually became a dictator but more nuance is needed especially when looking at the early 1960s when he took the lands and wealth from foreigners and gave it to the people. He actually wanted the US to do something akin to the Marshall Plan but for Latin America but was rejected. And so it was America's militant opposition to Castro which essentially pushed him into the Soviet sphere of influence and more authoritarian. It is reminiscent of how Iran is also an enemy nation because of the US supporting a puppet dictator who in turn got overthrown by a popular uprising that too later became a dictatorship
Well said. America obviously didn't care about the Cuban/Iranian people since they installed and supported dictatorships before their respective revolutions. It was all a racket to garner money, resources, and power at the expense of the people of these nations. Now the subsequent left wing authoritarian regimes in many ways were bad themselves but as you alluded to that is somewhat of a natural conclusion when having external threats to your country constantly trying to destabilize it. I mean even the US, the land of the free, has engaged in countless human rights violations and authoritarianism under the guise of protecting itself from external threats. The 'Red Scares", McCarthyism, suspension of habeus corpus, Japanese internment camps, the PATRIOT and AUMF acts, the Sedition act, the Espionage act, etc.
@@BobPantsSpongeSquare97 I agree with this comment. It is important to understand as a key reason for the failure of the invasion was that there simply wasn’t popular support for the overthrow of Castro within Cuba, despite claims from exiles that Castro was hated by most Cubans.
@f4rr3r yeah at the time Castro was already popular by default because he overthrow Bautisa and the failed invasion boosted his popularity. Another thing of note I forgot to mention is that Mr Beat also didn't talk about why it is that the Cuban exiles and their descendants became successful relatively quickly after settling in Florida. The reason being with how the government gave them preference over other immigrant groups from Latin America and gave them a far easier and quicker path to citizenship. Plus many of them came from wealth, educated backgrounds, and white collar professions. Their privilege in the eyes of the US government allowed to be become established quicker once they settled here whereas other Latino immigrants who escaped hardships in their own countries were not awarded the same level of preference as the Cubans and it look longer to build up their livelihoods herein the US. And again notice how quick the Cuban Americans became staunch Republican voters in the past few decades when ironically it was Kennedy and Johnson who helped them start up here
Yeah a guerrilla in the mountains and some terrorists in the city that werent even working together is “the cuban people”, it isnt like most social changes are done by some minority that later creates a narrative.
The USA supported Batista EVEN THOUGH he was a dictator? Bruh, c’mon…we do not have a track record of caring whether or not another country is a dictatorship.
That is true, but nonetheless pointing out the irony still serves a point for teaching purposes, if as a simple reminder. Let it never be normalized in public consciousness, let it always be something to stand out.
@@maxi1ification that line serves to do the opposite of teaching. It makes it seem like supporting dictators is something the USA has generally been against. Saying something like “the USA supported Batista even though he was a dictator, as we often do” could serve to point out both the irony and the banality of the situation.
Mr. Beat, it was an operation outlined and commissioned by Eisenhower. You just mentioned this once, and blame a lot of the failure to JFK. Could it be your admiration of Ike played a small role here ? And while you looked at the cuban exile's side you should have been a bit more critical towards them. Their belief that masses of Cubans would join them was and still is quite naive. They were more seen as Batista trying to get back, for which most Cubans had no liking at all. I guess even with better planning and better landing site the operation was bound to fail due to a lack of support within Cuba anyway. The CIA did not really take that into account and believed the Cuban exiles too much. All in all you are not critical enough about the role of the Cuban exiles, especially their leadership and the role of the Eisenhower administration.
I have to respectfully disagree with your perspective. As a Cuban, I can tell you that many revolutionaries were in fact pro-American and initially fought for the return of Cuba's 1940s constitution. Fidel used this shared purpose to gain power, only to betray it by steering the revolution toward communism. Many of those involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion were not Batista supporters, but individuals who had actively participated in the Cuban Revolution with hopes of restoring democracy, not supporting dictatorship. The Escambray Rebellion is a strong example: fighters like William Morgan and numerous Cubans who initially supported the revolution soon rose up against the communist direction it had taken. However, the Cuban government heavily controlled the media, framing these anti-communist rebels as “bandits” to suppress local support for the uprising. If the Bay of Pigs invasion had succeeded, many Cubans would have taken up arms against communism, though isolated pockets of resistance without external support would likely have struggled to survive long-term. Batista's regime fell largely because the United States withdrew its support due to public opinion favoring democracy. In fact, many Cubans harbored a deep-seated disdain for the Soviet Union, associating it with poor hygiene and low education-a sentiment still present today. While Cubans publicly supported the Soviets out of necessity, privately they held these biases. Had the United States intervened, Cuba could have remained one of Latin America’s most prosperous nations. Allowing a communist foothold was a critical error, as Cuba’s government went on to sponsor revolutions and oppressive regimes throughout Latin America and Africa. The Batista era was by no means ideal, but at least the average Cuban could earn enough in a day’s work to afford basic necessities like a sack of rice-a far cry from the deprivation that followed.
The "market economy" Eduardo Zayas describes included literal slave labor plantations. He goes on to talk about Castro's regime that was apparently so evil by describing a centralized planned economy (as opposed to free market economy). Gusanos never fail to disappoint.
Thank you. I also heard Jorge Masvidal (a ufc fighter with brain damage) talk about how his family was oppressed by castro and had to flee. Turns out his father owned a casino and brothel in Havana, got arrested for drug trafficking, got out, and now is in again for murder. It's always the Miami type.
@ManuelLopez-nr9yv Before the revolution, most Cubans in the countryside couldn't read or write and hadn't ever visited a doctor in their lives. Now, Cuba's literacy rate is 98-99% and their life expectancy beats the US life expectancy. I could list more things if you'd like
JFK’s mistake was choosing the Bay of Pigs as the landing site instead of the city of Trinidad. The area around the Bay of Pigs was a crocodile infested swamp which was ill-suited for the sort of operation that was intended. Trinidad was actually the original choice for the landing, it was situated on solid ground and it was located near the Escambray Mountains where guerrilla fighting against the Castro regime was already taking place. JFK wanted to make the invasion more low-key so he chose the sparsely populated area of the Bay of Pigs instead, but knowing that he wasn't going to give adequate support to the operation, Trinidad would've been a better gamble.
JFK never wanted the invasion of cuba. The cia set up the bay of pigs and it was intended to be a failure from the beginning in order to send in the marines afterwards but JFK refused. This would cause a hugeeee uproar in DC with the CIA and many deep state politicians and agencies furious at JFK decision not to send in marines.This is why JFK wanted to get rid of the CIA as they went behind his back in order to get him to do what they wanted
The mistake was believing the invasion would be popular in Cuba, overthrowing a popular president can only be done through force and military power, which is what they did later in Chile.
As a Latin American, it's kind of bizarre trying to see North Americans as the "good guys" in that story. Fighting to bring back a capitalist dictatorship and to undo the little social progress Fidel Castro managed to achieve hardly sounds like anything laudable.
Yeah sadly that was the US MO when they intervened on lots of international conflict. They much rather back a dictator but otherwise allow capitalism at the cost of opression. What's funny is they think a capitalist dictator would be far better than a communist dictator on any day.
@@sohopedeco Thais certaonly one way Topographie history. Another would be to Point at hundreds of thousands of cuban refugees and ask why they would want to leave such a Specialist paradise
He should’ve covered the conditioned under Batista more in depth. How were the general population doing before Fidel? What about the mafia controlled casinos?
You’d have to be a complete historical revisionist to believe that Baptista was better than Castro. Being pro Baptista is literally being pro slavery in Cuba.
@rayh6118 this video’s framing makes it seem as if the Cuban revolution was bad for the Cuban ppl. This is simply an untrue perspective perpetrated by the US. For example, many of the Cuban exiles that fled to America were slave owners that were ousted by the Castro regime. And in terms of the modern day Cuba has better access to healthcare than the US and the most doctors per capita in the entire world. This is bc of the socialist practices in Cuba of socialized medicine and free education, which has also lead to Cuba having a higher literacy rate than the US, despite being a poor country under a US embargo that the U.N. voted almost unanimously in favor of lifting said embargo.
Wow….. I have met Eduardo Zayas-Bazan in my previous career. He is a truly wonderful man. I met him a few times at conferences. He was the main author of a an Introductory Spanish textbook called ¡Arriba! which was a best seller in the 1990s and early 2000s. It is surreal to see someone you’ve met on TH-cam.
The United States did not really support Batista, the embargo on Cuba began in 1958 as an embargo on the weapons that Fulgencio Batista had bought and needed to stop Castro in the East of the island.
Easy, Batista was capitalist and allowed American companies to squeeze Cuba dry, Castro actually put the needs of the people first and didn't let capitalists steal the people's labour, invested in public health and education, ended homelessness, made sure everyone had food, all things the USA couldn't stand.
@@someday4099The US installed Batista, Pinochet, & others like them for very simple reasons. The left wing movements threatened property owners and business interests for the benefit of the people
@@someday4099the US absolutely did support Batista, as well as Pinochet, & and other genocidal fascists in Latin America as enforcers of their business interests
@@iammrbeatthis is a horrible video, so one sided. You could’ve interviewed at least 1 other person who wasn’t a Cuban exile. Someone who didn’t love Batista like this dude. Most Cubans hated Batista and saw the exiles as Batista trying to return.
@@ryanwilson742to be fair we can’t rule out that he didn’t try to get in touch with one but had failed. It could’ve helped to have acknowledged trying to get in touch with one if at all
I love your videos! It’s so awesome that the last few videos you’ve made you interviewed people with real experience on the subject. It’s absolutely crazy that you’re able to get in contact with these people, and your videos are always so informative. Thank you for everything that you do!
Awesome video! I appreciate you being open to changing your perspective based on first-hand conversations with a primary source who was directly involved. I was pleasantly surprised by this video, as I know you tend to be very anti-interventionist and isolationist, but oftentimes hearing from a primary source, especially firsthand, who holds the opposite perspective has the effect of providing you with a more nuanced view of events. I would love it if you could take a similar look at other events using primary source interviews or documents told from a perspective that you may have previously disagreed with. It still may not sway your opinion, but it will at the very least give you a more nuanced view of such events. Thanks again for the video and keep up the great work!
I'm not saying he wasn't a monster, I've no doubt he was. But, if you aren't at least a little bit on Castro's side here, clearly you don't know anything about Pinochet
While I never expected to agree with a video like this, I am extremely disappointed. While it’s natural for an American perspective to be biased, this video contains factual inaccuracies and misleading quotes. For example, the claim that the US initially tried to “work with” the Castro government is a lie. The US had always supported the Batista regime throughout the revolution (and never invaded it despite much more abhorrent human rights abuses, by the way). The US simply continued having some diplomatic relations with Cuba until Castro threatened American business interests by nationalising foreign owned property. At the same time, not a single mention is made of international law regarding illegal invasions. The claim that the Cuban government violated human rights by executing individuals who partook in a foreign invasion of their country is completely baseless; whether we like it or not, in almost every country in the world in the 1960s execution was the legal punishment for treason. The claim that these soldiers were all “freedom loving” is also dubious, given many were in at least some way connected to the Batista regime, which committed various atrocities against their own people to secure the dictatorship, including rape, torture and extrajudicial killings. Finally, the claim that Cuba is “missing out” on prosperity today without a single mention on the illegal US embargo on Cuba, which all but 2 other countries (including almost all US allies) agrees has severe humanitarian consequences and must end. Regardless of your opinions on the merits of each country’s economic model, the US’s attempt to starve Cuba is disgusting and outrageous, and it is heartless to mock Cuba for suffering its consequences.
I used to think exactly like this until I did more research. Sure, I'm biased to defend Cuban Americans, and indeed talking with multiple Bay of Pigs veterans changed my perspective, but you must also recognize your bias. I have cited all my sources in the description if you care to look. One more thing- the U.S. absolutely tried to work with the Castro government for a brief time. You are straight up lying by saying otherwise.
@@iammrbeat thank you for your response. I don’t claim to be unbiased and I also have no animosity towards you, I respect your channel and the work you put into your videos. Everything I mentioned is an omission that results in telling a distorted story. For example, not a single mention of how the Cuban revolution affected American business interests is made despite it being an obvious factor in US decision making. Devoid of this context, the claim that the US initially tried to “work with” Castro and then did a volt-face in light of his human rights record is at least misleading. The US did have diplomatic relations with Cuba until the nationalisation of American owned assets; I may be ignorant of any other cooperation between the two other than standard diplomatic relations before this, however. I wasn’t expecting a video like this to be objective or even balanced, and understand why it is not, but I don’t understand how you claim that “more research” defeats all my points, which are all omissions you made in your video. I don’t dispute that Castro made human rights abuses and I don’t claim to know how prosperous Cuba would have been if its economic system had changed. However, the facts that US animosity towards Cuba begun after Cuba threatened American interests, that the Bay of Pigs invasion was against international law, that many of those who carried it out were former Batista-era officials, that execution was considered an acceptable punishment for treason (even though I personally disagree with it) and that the Cuba Embargo is denounced by the international community are all very relevant to the subject of this video (the last one not so much, except for the ending of the video). Omitting all of these results in a recollection that is distorted to the point of being untrue, even if nothing in the video is an explicit lie. I am not doubting any of your claims (again, except for the reason US policy towards Cuba changed) so I am not doubting any of your sources. I haven’t seen any source disagreeing with everything I have listed, though of course, any such source would be welcome. I apologise if I come off as too offensive or disrespectful, but this video greatly disappointed me and I am also deeply concerned with how distorted recollections such as these affect US public perception to continue supporting the Cuba sanctions despite international pressure (even though I am sure this was not your intention).
completely agree with your points. I don't think Mr Beat has any obligation of being unbiased, but as a history/cultural channel, i do think that a more complete picture should be shown. I know that i'm also biased, but for me it is clear that too little screen time was even dedicated to explaining WHY the invasion was set, which wouldn't be a deviation from the main topic, and would've added more context even with the biased view
The US did in fact try to work with Castro until he made it clear he was going to seize all US assets on Cuban soil, to which I ask, what is a country (A) SUPPOSED to do when country (B) decides to expropriate all of country (A)'s stuff in their territory? If the answer is "nothing", then country (A) has shown it does not care about the preservation of its citizens' property. More importantly, the US didn't really care that Castro was a brutal dictator, they had worked with plenty of them before. What made the US mad was Cuba's decision to cozy up to their worst enemies in the process.
Amazing to say that the Cuban revolution set back human rights… most people were illiterate peasants without enough food under Bautista. Economic rights of who?
@@irvingg71 and why that is good? Shouldn't you care more about how many people have roofs over their head, food on their plate, get good quality health care and education?
Say what you want about Fidel Castro, the guy survived Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama. All of whom wanted him dead or out of office. The US went overseas and took out Hussein and Bin Laden, but could not get a guy 100 miles off the Florida coast. I realize that its much more complex than that. I have always hoped that in my lifetime Cuba would one day be a vacation destination for Americans, but that's not likely to ever happen.
America when refugees talk about freedom from oppression: 😅 America when refugees talk about freedom from oppression but the country was destabilized by US businesses: 😮
@@thorpeaaron1110tell that to the millions of Cubans who were uneducated, homeless, and dying from sickness. The economy was doing well for the rich and corporations. None of that trickled down to the rest of Cuba.
I remember the first time I heard of the Bay of Pigs invasion, it was in (of all things) one of the Metal Gear Solid games. In the third game of the series, a prequel game called "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater," set in 1964, the last Boss character you have to face in the game, appropriately enough called "The Boss," talked about it, referring to the area by its Spanish name: "In 1961, I was sent to Cuba, to Bahía de Cochinos. It was part of a CIA sponsored mission, under the guise of taking Cuban Exiles back to their country," Of course, most of the game is fictional, but it's largely based on what really happened in the early 1960's during the Cold War (the Berlin Wall was mentioned, as well as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs invasion)
@CaseNumber00 I think it helped that he had a huge team working with him, on researching the context for the era he was aiming for. Filler scenes also provide younger viewers, those who were unaware of the happenings in the Cold War in the early 1960's, including what was happening in the Soviet Union by 1964. (Spoilers) there was a conversation involving the character that you're supposed to rescue, Nikolai Sokolov, where you hear about how Nikita Khrushchev was on the verge of being toppled by leonid Brezhnev: "...ever since the Cuban Missile Crisis 2 years ago, Khrushchev has been pursuing a policy of "peaceful coexistence" with the West. Despite resistance and criticism from hawks in the army and the provincial authorities, Khrushchev has managed to suppress the opposition so far. But, the failure of his agricultural policies has put him in a precarious position, and on top of that, the tragedy last November," "President Kennedy's assassination," "Precisely, in a sense, Khrushchev has lost his biggest partner and his power base is rapidly crumbling away,"
I have to say that I'm disappointed with Mr Beat regarding this video. He's clearly championing the US cause here and ignoring Cuban grievances. It stuns me that he's able to make videos with great sensetivity on other topics but here he's just reiterating claptrap meant to whitewash the operation. This isn't education its propeganda. [And I'm not even saying that Castro is a "good guy" or anything]
the problem was praising a cia backed operation the tried to overthrow another nation's government. and acting like cold war usa had (any) care for cuban human rights.
GMT's Cuba Libre: Castro's Insurgency 1957-1958 brought me here. I was under the impression that The Bay of Pigs was the turning point that encouraged Castro to ally with the U.S.S.R. Before that time both he and Ernesto Che Guevara thought Russia as too imperialistic.
So glad you’re doing a video on this topic. I’ve written paper about this in college learning about the fact leading up to it blew my mind and it’s aftermath shook the world
Awesome video! This topic hits very close to home because my family had to flee Cuba during the revolution. My great grandfather worked for the Department of Justice under the Baptista Regime
Yeah, the U.S. sadly used to support brutal dictators whenever the opposition was Communist, when they really should have remained neutral. Hardcore Containment was a very flawed policy, whereas it ultimately didn't matter if a few minor countries here and there fell to Communism through popular support (as opposed to an actual invasion like with South Korea), at least not in comparison to the huge Communist block that already existed at the time between the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China.
The many comments here incorrectly positing this as a choice between Batista and Castro fundamentally misunderstand the Cuban situation. The United States had zero intention of restoring Fulgencio Batista to power, and in fact had abandoned support for him well before he was deposed. Cuba had been a democracy through much of the early 20th century, and Batista was even elected at one point. Later when he returned to power he assumed dictatorial authority and became increasingly unpopular. When the seeds of revolution began to sprout in the late 1950s, the United States urged Batista to leave Cuba and hold fresh elections, offering him exile in Florida. He decided to cling on until the very end, by which point America had abandoned support for him in favor of trying to sway Castro into the Western camp. When Castro revealed himself to be a communist with the intent of expropriating foreign property and opening relations with Moscow, of course the United States began trying to remove him, but at no point was the intent to restore Batista or his tinpot dictatorship (whose incompetence had led to the revolution in the first place) to power.
Ur right they would've gotten another fascist attack dog like they did in other latin american countried that didnt have the luxury of being an island with tough terrain
I mean, it seems understandable why the missile crisis came immediately after. They basically put Castro on death's ground, so he had every motivation to try and get nuclear weapons, even if the price was high.
The freaking Platt Amendment? The reason Cuba is a country today is because of the US and the US had the compromise of taking care of the Cuban democracy so it didn’t end up being a failed country like the rest of Latin America. Many people didnt like this out of nationalism and pride, but after all it seems like we needed that protection from the US. If you look at Cuban history the Republic wasnt very stable, three conflicts in the beginning, the dictatorship of Machado, the inestability of the 30s and then Batista, the Cuban presidents never wanted the help of the US all because of patriotism and see how it ended up?
Usually it's done under the guise of freeing the people from a dictatorship committing human rights violation and giving them the American values of democracy and freedom etc etc. Cynically, it's done for the interests of American defense strategy (propping up allies in other parts of the world so they can have military outposts), and the interests of American private business who effectively own politicians, and turn countries into "free markets" ie. they can extract all their natural resources like oil.
Can you please make an in depth video on the Mexican-American War? I think it’s quite an interesting topic that isn’t really discussed often. I would be particularly interested in how the Native Americans in the southwest sided with in the conflict.
Had to do a 5 page report on the intelligence failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion for my capstone seminar, so this was a fun video to check out. Great interview btw.
I went to rewatch and *poof*. Glad it's back! I feel like I had a comment but have forgotten. Nice and informative. Other than The Godfather II, I was mostly ignorant. I went to high school in suburban Philadelphia and a handful of Cuban exiles lived in the area. My Spanish teacher was one, also a couple of classmates. It's good to have a wider view of what happened. I was still in kindergarten when this occurred.
My grandfather served 12 years as political prisoner in Cuba during the Castro regime. All my family came from the Mariel boat lifts too. Awesome to see videos like this.
Have you ever thought about making a video talking about *how* you sometimes get things wrong? Not in a judgemental way, I just think it would be interesting to see your thought process, or how you scrutinize your sources/conclusions after receiving feedback from commenters. I understand if they're usually just simple mistakes though and theres no story behind them. Thanks for all the great videos
Thanks Mr Beat for another great video. From everything, I already knew about the Bay of Pigs, the whole operation was just a mess. It's fascinating to look back at this. A totally different time in America compared to now.
Usually like your videos but you missed the mark so fundamentally on this one. The idea that the CIA EVER had the interest of the Cuban people at heart is laughable. Batista was a dictator who protected American capital interests in Cuba, Castro was a dictator who opposed American capital interests in Cuba. That’s it.
@@iammrbeat I struggle to understand how you could come to that conclusion but not connect it to the invasion? The video presents it as an attempted liberation of Cuba but hardly questions the intentions of American involvement (passively if at all) or what they intended to achieve by propping up an opposition government in exile. It seems that the intent of this video was to humanize the 2506 Brigade but it almost uses this a shield for criticism of the US government's involvement. Perhaps that wasn't your intention with this but American interference in developing nations at the expense of human rights is so frequently a theme of US foreign policy that it still really should grant further analysis.
So funny 😹 you say when the Cuban government is crying for foreign investment, who the hell wants to invest in a country that confiscates private property Lmao
@@iammrbeatyou made some fundamental errors though by saying Batista was less restrictive on human rights... He was way worse, Castro stayed in power this long cause he is actually good for the people, especially after the horrors of Batista, your guy was a biased liar who was bitter he can't steal from the proletarians anymore
@@christofos One of the was that he used footage of the colombian city of Cartagena and misteakenly passed it off as a Cuban city. I don't know about the other one, though.
@@iammrbeatwhy do u only respond to the comments that are just praising you or fun facts? Answer the comments that call out your one sidedness on the video. Batista was 100% worse than Castro. Castro brought education, healthcare, and property to the Cuban people. Under Batista he filled the pockets of corporations and criminals. These exiles are not hero’s, they were henchman for Batista and American greed. They may have been misled but their cause was extremely flawed. I don’t think you mentioned the decades long embargo once in this. The main reason for why Cuba is economically stunted. Lemme guess it’s just because of communism to you?
I didn't expect you to have such an imperialistic framing on this. Americans were not trying to bring "freedom" to Cuba, they wanted to exploit the island and reestablish neoliberalism. The reason why Cuba still stands as it is, is because the people support their government and economic system, which has lifted millions out of mysery.
Cuba wasnt neoliberal before Batista Lmao the 1940 Constitution, which Fidel promised to reinstate, was social democracy, Fidel was just a Soviet toy so I dont why you cry so much when its America doing it
I actually visited the Bay of Pigs Museum last year and said it was my favorite museum in Mr Beat’s video on museums. Part of my likes to think the video was because of me…
I went to Cuba as a solo American two months ago. I had the opportunity to walk through the Fidel Castro house in Havana. It was very awkward being the only American in the group as we walked through the Bay of Pigs section of the tour. It is a very glorified piece of history for the Cuban government, being seen as a testament to their courage and strength.
19:05 As we all know heros are people who try to overthrow a dictator to install another dictator So really I guess Castro was also a hero by thay definition
I think this is the first time where I've ever disagreed outright with the framing you have on this topic, this framing of the Bay of Pigs invasion as a virtuous action taken by the US government is very strange. In a reverse context (say with Russia in the US instead of the US in Cuba) we would view the actions of the government as abominable regardless of the outcome. This neoliberal view of Castro and Cuba in the 50s is honestly outdated and you should have considered further why the Communist revolution happened in Cuba from the perspective of those who supported the revolution, even you said the invasion made Castro MORE popular than he was. The Bay of Pigs was a thankfully failed effort by a colonial United States to try and overthrow yet another South/Central American government because we didn't like the specific way they did things, even if their citizens seemed to. We recognize why this sort of thing is bad when our government does it today (I.e. Haiti) but refuse to extend that reasoning to Cuba because of our propagandized education on the topic.
I'm from Cuba, me and my family currently live in Spain, I've been all morning talking with my dad about this and the current situation. Today is his birthday. Thanks mr beat
@@Eddn102 go to Cuba and count how many buildings were built after 1959, only a couple of soviet boxes that are in worse condition than some 100yo building
Only a few moments in to this video, it's hard to take it seriously when your explanation for why the USA's refusal to work with Castro is to do with their supposed morals and not to do with how they realized they couldn't use Castro as their next puppet dictator for their imperial interests. Regardless of your opinions on Castro, love or hate him, you can't seriously believe Uncle Sam ever "liberates" anyone out of the goodness of his heart and not for some ulterior motive.
Tbh very underwhelming video, a lot of key things lesding up to castro is missing, the first being the US decided Batista was a lost cause and abandon support for him, with the second being the US supporting numerous revolution groups toppling him. Castro wasn’t the only one fighting him and talking how he ended up in control is important to the story as well
The US nowadays likes to call out china about the uyghurs whenever the can but what they ares till doing to Cuba and its economy (by extension to its people) its appalling and extremely hypocritical
Obama did start to ease the sanctions against Cuba, but Trump restored them and Biden pretty much continued the same sactions that Trump restored. It's criminal what the U.S. is doing to Cuba.
First time you uploaded you asked for suggestions on what to cover in US history. Here was mine: Rarely covered: *Spanish American origins of US States.* New Mexico settlement predates much of the 13 colonies. Also early settlements in California are undercovered.
As a Cuban-American living in Miami, I appreciate that you've taken interest in Cubans history & how impactful they've been for South Florida. Would love if you have some attention to Cubans who participated in the Vietnam war as you mentioned. Always nice to hear a good video & learn new things, thank you
You also asked about doing the Korean War, in a prior version comment: Indy Neidell is doing a full coverage of it currently but if you have a different take then his it might be worth contrasting what you think is important compared to his.
Im relatively new here, ant I enjoy your content and the honesty of your presentation. You should. Still be teaching. Teachers who are passionate about their subject matter are rare and very valuable to our nation. George Santayana was correct , "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it We need teachers with your passion. Keep up the good work..
I failed.
I failed in my first video by rushing to get it done and accidentally leaving in two mistakes. Therefore, this is a re-upload.
But you know who else failed? John F. Kennedy and the C.I.A.
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This is a hopless situation.
you are more commendable for acknowledging your mistakes and correcting yourself. no one could ever make me hate you mr beat. ❤❤❤ THANK YOU FOR TEACHING ME
what were the mistakes
on a serious note i agree@@reimugaming5387
I appreciate your candor and honesty man. Top video. Didn’t even notice the mistakes.
I don’t think it’s fair to say that the US initially tried to work with the Castro government, but stopped because of human rights abuses. I’m not saying that there were no such abuses, though of course the extent and justification can be argued. But it’s just silly to say that the US wasn’t antagonistic from the start, or that the reason for this wasn’t based on lobbying by special interests losing their assets in Cuba and general anti-communist ideology.
He's a neo liberal, everything that comes out his mouth is a lie.
People lost their businesses it wasn't just huge businesses lobbying dude. You have to be fair
@@alejandrogarcia3227 I’m not saying there weren’t legitimate victims, but the ones with pull with the US government were the big players who’d been exploiting the Cuban people in one way or another, ie the large sugar plantation owners who’d been employing Cuban peasants in near slave-like conditions, the Mafia bosses running crime organizations out of Cuban casinos, etc. The US didn’t initiate the terrorism and sabotage campaign, the embargo, the invasion, etc to stand up for the property of nice small business owners and due process rights for people within the old Cuban regime who were subject to harsh justice from revolutionary tribunals, even if that was the PR framing they preferred. It was to maintain a profitably client state in Cuba and punish any move towards communism.
@@michaelk4295 you really underestimate the pull of the Cuban people who live in Miami that pushed for American involvement my dude. Honestly this is a very bad faith way of just saying this on your part because it kind of excuses the Cuban regime now to do whatever atrocities it wants to do. Especially because most Cubans did not want communism and it ended up continuing the same slavery that existed before, just with the fidel in charge.
@@alejandrogarcia3227 they became an influential voting block for sure, but I’m talking about the first year or two after the revolution. They weren’t established in this country yet.
I’m not saying anything about what the Castro regime did in the decades since. Recognizing why historical actors did what they did is not an excuse for bad things, it’s just a necessary part of understanding our world. If we just say “these are bad guys, end of story” then we blind ourselves and end up repeating the same mistakes.
I like you talking to people who were actually there and experienced it. You should do that with Civil War veterans.
How
@@VonPlanterEVP Voice Recorder or Ouija Board.
@@VonPlanter Atun Shei Films does it
Yeah whatever happened to that Robert E Lee guy?
Yeah, hate to break the news, but…
Im gonna watch this again just because you had to re-upload it. Keep rocking dude, love your content, wish i had you as my history teacher
You are too kind. Thank you so much!
Mr. Beat is the type of guy to reupload his video
I'm a failure.
@@iammrbeat it happens to the best of us. But thank so much for the content
It's a good thing. We should all be reminded about this stuff
@@iammrbeat Im glad you did reupload it, cause I haven't seen this one yet!
@@iammrbeat Not Even Close One Of My Favorite TH-camrs I Really Enjoy Your Videos
This is the first video in a while where Im disagreeing with Mr Beat. I think the interview itself is good valuable information that gets the perspective of somebody who partook in the Bay of Pigs. However I dont like the framing of the invasion and the exiles in a heroic light.
The Bautisa government was overthrown by the Cuban people for a reason. He was a brutal dictator who allowed foreign companies and American mobsters to have free reign in the country at the expense of the people. Had the Bay of Pigs Invasion succeeded then Bautista or another right wing puppet dictator would've been installed which the Cuban exile "heroes" would've cheered for. Imperialism and puppet regimes are inherently bad and so naturally the Cuban people heavily supported Castro after they had just liberated themselves. Also a lot of the Cuban exiles and their descendants became more reactionary over time and are now mostly MAGA types who want a Trump dictatorship and love Ron Desantis
Sure Castro himself eventually became a dictator but more nuance is needed especially when looking at the early 1960s when he took the lands and wealth from foreigners and gave it to the people. He actually wanted the US to do something akin to the Marshall Plan but for Latin America but was rejected. And so it was America's militant opposition to Castro which essentially pushed him into the Soviet sphere of influence and more authoritarian. It is reminiscent of how Iran is also an enemy nation because of the US supporting a puppet dictator who in turn got overthrown by a popular uprising that too later became a dictatorship
Well said. America obviously didn't care about the Cuban/Iranian people since they installed and supported dictatorships before their respective revolutions. It was all a racket to garner money, resources, and power at the expense of the people of these nations.
Now the subsequent left wing authoritarian regimes in many ways were bad themselves but as you alluded to that is somewhat of a natural conclusion when having external threats to your country constantly trying to destabilize it. I mean even the US, the land of the free, has engaged in countless human rights violations and authoritarianism under the guise of protecting itself from external threats. The 'Red Scares", McCarthyism, suspension of habeus corpus, Japanese internment camps, the PATRIOT and AUMF acts, the Sedition act, the Espionage act, etc.
Exactly!
@@BobPantsSpongeSquare97 I agree with this comment. It is important to understand as a key reason for the failure of the invasion was that there simply wasn’t popular support for the overthrow of Castro within Cuba, despite claims from exiles that Castro was hated by most Cubans.
@f4rr3r yeah at the time Castro was already popular by default because he overthrow Bautisa and the failed invasion boosted his popularity.
Another thing of note I forgot to mention is that Mr Beat also didn't talk about why it is that the Cuban exiles and their descendants became successful relatively quickly after settling in Florida. The reason being with how the government gave them preference over other immigrant groups from Latin America and gave them a far easier and quicker path to citizenship. Plus many of them came from wealth, educated backgrounds, and white collar professions.
Their privilege in the eyes of the US government allowed to be become established quicker once they settled here whereas other Latino immigrants who escaped hardships in their own countries were not awarded the same level of preference as the Cubans and it look longer to build up their livelihoods herein the US. And again notice how quick the Cuban Americans became staunch Republican voters in the past few decades when ironically it was Kennedy and Johnson who helped them start up here
Yeah a guerrilla in the mountains and some terrorists in the city that werent even working together is “the cuban people”, it isnt like most social changes are done by some minority that later creates a narrative.
The USA supported Batista EVEN THOUGH he was a dictator?
Bruh, c’mon…we do not have a track record of caring whether or not another country is a dictatorship.
That is true, but nonetheless pointing out the irony still serves a point for teaching purposes, if as a simple reminder.
Let it never be normalized in public consciousness, let it always be something to stand out.
@@maxi1ification that line serves to do the opposite of teaching. It makes it seem like supporting dictators is something the USA has generally been against.
Saying something like “the USA supported Batista even though he was a dictator, as we often do” could serve to point out both the irony and the banality of the situation.
We do now, but we did not during the Cold War, especially if the opposition was Communist.
@@Compucles thats not true? The u.s backed many many dictators as long as they cooperated with the us and their investors
@@89ji76 they only cared this time because castro was communist :/
Mr. Beat, it was an operation outlined and commissioned by Eisenhower. You just mentioned this once, and blame a lot of the failure to JFK.
Could it be your admiration of Ike played a small role here ?
And while you looked at the cuban exile's side you should have been a bit more critical towards them. Their belief that masses of Cubans would join them was and still is quite naive. They were more seen as Batista trying to get back, for which most Cubans had no liking at all.
I guess even with better planning and better landing site the operation was bound to fail due to a lack of support within Cuba anyway. The CIA did not really take that into account and believed the Cuban exiles too much.
All in all you are not critical enough about the role of the Cuban exiles, especially their leadership and the role of the Eisenhower administration.
The buck stops at the president, not the former president
@@rorypaul153 good point
I have to respectfully disagree with your perspective. As a Cuban, I can tell you that many revolutionaries were in fact pro-American and initially fought for the return of Cuba's 1940s constitution. Fidel used this shared purpose to gain power, only to betray it by steering the revolution toward communism. Many of those involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion were not Batista supporters, but individuals who had actively participated in the Cuban Revolution with hopes of restoring democracy, not supporting dictatorship. The Escambray Rebellion is a strong example: fighters like William Morgan and numerous Cubans who initially supported the revolution soon rose up against the communist direction it had taken. However, the Cuban government heavily controlled the media, framing these anti-communist rebels as “bandits” to suppress local support for the uprising. If the Bay of Pigs invasion had succeeded, many Cubans would have taken up arms against communism, though isolated pockets of resistance without external support would likely have struggled to survive long-term. Batista's regime fell largely because the United States withdrew its support due to public opinion favoring democracy. In fact, many Cubans harbored a deep-seated disdain for the Soviet Union, associating it with poor hygiene and low education-a sentiment still present today. While Cubans publicly supported the Soviets out of necessity, privately they held these biases. Had the United States intervened, Cuba could have remained one of Latin America’s most prosperous nations. Allowing a communist foothold was a critical error, as Cuba’s government went on to sponsor revolutions and oppressive regimes throughout Latin America and Africa. The Batista era was by no means ideal, but at least the average Cuban could earn enough in a day’s work to afford basic necessities like a sack of rice-a far cry from the deprivation that followed.
And 27 years later Billy Joel would sing about the Bay of Pigs invasion in “We Didn’t Start The Fire” 😂
The "market economy" Eduardo Zayas describes included literal slave labor plantations. He goes on to talk about Castro's regime that was apparently so evil by describing a centralized planned economy (as opposed to free market economy). Gusanos never fail to disappoint.
Thank you. I also heard Jorge Masvidal (a ufc fighter with brain damage) talk about how his family was oppressed by castro and had to flee. Turns out his father owned a casino and brothel in Havana, got arrested for drug trafficking, got out, and now is in again for murder.
It's always the Miami type.
My man!!! Glad to see other people who KNOW HISTORY.
@@politburropod tell me one good thing about how cubans are living right now under this government you praise
@ManuelLopez-nr9yv Before the revolution, most Cubans in the countryside couldn't read or write and hadn't ever visited a doctor in their lives. Now, Cuba's literacy rate is 98-99% and their life expectancy beats the US life expectancy. I could list more things if you'd like
JFK’s mistake was choosing the Bay of Pigs as the landing site instead of the city of Trinidad. The area around the Bay of Pigs was a crocodile infested swamp which was ill-suited for the sort of operation that was intended. Trinidad was actually the original choice for the landing, it was situated on solid ground and it was located near the Escambray Mountains where guerrilla fighting against the Castro regime was already taking place. JFK wanted to make the invasion more low-key so he chose the sparsely populated area of the Bay of Pigs instead, but knowing that he wasn't going to give adequate support to the operation, Trinidad would've been a better gamble.
Always in retrospect 🤦♂️
JFK never wanted the invasion of cuba. The cia set up the bay of pigs and it was intended to be a failure from the beginning in order to send in the marines afterwards but JFK refused. This would cause a hugeeee uproar in DC with the CIA and many deep state politicians and agencies furious at JFK decision not to send in marines.This is why JFK wanted to get rid of the CIA as they went behind his back in order to get him to do what they wanted
The mistake was believing the invasion would be popular in Cuba, overthrowing a popular president can only be done through force and military power, which is what they did later in Chile.
As a Latin American, it's kind of bizarre trying to see North Americans as the "good guys" in that story.
Fighting to bring back a capitalist dictatorship and to undo the little social progress Fidel Castro managed to achieve hardly sounds like anything laudable.
Yeah sadly that was the US MO when they intervened on lots of international conflict. They much rather back a dictator but otherwise allow capitalism at the cost of opression. What's funny is they think a capitalist dictator would be far better than a communist dictator on any day.
@@sohopedeco Thais certaonly one way Topographie history. Another would be to Point at hundreds of thousands of cuban refugees and ask why they would want to leave such a Specialist paradise
Agreed. America had no interest in protecting Cuban's civil liberties, they just wanted to replace an opposing dictator with a compliant one.
He should’ve covered the conditioned under Batista more in depth. How were the general population doing before Fidel? What about the mafia controlled casinos?
"little social progress"
Cuba is a dictatorship that exports migrants, propaganda and trained terrorists.
You’d have to be a complete historical revisionist to believe that Baptista was better than Castro. Being pro Baptista is literally being pro slavery in Cuba.
Classic liberal revisionist fascist bootlicking at work. He should have asked the gusano why he fled Cuba lmao
Well the US was pro Baptista
Thank you, this video is so tone deaf. Who kicked out the mafia in Cuba? Not Batista.
Cant even spell Batista Lmao
Slavery was abolished in 1888 btw
The revisionism is insane
@@qb69x what do you mean tho
@rayh6118 this video’s framing makes it seem as if the Cuban revolution was bad for the Cuban ppl. This is simply an untrue perspective perpetrated by the US. For example, many of the Cuban exiles that fled to America were slave owners that were ousted by the Castro regime. And in terms of the modern day Cuba has better access to healthcare than the US and the most doctors per capita in the entire world. This is bc of the socialist practices in Cuba of socialized medicine and free education, which has also lead to Cuba having a higher literacy rate than the US, despite being a poor country under a US embargo that the U.N. voted almost unanimously in favor of lifting said embargo.
Wow….. I have met Eduardo Zayas-Bazan in my previous career. He is a truly wonderful man. I met him a few times at conferences. He was the main author of a an Introductory Spanish textbook called ¡Arriba! which was a best seller in the 1990s and early 2000s. It is surreal to see someone you’ve met on TH-cam.
I've been waiting for this video for years. I suggested it on your Watergate video and I'm so happy you got around to addressing it.
I think it’s important to understand why the U.S. supported Batista and did not support Castro. But I know that’s a topic for another video
The United States did not really support Batista, the embargo on Cuba began in 1958 as an embargo on the weapons that Fulgencio Batista had bought and needed to stop Castro in the East of the island.
Easy, Batista was capitalist and allowed American companies to squeeze Cuba dry, Castro actually put the needs of the people first and didn't let capitalists steal the people's labour, invested in public health and education, ended homelessness, made sure everyone had food, all things the USA couldn't stand.
@@julianjenkins3347 Yeah they supported him cause he let them and the mafia do whatever they liked in Cuba
@@someday4099The US installed Batista, Pinochet, & others like them for very simple reasons. The left wing movements threatened property owners and business interests for the benefit of the people
@@someday4099the US absolutely did support Batista, as well as Pinochet, & and other genocidal fascists in Latin America as enforcers of their business interests
Talking to a Cuban exile about democracy is crazy.
Wait until you see an American thats never been in Cuba saying that Cuba is democratic
@@floptaxie68more Democratic than the US
@@floptaxie68 Equivalent to Americans saying Russia is the country of free speech
Please don't fail me Mr. Beat
I already did. But you didn't stop believing in me. Thank you.
@@iammrbeatthis is a horrible video, so one sided. You could’ve interviewed at least 1 other person who wasn’t a Cuban exile. Someone who didn’t love Batista like this dude. Most Cubans hated Batista and saw the exiles as Batista trying to return.
@@grumpymonkeyenterprises6413 as if that is an easy thing to do
@@grumpymonkeyenterprises6413I'm disappointed by his capitalist bias as well. He normally does well with nuance.
@@ryanwilson742to be fair we can’t rule out that he didn’t try to get in touch with one but had failed. It could’ve helped to have acknowledged trying to get in touch with one if at all
I love your videos! It’s so awesome that the last few videos you’ve made you interviewed people with real experience on the subject. It’s absolutely crazy that you’re able to get in contact with these people, and your videos are always so informative. Thank you for everything that you do!
Did anyone planning the attempts on Castro think about, what if someone else picked up the seashell with explosives while scuba diving?
Ikr?
They didn't care.
Awesome video! I appreciate you being open to changing your perspective based on first-hand conversations with a primary source who was directly involved.
I was pleasantly surprised by this video, as I know you tend to be very anti-interventionist and isolationist, but oftentimes hearing from a primary source, especially firsthand, who holds the opposite perspective has the effect of providing you with a more nuanced view of events.
I would love it if you could take a similar look at other events using primary source interviews or documents told from a perspective that you may have previously disagreed with. It still may not sway your opinion, but it will at the very least give you a more nuanced view of such events.
Thanks again for the video and keep up the great work!
I'm not saying he wasn't a monster, I've no doubt he was. But, if you aren't at least a little bit on Castro's side here, clearly you don't know anything about Pinochet
While I never expected to agree with a video like this, I am extremely disappointed. While it’s natural for an American perspective to be biased, this video contains factual inaccuracies and misleading quotes.
For example, the claim that the US initially tried to “work with” the Castro government is a lie. The US had always supported the Batista regime throughout the revolution (and never invaded it despite much more abhorrent human rights abuses, by the way). The US simply continued having some diplomatic relations with Cuba until Castro threatened American business interests by nationalising foreign owned property.
At the same time, not a single mention is made of international law regarding illegal invasions. The claim that the Cuban government violated human rights by executing individuals who partook in a foreign invasion of their country is completely baseless; whether we like it or not, in almost every country in the world in the 1960s execution was the legal punishment for treason. The claim that these soldiers were all “freedom loving” is also dubious, given many were in at least some way connected to the Batista regime, which committed various atrocities against their own people to secure the dictatorship, including rape, torture and extrajudicial killings. Finally, the claim that Cuba is “missing out” on prosperity today without a single mention on the illegal US embargo on Cuba, which all but 2 other countries (including almost all US allies) agrees has severe humanitarian consequences and must end. Regardless of your opinions on the merits of each country’s economic model, the US’s attempt to starve Cuba is disgusting and outrageous, and it is heartless to mock Cuba for suffering its consequences.
I used to think exactly like this until I did more research. Sure, I'm biased to defend Cuban Americans, and indeed talking with multiple Bay of Pigs veterans changed my perspective, but you must also recognize your bias. I have cited all my sources in the description if you care to look. One more thing- the U.S. absolutely tried to work with the Castro government for a brief time. You are straight up lying by saying otherwise.
@@iammrbeat thank you for your response. I don’t claim to be unbiased and I also have no animosity towards you, I respect your channel and the work you put into your videos. Everything I mentioned is an omission that results in telling a distorted story. For example, not a single mention of how the Cuban revolution affected American business interests is made despite it being an obvious factor in US decision making. Devoid of this context, the claim that the US initially tried to “work with” Castro and then did a volt-face in light of his human rights record is at least misleading. The US did have diplomatic relations with Cuba until the nationalisation of American owned assets; I may be ignorant of any other cooperation between the two other than standard diplomatic relations before this, however.
I wasn’t expecting a video like this to be objective or even balanced, and understand why it is not, but I don’t understand how you claim that “more research” defeats all my points, which are all omissions you made in your video. I don’t dispute that Castro made human rights abuses and I don’t claim to know how prosperous Cuba would have been if its economic system had changed. However, the facts that US animosity towards Cuba begun after Cuba threatened American interests, that the Bay of Pigs invasion was against international law, that many of those who carried it out were former Batista-era officials, that execution was considered an acceptable punishment for treason (even though I personally disagree with it) and that the Cuba Embargo is denounced by the international community are all very relevant to the subject of this video (the last one not so much, except for the ending of the video). Omitting all of these results in a recollection that is distorted to the point of being untrue, even if nothing in the video is an explicit lie. I am not doubting any of your claims (again, except for the reason US policy towards Cuba changed) so I am not doubting any of your sources. I haven’t seen any source disagreeing with everything I have listed, though of course, any such source would be welcome. I apologise if I come off as too offensive or disrespectful, but this video greatly disappointed me and I am also deeply concerned with how distorted recollections such as these affect US public perception to continue supporting the Cuba sanctions despite international pressure (even though I am sure this was not your intention).
completely agree with your points. I don't think Mr Beat has any obligation of being unbiased, but as a history/cultural channel, i do think that a more complete picture should be shown. I know that i'm also biased, but for me it is clear that too little screen time was even dedicated to explaining WHY the invasion was set, which wouldn't be a deviation from the main topic, and would've added more context even with the biased view
The US did in fact try to work with Castro until he made it clear he was going to seize all US assets on Cuban soil, to which I ask, what is a country (A) SUPPOSED to do when country (B) decides to expropriate all of country (A)'s stuff in their territory? If the answer is "nothing", then country (A) has shown it does not care about the preservation of its citizens' property.
More importantly, the US didn't really care that Castro was a brutal dictator, they had worked with plenty of them before. What made the US mad was Cuba's decision to cozy up to their worst enemies in the process.
Amazing to say that the Cuban revolution set back human rights… most people were illiterate peasants without enough food under Bautista. Economic rights of who?
Batistas cronies and rich American investors.
Exactly my point, and Batista murdered opposition on the regular, so the idea Castro was more restrictive on opposing voices is laughable.
The old guy said at least they had free market economy?
@@irvingg71 and why that is good? Shouldn't you care more about how many people have roofs over their head, food on their plate, get good quality health care and education?
@@LillyP-xs5qe was that the case during Batista?
Say what you want about Fidel Castro, the guy survived Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama. All of whom wanted him dead or out of office.
The US went overseas and took out Hussein and Bin Laden, but could not get a guy 100 miles off the Florida coast. I realize that its much more complex than that. I have always hoped that in my lifetime Cuba would one day be a vacation destination for Americans, but that's not likely to ever happen.
They couldn't get him because his people protected him. Because they loved him for saving them from a brutal dictatorship
19:44 that smile is made of gold
@@mr.handsomecoffeecup2406 i thought the same exact thing
America when refugees talk about freedom from oppression: 😅
America when refugees talk about freedom from oppression but the country was destabilized by US businesses: 😮
Actually the economy was doing pretty well under Batista
@@thorpeaaron1110 That Pinochet profile pic is not helping you at all.
@@thorpeaaron1110tell that to the millions of Cubans who were uneducated, homeless, and dying from sickness. The economy was doing well for the rich and corporations. None of that trickled down to the rest of Cuba.
@@grumpymonkeyenterprises6413yeah dude Cuba was a medieval country, we didnt even have cars😂😂😂😂
I remember the first time I heard of the Bay of Pigs invasion, it was in (of all things) one of the Metal Gear Solid games. In the third game of the series, a prequel game called "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater," set in 1964, the last Boss character you have to face in the game, appropriately enough called "The Boss," talked about it, referring to the area by its Spanish name:
"In 1961, I was sent to Cuba, to Bahía de Cochinos. It was part of a CIA sponsored mission, under the guise of taking Cuban Exiles back to their country,"
Of course, most of the game is fictional, but it's largely based on what really happened in the early 1960's during the Cold War (the Berlin Wall was mentioned, as well as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs invasion)
I dont know how, Kojima knows more about military and geopolitics than most Americans.
@CaseNumber00 I think it helped that he had a huge team working with him, on researching the context for the era he was aiming for. Filler scenes also provide younger viewers, those who were unaware of the happenings in the Cold War in the early 1960's, including what was happening in the Soviet Union by 1964. (Spoilers) there was a conversation involving the character that you're supposed to rescue, Nikolai Sokolov, where you hear about how Nikita Khrushchev was on the verge of being toppled by leonid Brezhnev:
"...ever since the Cuban Missile Crisis 2 years ago, Khrushchev has been pursuing a policy of "peaceful coexistence" with the West. Despite resistance and criticism from hawks in the army and the provincial authorities, Khrushchev has managed to suppress the opposition so far. But, the failure of his agricultural policies has put him in a precarious position, and on top of that, the tragedy last November,"
"President Kennedy's assassination,"
"Precisely, in a sense, Khrushchev has lost his biggest partner and his power base is rapidly crumbling away,"
I have to say that I'm disappointed with Mr Beat regarding this video. He's clearly championing the US cause here and ignoring Cuban grievances. It stuns me that he's able to make videos with great sensetivity on other topics but here he's just reiterating claptrap meant to whitewash the operation. This isn't education its propeganda.
[And I'm not even saying that Castro is a "good guy" or anything]
If Castro isnt a good guy then whats wrong with opposing him? Wasnt his thing to be opposing the government?🙄
@@floptaxie68answering every critical comment on this video won't make you right, you sorry excuse for a person
the problem was praising a cia backed operation the tried to overthrow another nation's government. and acting like cold war usa had (any) care for cuban human rights.
GMT's Cuba Libre: Castro's Insurgency 1957-1958 brought me here.
I was under the impression that The Bay of Pigs was the turning point that encouraged Castro to ally with the U.S.S.R. Before that time both he and Ernesto Che Guevara thought Russia as too imperialistic.
20:29 we’ll said!!!
Thank you for this episode and for such a great talk about our community and history.
So glad you’re doing a video on this topic. I’ve written paper about this in college learning about the fact leading up to it blew my mind and it’s aftermath shook the world
That market economy in Cuba ran off of slave labor. Lost a sub.
Awesome video! This topic hits very close to home because my family had to flee Cuba during the revolution. My great grandfather worked for the Department of Justice under the Baptista Regime
Yeah, the U.S. sadly used to support brutal dictators whenever the opposition was Communist, when they really should have remained neutral.
Hardcore Containment was a very flawed policy, whereas it ultimately didn't matter if a few minor countries here and there fell to Communism through popular support (as opposed to an actual invasion like with South Korea), at least not in comparison to the huge Communist block that already existed at the time between the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China.
The many comments here incorrectly positing this as a choice between Batista and Castro fundamentally misunderstand the Cuban situation.
The United States had zero intention of restoring Fulgencio Batista to power, and in fact had abandoned support for him well before he was deposed.
Cuba had been a democracy through much of the early 20th century, and Batista was even elected at one point. Later when he returned to power he assumed dictatorial authority and became increasingly unpopular.
When the seeds of revolution began to sprout in the late 1950s, the United States urged Batista to leave Cuba and hold fresh elections, offering him exile in Florida. He decided to cling on until the very end, by which point America had abandoned support for him in favor of trying to sway Castro into the Western camp.
When Castro revealed himself to be a communist with the intent of expropriating foreign property and opening relations with Moscow, of course the United States began trying to remove him, but at no point was the intent to restore Batista or his tinpot dictatorship (whose incompetence had led to the revolution in the first place) to power.
Ur right they would've gotten another fascist attack dog like they did in other latin american countried that didnt have the luxury of being an island with tough terrain
I mean, it seems understandable why the missile crisis came immediately after. They basically put Castro on death's ground, so he had every motivation to try and get nuclear weapons, even if the price was high.
I don’t understand the logic of over throwing other countries.
By what authority would such an action be performed?
None, the US is just so powerful they dont give a f-
The freaking Platt Amendment? The reason Cuba is a country today is because of the US and the US had the compromise of taking care of the Cuban democracy so it didn’t end up being a failed country like the rest of Latin America. Many people didnt like this out of nationalism and pride, but after all it seems like we needed that protection from the US.
If you look at Cuban history the Republic wasnt very stable, three conflicts in the beginning, the dictatorship of Machado, the inestability of the 30s and then Batista, the Cuban presidents never wanted the help of the US all because of patriotism and see how it ended up?
Usually it's done under the guise of freeing the people from a dictatorship committing human rights violation and giving them the American values of democracy and freedom etc etc. Cynically, it's done for the interests of American defense strategy (propping up allies in other parts of the world so they can have military outposts), and the interests of American private business who effectively own politicians, and turn countries into "free markets" ie. they can extract all their natural resources like oil.
Can you please make an in depth video on the Mexican-American War? I think it’s quite an interesting topic that isn’t really discussed often. I would be particularly interested in how the Native Americans in the southwest sided with in the conflict.
Had to do a 5 page report on the intelligence failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion for my capstone seminar, so this was a fun video to check out. Great interview btw.
Mr. Beat is a true democrat, he takes his history with a mountain of right-wing salt.
Right wing = common sense.
Left wingers don’t see communism or socialism, or any sort of leftist economics for what it is.
The best example of a democrat. Always siding with the right when economics are involved.
Mr beat you cant confuse me like this. but i’m still here. ready to fulfil my role as mr beats probably 234th biggest fan 💪
I went to rewatch and *poof*. Glad it's back! I feel like I had a comment but have forgotten. Nice and informative. Other than The Godfather II, I was mostly ignorant. I went to high school in suburban Philadelphia and a handful of Cuban exiles lived in the area. My Spanish teacher was one, also a couple of classmates. It's good to have a wider view of what happened. I was still in kindergarten when this occurred.
Ask not what Mr. Beat can do for you, Ask what you can do for Mr. Beat 🇺🇸🦅
Legends say that Kennedy's Ghost said that to Mr. Beat.
Enjoyed this one, Beat!
Cool you got to visit the Brigade 2506 Museum, and speak to a survivor of the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Aloha 😊🤙🏼
Nice Video Mr. Beat!
My grandfather served 12 years as political prisoner in Cuba during the Castro regime. All my family came from the Mariel boat lifts too. Awesome to see videos like this.
Have you ever thought about making a video talking about *how* you sometimes get things wrong? Not in a judgemental way, I just think it would be interesting to see your thought process, or how you scrutinize your sources/conclusions after receiving feedback from commenters. I understand if they're usually just simple mistakes though and theres no story behind them. Thanks for all the great videos
Thanks Mr Beat for another great video. From everything, I already knew about the Bay of Pigs, the whole operation was just a mess. It's fascinating to look back at this. A totally different time in America compared to now.
Thanks for watching and thanks for the kind words!
Yay Cuba mentioned! 🎉
The tone of this video is subservient to empire
Cuba winning a war against the USA is something that happened, soon after Cuba invaded Angola, it was a weird time.
I can't imagine a worse place to be than the Brigade 2506 museum, horrendous vibes.
Thanks Mr. Beat, this makes the next 21 minutes without power a little easier
Usually like your videos but you missed the mark so fundamentally on this one.
The idea that the CIA EVER had the interest of the Cuban people at heart is laughable. Batista was a dictator who protected American capital interests in Cuba, Castro was a dictator who opposed American capital interests in Cuba. That’s it.
I heavily implied this in the video. The CIA was totally down with dictators as long as those dictators let the US make money in their country.
@@iammrbeat I struggle to understand how you could come to that conclusion but not connect it to the invasion? The video presents it as an attempted liberation of Cuba but hardly questions the intentions of American involvement (passively if at all) or what they intended to achieve by propping up an opposition government in exile.
It seems that the intent of this video was to humanize the 2506 Brigade but it almost uses this a shield for criticism of the US government's involvement. Perhaps that wasn't your intention with this but American interference in developing nations at the expense of human rights is so frequently a theme of US foreign policy that it still really should grant further analysis.
So funny 😹 you say when the Cuban government is crying for foreign investment, who the hell wants to invest in a country that confiscates private property Lmao
Hey Mr. Beat
Hey
Such a low effort comment lol
@@iammrbeatHey
@@jingles123456789ify I commented as soon as the video came out, do you want me to write an essay?
What happened to the original?
Yeah, I FAILED in the first version by making two notable mistakes in it. So it's bye bye.
@@iammrbeatwhat were the two mistakes, for the people who watched the original? And thanks for everything that you do!
@@iammrbeatyou made some fundamental errors though by saying Batista was less restrictive on human rights... He was way worse, Castro stayed in power this long cause he is actually good for the people, especially after the horrors of Batista, your guy was a biased liar who was bitter he can't steal from the proletarians anymore
@@christofos One of the was that he used footage of the colombian city of Cartagena and misteakenly passed it off as a Cuban city. I don't know about the other one, though.
@@LillyP-xs5qeproof of that?
The mysterious voice lol... I watched The casual historian before this and I knew who that mysterious voice was 👍👍... Mrbeat ROX
The air cover arrived an hour later than planned. This is because of the different time zones of Nicaragua and Cuba.
Indeed!
@@iammrbeatwhy do u only respond to the comments that are just praising you or fun facts? Answer the comments that call out your one sidedness on the video. Batista was 100% worse than Castro. Castro brought education, healthcare, and property to the Cuban people. Under Batista he filled the pockets of corporations and criminals. These exiles are not hero’s, they were henchman for Batista and American greed. They may have been misled but their cause was extremely flawed. I don’t think you mentioned the decades long embargo once in this. The main reason for why Cuba is economically stunted. Lemme guess it’s just because of communism to you?
I didn't expect you to have such an imperialistic framing on this. Americans were not trying to bring "freedom" to Cuba, they wanted to exploit the island and reestablish neoliberalism. The reason why Cuba still stands as it is, is because the people support their government and economic system, which has lifted millions out of mysery.
Cuba wasnt neoliberal before Batista Lmao the 1940 Constitution, which Fidel promised to reinstate, was social democracy, Fidel was just a Soviet toy so I dont why you cry so much when its America doing it
@@floptaxie68stop lying
@@sharkmiiiscool stop crying tankie
@@floptaxie68 you're the one crying, gusano. Get a life
you’re the goat i love you
We are an empire
A quasi-empire
i always rewatch ur videos anyway so it works out!
I love your content keep it going to 2 mil subs and congrats on being successful
I actually visited the Bay of Pigs Museum last year and said it was my favorite museum in Mr Beat’s video on museums. Part of my likes to think the video was because of me…
I went to Cuba as a solo American two months ago. I had the opportunity to walk through the Fidel Castro house in Havana. It was very awkward being the only American in the group as we walked through the Bay of Pigs section of the tour. It is a very glorified piece of history for the Cuban government, being seen as a testament to their courage and strength.
Yeah I wish I had the opportunity to also visit that site.
It wasnt his house, they just took one of the many empty mansions of Havana and made a museum
The veteran interview is class 🙌
19:05 As we all know heros are people who try to overthrow a dictator to install another dictator
So really I guess Castro was also a hero by thay definition
I think this is the first time where I've ever disagreed outright with the framing you have on this topic, this framing of the Bay of Pigs invasion as a virtuous action taken by the US government is very strange. In a reverse context (say with Russia in the US instead of the US in Cuba) we would view the actions of the government as abominable regardless of the outcome. This neoliberal view of Castro and Cuba in the 50s is honestly outdated and you should have considered further why the Communist revolution happened in Cuba from the perspective of those who supported the revolution, even you said the invasion made Castro MORE popular than he was. The Bay of Pigs was a thankfully failed effort by a colonial United States to try and overthrow yet another South/Central American government because we didn't like the specific way they did things, even if their citizens seemed to. We recognize why this sort of thing is bad when our government does it today (I.e. Haiti) but refuse to extend that reasoning to Cuba because of our propagandized education on the topic.
I'm from Cuba, me and my family currently live in Spain, I've been all morning talking with my dad about this and the current situation. Today is his birthday. Thanks mr beat
Batista better than Castro? What a load of bollocks.
@@Eddn102 go to Cuba and count how many buildings were built after 1959, only a couple of soviet boxes that are in worse condition than some 100yo building
@@floptaxie68 dios mio, ya deja de chuparselaa a batista, estás respondiendo a todos los comentarios de este video solo defendiendo su dictadura
@@nowhereboy5691 jajajaja un no sabo kid comunista? Patetico
@@floptaxie68 no se necesita ser comunista para entender un poco de historia básica de Cuba
Only a few moments in to this video, it's hard to take it seriously when your explanation for why the USA's refusal to work with Castro is to do with their supposed morals and not to do with how they realized they couldn't use Castro as their next puppet dictator for their imperial interests. Regardless of your opinions on Castro, love or hate him, you can't seriously believe Uncle Sam ever "liberates" anyone out of the goodness of his heart and not for some ulterior motive.
Thank you for the excellent video.
Tbh very underwhelming video, a lot of key things lesding up to castro is missing, the first being the US decided Batista was a lost cause and abandon support for him, with the second being the US supporting numerous revolution groups toppling him. Castro wasn’t the only one fighting him and talking how he ended up in control is important to the story as well
Why'd you reupload this Mr. Beat? Just curious?
I FAILED in the first version by making two notable mistakes in it.
The US nowadays likes to call out china about the uyghurs whenever the can but what they ares till doing to Cuba and its economy (by extension to its people) its appalling and extremely hypocritical
Obama did start to ease the sanctions against Cuba, but Trump restored them and Biden pretty much continued the same sactions that Trump restored. It's criminal what the U.S. is doing to Cuba.
Watched it again! Thanks for correcting the flag issue, Mr Beat!
Thanks 😊
Is this video re-uploaded?
Yeah, I FAILED in the first version by making two notable mistakes in it.
My father would tell me that in New York pool halls people were betting $500 that Castro wouldn't make it to Tuesday.
VIVA LA CUBA!! VIVA LA REVOLUCION!
the biggest mistake was harry truman allowing bautista to be in power in the 1st place
Howdy Mr. Beat
Great Video, as usual, Mr. Beat. I think that the biggest goof is the belief that, back then, the Cubans wanted to remove the late Fidel Castro
First time you uploaded you asked for suggestions on what to cover in US history. Here was mine: Rarely covered: *Spanish American origins of US States.* New Mexico settlement predates much of the 13 colonies. Also early settlements in California are undercovered.
Amazing and interesting
As a Cuban-American living in Miami, I appreciate that you've taken interest in Cubans history & how impactful they've been for South Florida. Would love if you have some attention to Cubans who participated in the Vietnam war as you mentioned. Always nice to hear a good video & learn new things, thank you
2:00 When did US govt. showed interest in working with Castro? Do you not know that most of this is now verifiable.
I really think that it boils down to JFK wanting it to be a clandestine operation, and thus cancelling air strikes
So much information left, I can't even list it all
I appreciate the effort you made when speaking Spanish
You also asked about doing the Korean War, in a prior version comment: Indy Neidell is doing a full coverage of it currently but if you have a different take then his it might be worth contrasting what you think is important compared to his.
This video is unusually bias for Mr. Beat.
Why did the Original Upload of This Video Fail?
I made two notable mistakes in it. :(
I'd like to see you touch on the Soviet influence on Cuba during this time.
Im relatively new here, ant I enjoy your content and the honesty of your presentation. You should. Still be teaching. Teachers who are passionate about their subject matter are rare and very valuable to our nation.
George Santayana was correct ,
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it
We need teachers with your passion. Keep up the good work..
I need a breakdown on the Cuban Missile Crisis, por favor...
Hello, again!
Hello again!
i didn't watch it the first time so you definitely didn't fail to me!
I need as much of my information online as possible. The people need to know