Fidel Defends His People

Wouldn't it be terrific to vote for someone you actually had confidence in? Instead it will be the usual game of crossing fingers while holding noses to vote for the "lesser evil." At the risk of being accused of handing the election over to the repuglicans, here are some thoughts from Chairman Castro. It seems Obama's "change" doesn't really extend to Cuban policy or, more importantly, to the people who will receive the impact of these policies.
Castro calls Obama speech "formula for hunger"
Mon May 26, 2008 10:51am EDT
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Monday called Democrat Barack Obama the candidate most advanced on social issues running for U.S. president but said his speech on Cuba last week was a "formula for hunger."
In one of his periodic newspaper columns published in Communist Party newspaper Granma, Castro said he had "no personal rancor" toward Obama, but "if I defended him I would do a huge favor for his adversaries."
Obama, speaking before an influential Cuban-American group in Miami, said Cuba deprived its people of civil liberties and free elections, and vowed to maintain, with modifications, a 46-year-old U.S. trade embargo against the island.
Obama has called for lifting restrictions on travel to Cuba and the amount of money people in the United States can send to relatives in Cuba.
"Obama's speech can translate into a formula of hunger for the nation (Cuba), the remittances like alms and the visits to Cuba as propaganda for consumerism and the unsustainable lifestyle that he sustains.
"How is the very grave problem of the food crisis going to be confronted? Grains must be distributed among human beings, domestic animals and fish, which year by year are smaller and more scarce in the over-exploited seas," Castro said. "It's not easy to produce meat from gas and oil." [Don't cha wish you could be that smart when you're 81!]
"Obama overestimates the possibilities of technology in the struggle against climate change, although he is more conscious than (President George W.) Bush of the risks and the little time available," he said.
Obama "without doubt is, from the social and human point, the most advanced candidate" running for the U.S. presidency, Castro said. But he accused him of reviving the Monroe Doctrine, which stated in 1823 the United States would not permit European countries to further colonize or interfere in the Americas.
Last week, Castro blasted Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain in a newspaper column for their criticisms of the Cuban government. McCain, he said, showed why he finished near the bottom of his class in college.
Castro, 81 and not fully recovered from intestinal surgery in July 2006, took power in a 1959 revolution but stepped aside in February and was succeeded as president by his younger brother Raul Castro. He is still head of the Communist Party and said to be involved in governing.
(Reporting by Jeff Franks; editing by Jackie Frank)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2633744220080526ters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2633744220080526 BTW--There is a very inspiring documentary called The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. Instead of freaking out about the coming crises, Cuba has already managed to restructure their gas guzzling ways to create sustainability. Here's the blurb from Ironweed: "After the Soviet Union collapsed and the U.S. tightened its embargo, Cubans suffered a ‘peak oil’ crisis. Their adaptation to this decline in petroleum offers a much-needed model for living sustainably on a finite earth." A good way to obtain it is from the monthly film club, Ironweed.org. Check it out!
http://www.ironweedfilms.com/films/past

Cuban American Exiles Celebrate CIA Terrorist

Luis Posada Carriles, a terror suspect abroad, enjoys a 'coming-out' in Miami
A dinner with 500 fellow Cuban exiles honors the militant and former CIA operative, now 80 and still wanted in Venezuela on terrorism charges.
By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, May 7, 2008
MIAMI -- [...] the man being honored by 500 fellow Cuban Americans at a sold-out gala was Luis Posada Carriles, the former CIA operative wanted in Venezuela on terrorism charges and under a deportation order for illegally entering the United States three years ago.
Posada, 80, has mostly kept a low profile since his release from a Texas prison a year ago and a federal judge's dismissal of the only U.S. charges against him -- making false statements to immigration officials.
But recent events like the Friday dinner and an exhibition and sale of his paintings last fall show that the man who spent his life trying to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro has returned to the social forefront of this city's exile community.
"We are coming to the end of a terrible stage. The end of our struggle is near," Posada told the crowd of supporters in evening dress, referring to Castro's failing health.
Venezuela's ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, condemned the celebration of Posada as a mockery of justice and evidence of a Bush administration double standard in fighting terrorism.
"This is outrageous, particularly because he kept talking about violence," Alvarez said of Posada. "He said that the whole thing now is 'to sharpen our machetes' " for a confrontation with leftist regimes in Latin America.
The U.S. government has never given Venezuela a formal answer to its 3-year-old request for extradition of Posada, despite a treaty providing for such cooperation that has been in effect since 1922, the ambassador said.
Posada, a naturalized Venezuelan citizen, is alleged to have masterminded the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 on which all 73 on board were killed, including a youth fencing team returning from a tournament in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. He is also suspected of plotting a series of hotel bombings in Havana in the late 1990s, one of which killed an Italian tourist.
He has boasted of his many attempts to kill Castro and has allegedly been involved in, according to court documents, "some of the most infamous events of 20th century Central American politics."
Posada was serving time in a Panama prison for a 2000 assassination attempt on Castro when outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso pardoned him and three accomplices in August 2004 in what some observers saw as a favor to President Bush to rally the Cuban-dominated Florida vote for his reelection.
[...] As Venezuela, Cuba and human rights groups clamored for Posada's extradition for trial on the plane-bombing charges, federal authorities here arrested him in May 2005 for illegal entry. A federal judge in Texas ordered him deported, but another judge prohibited his being sent to Venezuela, heeding claims by Posada's lawyers that he could face torture or execution there.
None of a half-dozen friendly countries contacted by the State Department would agree to take Posada.
[...] Analysts speculate that the U.S. government has dodged calls for prosecution of Posada for fear he would disclose details of CIA involvement in coups, assassination plots and scandals, including the Iran-Contra Affair.
Peter Kornbluh, head of the Cuba Documentation Project at George Washington University's National Security Archive, has compiled declassified CIA and FBI documents on Posada that show he remained in close touch with Washington handlers throughout his covert service.
"The spectacle of a wanted international terrorist being publicly feted as a hero in Miami makes a mockery of the Bush administration's commitment to wage a war on terrorism," he said of Posada's coming-out party.
Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.) convened a congressional hearing in November on the administration's handling of the Posada case, arguing that there was "compelling evidence" implicating Posada in the plane bombing.
Delahunt said Tuesday that "there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm" under the current administration for prosecuting Posada, but that he would push again for legal action against Posada after the fall election. "To have Posada honored in such a way sends a terrible statement to the rest of the world," the congressman said of the tribute.
Posada, still under a supervision order with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, entered the banquet to a standing ovation, his face beaming and minus the scar from a 1990 attack by gunmen in Guatemala. […]
carol.williams@latimes.com http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-posada7-2008may07,0,1699509.story