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Wednesday, February 27, 2008
William F. Buckley Has Died
William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008) [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I’m devastated to report that our dear friend, mentor, leader, and founder William F. Buckley Jr., died overnight in his study in Stamford, Connecticut.
After year of illness, he died while at work; if he had been given a choice on how to depart this world, I suspect that would have been exactly it. At home, still devoted to the war of ideas.
As you might expect, we’ll have much more to say here and in NR in the coming days and weeks and months. For now: Thank you, Bill. God bless you, now with your dear Pat. Our deepest condolences to Christopher and the rest of the Buckley family. And our fervent prayer that we continue to do WFB’s life’s work justice. http://corner.nationalreview.com/
President Bush ran for office as a "compassionate conservative." And he continues to nurture his conservative base — even issuing his first veto this week against embryonic stem cell research.
But lately his foreign policy has come under fire from some conservatives — including the father of modern conservatism, William F. Buckley.
CBS Evening News Saturday anchor Thalia Assuras sat down for an exclusive interview with Buckley about his disagreements with President Bush.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/22/eveningnews/main1826838.shtml
Milton Friedman, R.I.P.
By William F. Buckley Jr.
It isn’t right to rail against fortune when death comes to a friend, or a hero—in this case, both—at the high age of 94. Still, we are free to choose, and there was grief when word came to us of the death of Milton Friedman. We were on board a large ship, where a week of seminars at sea was being guided by a dozen celebrants of conservative doctrine. One was to have been Friedman himself, but when the boat pulled away from San Diego, bound for Mexico, Friedman was in a hospital in San Francisco.
What struck the band of brothers who came together last Friday afternoon to devise an impromptu tribute to our missing seminarist was in fact exactly that—grief, never mind that he had lived 94 years. Although Professor Friedman engaged himself to the end, in tandem with his brilliant wife, Rose, in academic and philosophical work, it was not the discontinuation of this that caused the pang aboard the S.S. Oosterdam. If the word had come that Friedman would never again write an academic paper, or a book or column, we’d have tightened our belts, and perhaps reminded ourselves of the million words that are there in print, and will always be there, to reread and to ponder. But what we felt was not so much the discontinuation of that great wellspring of liberal and penetrating thought. It was grief for the loss of a person.
It is inevitably so that the end of life of a central intellectual or political or indeed theatrical figure can be felt personally only by a comparative few, because only a few can have known any historical figure. The legion of admirers at a remove—those who felt for him, without ever having met him, admiration, devotion, even love—is something different, more detached. But there was also the impact of his person on individual students and friends and coadjutors, and on Thursday, November 16, we felt a wholly personal loss.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Nzg3MThlMDVhZDEwNTUxMThhOWM3M2E3NWNjMjA4NDE= Posted at 10:56 am by Psychomike
Osama Luvs Clueless Candidates
Clueless Candidates Make Osama's Day
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| by Michael Scheuer |
While McCain, Obama, and Clinton attend services of their choice on Sunday, all worship at the shrine of intervention-that-spurs jihad the rest of the week. Just in the past month, all three have pushed an interventionist agenda in Pakistan and Kosovo, and, notwithstanding claims by Obama and Clinton, to a great extent in Iraq. At day's end, each is ready to intervene abroad to champion abstractions such as democracy rather than U.S. interests; each is ready to spend the lives of soldiers and Marines to do so; and each advances the Islamist cause by failing to see that Muslim hatred is motivated by U.S. interventionism more than any other factor.
In Pakistan, we are seeing the last stage of the destruction of our most important anti-Islamist ally, Pervez Musharraf. Here is a man who helped us destroy his nation's ally, the Taliban; caused al-Qaeda to mark him for death; and brought his nation near to civil war by sending Pakistan's army into the tribal region. True enough, he has received billions in return and at times duped us, but what other U.S. ally has done so much that is counter to its national interests? The answer is none; most of our allies have deserted the Iraq and Afghan coalitions.
As thanks, Washington strengthened Pakistan's Indian enemy, hectored Musharraf for not doing all of America's dirty work, and generally blamed our coming defeat in Afghanistan on his refusal to destroy his nation to help us. McCain, Obama, and Clinton endorsed all this, and they were as aggressive as President Bush in demanding Musharraf reestablish democracy via an election that further eroded stability and will open the country's treasury to Pakistan's biggest thieves, Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zadari. This "success" will force America to spend more money and lives in Afghanistan, because we neutered a vital ally for an abstract, unachievable goal – a secular Pakistani democracy. Only al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and their Pakistani allies benefit.
And then there is Kosovo. Again, McCain, Obama, and Clinton joined Bush in gleefully applauding Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia. And what has that action yielded? It lit the fuse burning toward a new Balkan war because America's bipartisan political class wants to peddle its version of democracy even if it means stripping the most politically sacred portion of Christian Serbia and giving it to a Muslim regime that will be a magnet for support from al-Qaeda, other Islamists, and America's jihad-supporting Arab Peninsula allies. Bush and the three candidates have committed America's prestige in a region where no U.S. interests exist. These interventionists will eventually waste the lives of U.S. troops in a bloody attempt to protect "U. S. credibility" by trying to stop Serbia's inevitable Russian-backed recovery of Kosovo and the attendant slaughter of Muslim Kosovars. When the Balkans' smoke clears, only the Islamists will be victorious.
And finally, Iraq. Bush's stay-the-course doctrine is stridently echoed by McCain and rhetorically opposed by Obama and Clinton, but the difference is more apparent than real. Moqtada al-Sadr has extended his cease-fire surge for another six months; the U.S. military can now continue killing Sunnis so Sadr will have fewer to kill later. Sadr's brilliant, Machiavellian surge keeps U.S. casualties down, gives a false sense of increasing Iraqi stability, and allows McCain to rattle his saber while permitting Obama and Clinton to begin hedging their demand for withdrawal to avoid appearing as lefty surrenderistas this fall.
Flash ahead to Inauguration Day, 2009. Now in power, the new president – be it McCain, Obama, or Clinton – will begin seeing "nuances" that require America to stay in Iraq: to fight terrorism; to prevent civil war; to continue the Awakening; to plant deeper democratic roots. The list of mitigating nuances given Americans will be both endless and false.
What the new president will find is that three decades of U.S. intervention in other peoples' wars – in this case the Arab-Israeli conflict – has locked us in Iraq because leaving would undermine Israel's security. As I recently argued in the Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Focus, al-Qaeda has secured its goal in Iraq, a base to project influence and terror into the Levant and Israel and is already doing so. If America leaves Iraq, al-Qaeda's base will solidify and Israel's security will deteriorate; pro-Israel American campaign funders will demand McCain, Obama, or Clinton defend the Jewish state by staying in Iraq no matter the cost; and each will do so because each operates under the delusion that U.S. and Israeli national-security interests are identical. And the Islamists will have another win.
So vote as they will, these candidates offer Americans no chance of a foreign policy that accurately gauges the Islamist threat, let alone defeats it. Indeed, the debate over which candidate is experienced enough to be commander in chief is farcical; each candidate is an interventionist and will simply abide by the dogma kept in place by America's political class for 30-plus years. After all, it takes no experience whatsoever to follow a script whose pages are now discolored by both age and the blood of America's soldiers and Marines.
And on Inauguration Day, 2013, Americans will find our ruling interventionists – Republican or Democrat – have U.S. forces fighting in Iraq; have more forces fighting in Afghanistan; have committed forces in places like the Balkans and Darfur; and have motivated millions more Muslims to join the jihad by their policies' impact. For bin Laden and the Islamists, McCain, Obama, or Clinton equals precisely the same thing – game, set, and, perhaps, match. | http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=12424 Posted at 08:35 am by Psychomike
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
How Ron Paul/Nader Could Win
The GOP is pleased that Ralph Nader has joined the frey, envisioning a split occuring in the Democratic Party after the Superdelegates select Hillary. But should they be so happy?
On the subject of immigration, Nader or Paul have a huge hole to drive a truck thru the other two parties. All 3 major candidates support amnesty. Paul could say we should determine how many illegal immigrants we need and issue visas to that many and still retain his libertarianism. Nader could just say close the borders. I believe that would attract people from both parties and have a far greater impact on the election than any third party has since the early 20th Century. The American public is militantly anti-amnesty. When they discover items like this:
MojoPojo sends us this pamphlet from the Mexican government on how to sneak into America. No, I'm not kidding.
they tend to get really mad. If the candidate took a stand against amnesty and siphoned off 25% from EACH party (and such a stance would hit BOTH parties not just one) we could be looking at the emergence of a new party and the end of one.
The Clinton Years Revisited
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| Philip Giraldi |
As bad as the past eight years have been, it may be fruitful to remember what U.S. national security policy was like under Bill Clinton, as it is very possible that Washington will soon be returning to that gold standard for underachievement. Under Bill, Serbia was bombed in 1999, killing more than 500 civilians in support of no identifiable U.S. national interest. The result of that bombing and its aftermath has been the forceful and quite likely illegal creation of Kosovo, a predominantly Muslim state in the heart of Europe that harbors more than its share of terrorists, drug dealers, and weapons smugglers. Clinton also arranged for a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant to be attacked to turn the public's attention away from the stains on a blue dress. He vetoed several plans to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and instead pulverized a number of Afghan mud huts with cruise missiles at a half million dollars a pop after two U.S. embassies and the Khobar Towers were blown up by terrorists. If Hillary Clinton is campaigning on Bill Clinton's record, and she is, there is not a whole lot to celebrate except for the fact that Bill did not invade Iraq (though he did think about it, according to his secretary of state).
A number of Clinton relics continue to appear on talk shows and write op-eds for leading newspapers, which suggests that they are still dangerous. Richard Holbrooke, a hawkish Democrat who was heavily involved in the Balkan misadventure, is Hillary's principal foreign policy adviser, and it is widely believed that he will be secretary of state if she is elected. Several others have gravitated toward their natural home at pro-Israel think tanks. Dennis Ross, for example, is counselor and fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which was founded in 1985 by Martin Indyk when he was the director of research for AIPAC. WINEP claims to be impartial on the subject of the Middle East, but it rarely deviates from pro-Israel advocacy.
In an astonishing testament to the resiliency of the Clinton era neocon-lites, several of the better-known examples have recently surfaced in Doha. Qatar hosts an annual conference called the U.S.-Islamic World Forum, which was just concluded, running from Feb. 16-18. This year, for the first time, there was a co-sponsor, the Saban Center of Washington's Brookings Institute. The Saban Center, far from an objective observer of the Middle East, is funded by Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban, who said in a 2004 interview, "I'm a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel." Saban is extremely close to the Clintons and is also reported to be the largest contributor to the Democratic National Committee. When Bill was in office, Saban and his wife slept in the Lincoln bedroom on a number of occasions. Like its founder, the Saban Center is Israel-centric in its policy analysis, sponsoring bilateral meetings in Jerusalem to discuss issues of common concern.
Saban is headed by Martin Indyk, who opened the U.S.-Islamic World conference. Other Doha speakers included Clinton alumni Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger. It should be recalled that Indyk was born in England, became an Australian citizen, and eventually wound up in Washington as a full-time advocate for Israel, first as research director of AIPAC and then as the founder and first executive director of WINEP. In spite of his tenuous claim to American citizenship and possible concerns that his actual loyalty might not be to the United States, Indyk was naturalized by Congress in 1995 so that Bill Clinton could name him U.S. ambassador to Israel. Former Secretary of State Albright is famous for her judgment that the deaths of half a million Iraqi children due to U.S. enforced sanctions were "worth it."
But the presence of Sandy Berger in Doha is even more astonishing than that of Albright or Indyk. Berger, an international trade attorney who was a principal lobbyist for China, was named deputy national security adviser by Clinton in 1993 and national security adviser in 1997. While deputy national security adviser in 1996, Berger was informed that China had acquired designs for a number of U.S. nuclear warheads, considerably enhancing its military capabilities. The information was presumably obtained through successful espionage, with serious security implications, but Berger inexplicably failed to tell the president about the discovery until more than a year later.
In November 1997, Berger was fined $23,000 for his failure to divest himself of stocks that would have caused a potential conflict of interest due to his position in the government. He claimed that he "forgot." In 2003, after he left office, he was observed at the United States National Archives stuffing official documents into his trousers. He was convicted of stealing classified material and fined $50,000, and his security clearance was suspended for three years. Many felt that the sentence was little more than a slap on the wrist, as Berger could well afford the fine, and the remainder of the punishment only amounted to a misdemeanor. Berger may have been deliberately destroying and altering documents because the records in question detailed Clinton administration mistakes in dealing with terrorism prior to 9/11. In one instance, he took all five copies of a single report, suggesting that he was interested in altering the official record permanently. He reportedly smuggled the reports out of the Archives in his trousers and then hid them under equipment at a construction site, picking them up later. Several documents were destroyed by cutting them up with scissors. Berger's incredible behavior has been sometimes viewed as symptomatic of the culture of personal irresponsibility that was part and parcel of the Clinton regime. In May 2007, Berger gave up his law license, reportedly under pressure, claiming that he hadn't used it in 15 years.
Berger lives in Georgetown and is the chairman and owner of a company called Stonebridge International that works as an advisory service for investors seeking opportunities in a number of countries overseas. He also sits on several boards and is reportedly doing quite well financially.
In light of his conviction for theft and destruction of classified documents relating to the historical record, Berger would appear to be a particularly poor choice to be selected to speak in Doha, or anywhere else. To be fair, the organizers of the conference included many diverse voices on the panels and as speakers, including the University of Maryland's Shibley Telhami, but one must wonder about having Saban as a partner for any kind of dialogue on U.S.-Islamic relations. Indyk provided opening remarks, Albright spoke on "The Conflicts That Divide Us," and Berger spoke twice, on the "Presidential Candidates' Foreign Policy Agendas" and "Managing Global Insecurity."
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=12418 | Posted at 08:06 am by Psychomike
Monday, February 25, 2008
How's And Why's Of Kosovo
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CLINTON'S FOLLY COMES HOME TO ROOST: KOSOVO BLOWBACK HITS ENTIRE REGION FROM TURKEY TO IRAQ!, NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON: WHO IS STEALING OUR NUCLEAR SECRETS?, WHY LEFT SHOULD RE-EVALUATE CASTRO
THE SHOCKING STORY OF HOW WE GOT INVOLVED IN KOSOVO/ SERBIA
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Clinton Had A Chance To Avoid Kosovo Bombing |
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by Alan J. Parrington |
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| Now that Slobodan Milosevic has been voted out of office, many in the Clinton Administration will be celebrating the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia as a completed moral victory. We were told after all, that the war was fought for humanitarian reasons - to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing - and that it was started only after all diplomatic efforts had failed. With Kosovo free and Milosevic vanquished, the war is finally won. It was a good war.
As the U.S. Air Attaché in London at the time, I saw a different war, one not so flattering or altruistic. I saw a war of underlying motives, missed diplomatic opportunities, misguided military strategies and questionable outcomes. Worst of all, the war never need happened: Milosevic conceded major U.S. demands two weeks before the war began.
On the evening of March 11, 1999, I was confronted by the Yugoslavian Defence Attaché to the Court of St. James at a British diplomatic reception and told, "Milosevic has decided to accept international, even NATO, troops in Kosovo, but he must first have (a) letter from Clinton explaining the benefits Yugoslavia will receive (in exchange)." I stood there silent, somewhat dumbfounded, as the deployment of foreign troops had been the sticking point in negotiations. The Serb colonel repeated his statement verbatim, questioning if I had understood the import of his message.
"Yes," I assured him, "I understand perfectly, but what benefits are you talking about?"
"I myself do not know," he answered, "But Holbrooke knows!"
Richard Holbrooke, author of the Dayton Accord on Bosnia, had been shuttling back and forth to Belgrade trying to find a peaceful solution to the Kosovo crisis. He had left Belgrade the day before to consult with Washington and was due back in Yugoslavia that weekend. He apparently carried with him a detailed brief of the Milosevic offer.
The timing, place and presence of other diplomats cut short my discussion with the Serb, but by coincidence I had dinner with him at the home of a fellow attaché a few days later. I asked if he had learned any more about the benefits he had spoken of during our last encounter. "I can only speak for myself," he answered, "but there are only three things Yugoslavia must have: Yugoslavia must keep sovereignty over Kosovo, the terrorists (i.e. the Kosovo Liberation Army) must be disarmed, and the referendum (on independence for Kosovo) must be removed." It was apparently too much for the Clinton Administration to accept as Holbrooke's shuttle diplomacy failed and the bombing began March 24.
The war that was supposed to last three days ran into weeks, then months, and had all the appearances of lasting well into the future when, ironically, Russia stepped in and brokered a peace. The war ended June 10 with the United Nations accepting responsibility for Kosovo. When I read the agreement, I was not surprised to see the three Yugoslavian demands had been met or that each side had spun the agreement into a victory for their side. Such is the nature of 20th-century politics. But I began to wonder why it had the taken so much blood to come back to the same starting point as before the war began. There were lots of explanations I reasoned, but none that fit the scenario comfortably, save one.
I came to the conclusion - hypothesis really - that the war had not been about humanitarian issues at all. Like most wars it had been about politics. In this case, the objective all along had been to get rid of Milosevic, Europe's last reigning communist, and whose virulent nationalism had set the region ablaze, sending millions of refugees fleeing to the West where they were not wanted or welcomed.
It was difficult to gauge when Milosevic became the target of the administration's Balkan policy, perhaps as early as 1995 following the debacle in Bosnia. State appointments and initiatives from that time seem to support that theory. In any case, it all hinged on cornering the Serb leader in a war he could not win and for whom capitulation or defeat would spell disaster. Milosevic's Waterloo was thought to be Kosovo, his Achilles heel to be bombing. This is where the strategy went awry.
It is one of the enduring myths of the 20th century that strategic bombing will compel a weak power to throw in the towel and dump an unpopular leader. In practice, the opposite has always been true and even the most unpopular dictators have been made into national heroes by the symbiotic logic that befalls strategic bombardment. Most American administrations, captured by the omnipotence of their own polls, have been slow to grasp this reality and have repeatedly reached for the strategic bomber or missile as an easy way to avoid hard choices.
The Clinton administration was no different. Three days at most, it was claimed, and Milosevic will be history. But in Yugoslavia, as in Iraq and elsewhere, the bombing backfired and rallied disparate Serbian political parties around a common foreign enemy. After 11 weeks of bombing, the administration, running short of precision weapons and faced with the prospect of a bloody ground war, abandoned the bombing strategy and asked the Russians to broker a deal based upon Milosevic's antebellum offer. The war achieved no more than was offered by Milosevic at the beginning and only inflamed ethnic passions for generations to come.
It is a Pyrrhic victory to now claim that the bombing served its purpose. Kosovo remains a part of Yugoslavia, the independence referendum has been cancelled, ethnic cleansing continues (albeit reversed in terms of nationalities), and NATO has been stuck with the impossible task of disarming the KLA. As one KLA leader told me, "One day the Serbs will be selling us guns to shoot at NATO!" Even new Yugoslavian President Vojislav Kostunica has been quoted as saying, "We cannot forget what some countries did to us last year during the NATO bombing."
Benjamin Franklin believed that there is no such thing as a good war, nor is there a bad peace. Democratic forces brought about Milosevic's demise, not bombs or bullets. Milosevic was widely hated before the war ever began. Advocates of the Clinton doctrine might think on these dilemmas and well consider the old sage's advice before launching any new moralistic adventures. War is at best a necessary evil that should be invoked only in the most extreme of situations. Getting rid of Milosevic was not one of them.
Alan J. Parrington, of Monument, Colorado, served as U.S. air attaché to the Court of St. James in London during the Kosovo campaign. He retired from the Air Force with the rank of colonel at the beginning of this year. |
Serbia back on Kosovo offensive, with Russian help
Serbia was back on the offensive over Kosovo's independence on Sunday, blaming the United States for crisis in the Balkans while its ally Russia accused the Americans of destroying "world order".
Three days after young rioters in Belgrade embarrassed the country by attacking Western embassies and looting shops, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said it is Washington that is threatening peace and stability.
In a strongly worded statement from Moscow, Russia also accused Washington of trampling on international law.
"The United States must annul the decision to recognize a false state on the territory of Serbia," Kostunica said. "It must reaffirm U.N. Security Council resolution 1244, which guarantees Serbia's sovereignty and territorial integrity."
"Continuation of the policy of force will deepen the crisis that undermines the foundations of world order and threatens peace and stability in the Balkans," he said. Serbia has expressed official regret for riots last Thursday during which the U.S. embassy was attacked and set on fire. The mission sent dependents and support staff to Croatia for safety.
This week, Serbia is getting high-level support from Moscow. Kostunica is due to host Russian President Vladimir Putin's likely successor, Dmitry Medvedev, on Monday.
The Russian foreign ministry, in a statement, again demanded a "compromise" on Kosovo, which diplomats believe is headed for partition, although Serbia has never formally proposed it.
"Do support for the Kosovo Albanian side alone, contempt for law for the sake of so-called 'political expediency', and indifference to the fate of a hundred thousand Serbs who... are effectively being driven into a ghetto not amount to flagrant cynicism?" it said.
"Is it not cynical that the Serb people is being openly humiliated while Belgrade is being promised a Euro-Atlantic future if it agrees to the carve-up of Serbia?"
The foreign ministry statement recalled that Russia had a peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo from 1999 to 2004, under the aegis of the NATO-led KFOR force which has 17,000 troops there.
"It was withdrawn due to our fundamental disagreement with bias favouring one side in Kosovo matters..." the ministry said.
Instead of supporting Kosovo Albanian independence and other actions "destroying world order", there must be a "a decision based on law and compromise between Belgrade and Pristina", the ministry statement said. http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=58012
Kosovo, the Kremlin, and the Kurds
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| by Justin Raimondo |
The violent reaction from the Serbian "street" to Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence is "blowback" – as the writer Chalmers Johnson terms it – with a vengeance, and we have not yet experienced the worst of it.
The U.S. attack on Kosovo has come back to haunt Washington, and not just with the burning of the American embassy in Belgrade. A chain reaction is setting in, and its effects cannot be confined to the Balkans. The unrest is already spreading to Austria – and beyond.
For if the Kosovars can have their own "nation," then why not the South Ossetians? Why not the Abkhazians? Why not the Transdniester Republic? And why not the Kurds?
The rule the U.S. has set up is as follows: restive peoples who find themselves transferred from one great "prison house of peoples" to newer, U.S.-supported prisons named Georgia – and Iraq – have no right to self-determination. The Kosovars have a special status: they enjoy the protection of the EU and the U.S. armed forces, and the West recognizes their national aspirations. The others, however, must endure being ruled by a central authority that has the support of the U.S. government.
Why? Because Washington says so.
This is the new essence of "international law" – an edict from Washington. The UN, the EU, and other international bodies all must rubber-stamp decisions made essentially by the American president and his advisers.
Yet peoples yearning for freedom and self-determination are not about to cave in the face of this arbitrary power. The Serbs of northern Kosovo, who have been all but pushed out of their ancient land, are in open rebellion. They, too, want the right of self-determination. Will the U.S. and its allies use force to keep them in the newly independent state of Kosovo? If the American president sends troops to the Balkans – again – to enforce his will, Americans will begin to ask questions, and they are not going to like the answers.
As 8,000 Turkish soldiers pour into Iraq's Kurdish region, hunting down guerrilla fighters of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), the consequences of American support for Kosovo's declaration of independence are clear. America's alliance with Turkey is threatened, as is the tenuous stability of the Iraqi government – and U.S. occupation forces have made new enemies out of their only reliable Iraqi friends. The Christian Science Monitor reported that "Peshmerga Gen. Muhammad Mohsen took down his American flag, folded it up, and placed it in his office corner Sunday, reflecting the growing anger in Iraq's Kurdish north with U.S. support for Turkey's campaign against separatist rebels operating in the region." http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12415
The European Union (EU) civilian mission is to cover the whole territory of Kosovo, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said here Monday.
Solana made the remarks at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer after talks on Kosovo and Afghanistan.
"Our mission, as agreed by member states, covers the whole territory of Kosovo," Solana said, pledging that the EU mission, composed of more than 2,000 police officers, judges and prosecutors, would cooperate with NATO forces in Kosovo to maintain stability there and the whole Balkan region.
The EU withdrew staff, who had been preparing for the deployment of the EU mission, from the northern Kosovo city of Mitrovica after violent protests by the Serb minority against Kosovo's declaration of independence on Feb. 17.
In ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo, Mitrovica is inhabited by half of the region's 120,000 minority Serbs, who have been protesting against Kosovo's independence from Serbia and the deployment of the EU mission. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/200802/26/content_7669089.htm
In an extraordinary statement Harriet Harman, Deputy leader of the Labour Party, says that she believes Fidel Castro to be a "hero of the left".
Here are the top ten reasons why she is wrong.
1. Hero of the left? In the 1960s, Cuba sent homosexuals to forced labour camps. Raul Castro was particularly active in this policy, reputedly because he looked effeminate at the time and wanted to seem more macho
2. Hero of the left? In 2003, Castro oversaw the execution of three men who had hijacked a ferry in a bid to escape from the island. Sounds pretty left wing to me.
3. Hero of the left? During the Cuban missile crisis, Castro urged Khrushchev to launch a nuclear first strike on the American mainland. This is never mentioned by the anti-war campaigners who admire Castro.
4. Hero of the left? According to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, in 2006 there were 316 political prisoners in Cuba.
5. Hero of the left? Independent labour unions are illegal in Cuba. Has Harriet told Jack Dromey?
6. Hero of the left? On January 19, 2003, an election was held for the Cuban National Assembly. There were 609 candidates —all supported by the regime— vying for 609 seats.
7. Hero of the left? The purchase of computers and access to the internet is severely restricted with many citizens using black market sources.
8. Hero of the left? In 2003, state security forces raided 22 independent libraries and sent 14 librarians to jail with terms of up to 26 years.
9. Hero of the left? Castro personally has been one of the most conservative forces in the Cuban government. Castro was fiercely opposed to economic reforms of Gorbachev. At the 4th Cuban Communist Party Congress in 1991, there was a movement for modest liberalisation of the economy - allowing limited market in agricultural products. Fidel immediately scotched any suggestion of it.
10. Hero of the left? Castro’s admirers talk about how the deployment of troops to Angola in 1975 helped defeat apartheid in South Africa. But they don’t discuss the other aspects of his Africa adventures. Notably, how he supported the despicable Mengistu in Ethiopia, which cost enormous number of lives during the war with Somalia.
Harriet Harman has made a dreadful error. She should apologise. http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/02/in-an-extraordi.html
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None Dare Call It Treason
Who is stealing our nuclear secrets – and why are they being shielded by the authorities? |
| by Justin Raimondo |
The Valerie Plame case is, by journalistic standards, ancient history, and naturally any follow-up on a once-important story is considered bad form. Yet there is an interesting – and rather scary – new twist to the narrative. It turns out that Scooter Libby and friends weren't the first to "out" CIA agent Plame, whose alleged employer, a company known as Brewster Jennings, was really a cover for a CIA unit investigating nuclear proliferation issues.
The London Times reveals that a former top U.S. State Department official tipped off Turkish agents about Brewster Jennings' CIA connection, according to Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator assigned to produce English-language transcripts of intercepted conversations of Turkish targets – in this case recordings of Turkish embassy officials and a top State Department official discussing, among other things, Brewster Jennings' relationship to the CIA.
As the Times reports, the recordings were made "between the summer and autumn of 2001. At that time, foreign agents were actively attempting to acquire the West's nuclear secrets and technology. Among the buyers were Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's intelligence agency, which was working with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the 'father of the Islamic bomb,' who in turn was selling nuclear technology to rogue states such as Libya."
Plame and her unit were onto a black market nuclear network, run as a cooperative effort by the intelligence agencies of Pakistan, Turkey, and Israel. Accordingly, the Turks were lured into hiring Brewster-Jennings as "consultants," but when the high U.S. official learned of this, says Edmonds, he "contacted one of the foreign targets and said … you need to stay away from Brewster Jennings because they are a cover for the government. The target … immediately followed up by calling several people to warn them about Brewster Jennings. At least one of them was at the ATC [American Turkish Council]. This person also called an ISI person to warn them."
The Israeli connection is what's interesting about this covert operation, because it involves U.S. citizens, high government officials who have been part of an ongoing investigation that dates back to at least 1999, the earliest year mentioned in the AIPAC indictment. As Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay of McClatchy News Service reported in 2004:
"Several U.S. officials and law-enforcement sources said yesterday that the scope of the FBI probe of Pentagon intelligence activities appeared to go well beyond the [Larry] Franklin matter. http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12276
Pilgrims killed as al-Qa'ida resume Iraq attacks
A suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt in a tent filled with Shia pilgrims walking to one of their holiest shrines south of Baghdad, killing at least 40 of them and wounding 60.
The attack shows that al-Qa'ida has restarted its bombings of Shia Iraqis, whom it sees as heretics, and remains capable of launching numerous suicide attacks on the same day in different parts of Iraq.
The claim by the US military of a significant drop in violence in Iraq is being dented by a rise in sectarian killings and by the Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan last Thursday in pursuit of Turkish Kurd PKK guerrillas. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/pilgrims-killed-as-alqaida-resumes-attacks-on-iraqi-shia-786772.html | | Posted at 10:53 am by Psychomike
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Will Hillary Destroy Dems?
THOUGHTS ON AN OSCAR NIGHT: NEXT STEP FOR CUBA, WILL HILLARY BRING DOWN HER PARTY!?!
When this video first appeared on the net portraying Hillary Clinton as Big Brother http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo it was clear that many Democrats were not happy with the idea of the return of the Clinton team. Not that they were against the sanctions against Iraq over WMD that took 1 million lives under Bill, WACO and the use of the military against the Constitution, the slanders against the women who said they were involved and 1 woman said raped by Bill, the bombings of Iraq and Serbia- all of that was fine. But the word CHANGE has replaced NEW as the new political buzzword, and Obama has that word sewn up.
What has been the big shocker is the $150 million dollar incoherent, rambling and problem filled campaign that Hillary has run. Even with Bill's top advisers, she is restricted by her own beliefs from asking Obama why he did nothing to stop police torture in Chicago, why he accepted a house and money from a known mob guy, why helping the poor in Chicago turned out to be building a football stadium addition, if he was so pro- poor why did he do nothing as Chicago gentrified and pushed the poor out - if Obama can't stop those things in his city, how on earth can he get the nation united and change anything? There. I just wrote it. I will probably get emails saying I'm racist for saying that. But I'm not a liberal, so I don't care. Hillary CAN'T say these things. Nor could any other Democrat running for office. Their belief systems forbid them to bring up the Obama record.
So Hillary goes after him in ways that can't be called racist. He is accused of plagiarizing a speech ( he was actually using a high school debate tactic, yawn) and other nit picking items. God forbid anyone look at these two peoples records. The press hasn't and the party won't.
Hillary has literally less than a few weeks to stop the destruction of her party, she has three options.
First, she could make a deal to have Obama be her VP. This would be obvious to about 1/3 of Obama's supporters as an obvious hack move, but 2/3 would fall for it. It would avoid a 1968 style Convention riot, though lose all the new voters Obama has signed up.
Second, she could quit. She could bow out gracefully and give up the dream she and Bill had since college.
This website predicted months ago that Ralph Nader was waiting in the wings to decide whether or not to run based on if he believed she would take option 3 and he would then be there to gather up the angry. So he clearly doesn't think the second point is an option.
Third, she could go into the convention with the Superdelegates and have the police bust some heads. It's quite clear Nader thinks she is headed in that direction. She and Bill are entitled.
The next 20 days will tell the tale.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Now that Raul Castro is in charge of Cuba, it is doubtful there will be any change by the U.S. until the announcement that Castro is dead has been made ( and I reveal the toast of the day).
Cuba has a huge black-market economy, wages are nowhere near prices, prostitution is considered as normal now as cab driving (which is also illegal). The poverty and conditions of the Cuban people stand in stark contrast to Chile and other Latin American countries. The Russian mob has been there quietly since the 1960's buying up coast properties, Cuba is an economic mess. Hospitals lack proper equipment, and Cubans were angry when Castro and Chavez opened up a brand new eye surgery hospital for Venezuelan tourists in Cuba next to a maternity hospital that has had nothing new added in 35 years.
The second Castro's death is announced, I believe we should lift the embargo and announce open trade and travel with Cuba.
If Raul declines this deal, the Cuban people should know it was turned down- and rejected by their government. This is where our otherwise useless propaganda efforts in Cuba could finally have a goal and reason.
There is actually a 50-50 chance Raul would say no- and the world would see who was at fault. Posted at 05:50 pm by Psychomike
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Ron Paul Update
When Ron Paul, in effect, announced the suspension of his presidential campaign after Super-Tuesday, many of his supporters—myself among them—were about as deflated as real estate prices, if not more so. Now that Republican discontent with John McCain is cresting, and there may be hints of a major McCainiac scandal in the making, we get this from Paul HQ, as noted by the Los Angeles Times:
“Wait, hold on! Don’t toss those Ron Paul signs quite yet.
“The 72-year-old, 10-term Republican congressman has just vowed to continue his current campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.There’s been some confusion in recent days since Paul sounded like he was, in effect, withdrawing to refocus his political efforts on a well-funded House primary challenger in his home Texas district near Houston on March 4.... But Wednesday he struck a different note. ‘I will stay in as long as my supporters want me to,’ the Texas congressman promised CNN. ‘And I say as long as the number of volunteers continues to grow, and the money comes in, and there are primaries out there, and they want me to be involved, I am going to stay involved.’
“And if, say, there’s a scandal or illness among the two remaining Republican candidates ahead of Paul in delegates, he’ll be in a pretty good political position for the convention in St. Paul.”
I’m not too sure about that latter statement: it’s all about delegates, and how many of those Ron has is somewhat in dispute. I would guesstimate no more than 45, probably lower. Not enough, in my view, to make a difference. However, there is one asset Paul has plenty of, as the Times notes:
“Also, guess what The Times’ campaign finance guru Dan Morain just discovered.... tonight in records of the Federal Election Commission? Of all the Republican candidates left in the field at the end of January none other than Ron Paul had the most cash in hand—some $6 million. And, like a true conservative, Paul reported not a penny in debt.”
He’s got the money, he’s got the grassroots organization, and his supporters are full of frustrated energy and ready to go to work for the cause. Is it written in stone that he won’t run as a third party candidate, as I urged here? He could easily change his mind—especially if he loses the congressional primary to Chris Peden, a candidate who was praising Paul yesterday and today says quite the opposite. The neocons over at “Pajamas Media” are chortling up a storm at the prospect—but they’ll be laughing out of the other side of their mouths when a third party Paul campaign denies the McCainiac the White House.
If Ron loses his seat in Congress, it won’t be the first time the War Party targeted him and thought he was out of the picture—but he has always come back to bite them in the ... well, whatever. It’s little short of a miracle that someone with such well-defined, angular views has managed to win ten terms as a Republican congressman representing a rural district in Texas. It speaks well of the people of the Galveston area, where Ron has been a practicing doctor lo these many years, that they aren’t easily fooled by Washington spin-meisters and neocon pundits sitting in Manhattan. I only hope that they hold steady in their uniquely American orneriness. And if Ron wins, he should still run as a third party candidate (although, frankly, it’ll be less like)—because the nation needs to hear what he is saying. Posted at 12:53 am by Psychomike
Friday, February 22, 2008
Kosovo: Islamism's New Beachhead?
By Julia Gorin
FrontPageMagazine.com | 2/22/2008
As Americans look quizzically at their TV sets while non-Muslim protestors in Europe torch a U.S. embassy, they should know that yesterday’s 200,000-person protest in Belgrade (whose members are separate from the fire starters) is the first time in two decades that Serbs are showing a glimmer of rational behavior--amid 20 years of the “free world” foisting terrorist neighbors upon them.
To put this in perspective, with advance apologies to any offended ethnic groups: How would Americans react if Latino gangs started ambushing police and killing government officials in California, and after a few years the U.S. sent in the troops because the gangs were outgunning the police force; following this, the gangsters started claiming atrocities—and so Russia and China bombed California and Washington in response to the “atrocities”; the foreign powers then occupied California for eight years while the gangs killed or expelled most of the non-Latinos in “revenge attacks,” then backed a declaration of independence for California as a Mexican-majority state that may just unify with Mexico?
[[AD]]
The current state of affairs is a product of a concerted, single-minded, bipartisan American effort to turn Serbs into an enemy as the U.S. tries to make friends of its enemies in the region, always at Serbian expense. “Will Russia now become the leader of the Europeans who resist the Islamization of their continent?” Thomas Landen asks in the Brussels Journal. He notes that Moscow has called on the UN to annul independence, and a UN vote may be the only thing to save us from a new world war over this Balkan province, ignored by the media and public for eight years as insignificant, despite the Balkans’ history for setting off world wars.
“Indeed,” continues Landen, “what will Russia do if the 16,000 NATO ‘peacekeeping’ troops in Kosovo attack the Serbian army when it attempts to recover its breakaway province? If Russia intervenes, then 2008 might become the year that war broke out between Russia and NATO. America, the EU, Europe’s immigrant ‘youths,’ and Osama bin Laden would find themselves on one side, fighting Russia, China, and those Europeans who resist Islamization on the other."
Who could have envisioned such a sorry state of affairs on September 12, 2001? The answer is: anyone who noticed that our Balkan policies didn’t change following 9/11. We are now several years post-9/11, yet our government is creating Muslim states in Europe and is about to engage the United States military against European Orthodox Christians who don’t want to live under Muslim rule.
When did it become the free world’s business to spread Shari'a law, as is always the upshot of any Islamicizing region?
The remarks upon Kosovo’s independence by the U.S. and the Organization of the Islamic Conference might as well have come from a joint statement:
Secretary General of the OIC declares support to the Kosovo Independence:
…Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu made the following remark…"…a very important event took place yesterday. Kosovo has finally declared its independence after a long and determined struggle by its people. As we rejoice this happy result, we declare our solidarity with and support to our brothers and sisters there. The Islamic Umma wishes them success...There is no doubt that the independence of Kosovo will be an asset to the Muslim world and further enhance the joint Islamic action."
U.S. welcomes "Muslim state" in Kosovo:
“We think it is a very positive step that this state -- Muslim majority state -- has been created today,' [Undersecretary of State Nicholas] Burns said Monday... Creating a Muslim-majority state in a region that is the cradle of the Serbs' Orthodox Christian religion never was the driving force of US policy on Kosovo, [Council on Foreign Relatoins analyst Charles] Kupchan said in a telephone interview. “But it's a fringe benefit.”
Bosnia Grand Mufti: U.S. Policy In Region Serves Muslims' Interests:
In an interview with Islamonline on the sidelines at the “U.S. and the Muslim World” conference in Qatar, Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina Mustafa Ceric said that the U.S.'s policy in the Balkans serves the interests of the Muslims and of Islam.
This week merrymakers in Pristina waving Albanian and American flags shouted “KLA! KLA!” – the supposedly disbanded, heroin-financed “rebels” who trained in terrorist camps. “What is the point of fighting Islamism in Iraq,” asks the Brussels Journal’s Landen, “while at the same time one creates a free haven for Islamists on the European continent?” He adds, “The Jerusalem Post reported in 1998 that the [KLA] was ‘provided with financial and military support from Islamic countries,’ and had been ‘bolstered by hundreds of Iranian fighters or mujahedin [some of whom] were trained in Osama bin Laden’s terrorist camps in Afghanistan.’”
It is worth reminding the conservative blogosphere, which for nine years chose to ignore the region entirely or, alternately, bolster the jihadist pro-independence position, that they are helping implement a Clinton-era policy supported and co-financed by George Soros, which has been pursued from a pre-9/11 mindset. My fellow conservatives, you do not defend America or American policy when you support our pro-independence policy in Kosovo; you support Hillary and Bill Clinton, George Soros, and Osama bin Laden, who co-financed and co-trained the KLA troops that we and Germany co-financed and co-trained.
It is a rare thing to meet someone among the remaining 100,000 Christians of Kosovo who hasn’t had a close relative or friend slaughtered by the Albanian “non-Islamic” Muslims since our intervention, the selfsame Muslims to whom we’re granting Serbian territory. While Serbia and Russia fight to ensure these remaining Christians don’t have to live under Albanian-Muslim rule — either by partitioning the province, or by fighting the Albanians to keep the province within Serbia — the U.S. and its NATO allies will fight Serbia and Russia to make sure that Europe’s newest, U.S.-created Muslim state gets all the territory it demands.
If this doesn’t worry you, and you’d rather make an exception in your jihad views for an area because it fits in with a more comfortable, manufactured Cold War context, then be prepared for the adverse consequences.
What we’ve set ourselves up for is dealing with still more gangsters and terrorists as we build an oil pipeline that runs from the Caucasus through the Balkans, when we could have worked with a willing Serbia on this from the very beginning -- at much less peril to our interests and with a partner that had excellent intelligence and border security structures (before we dismantled the latter).
Posted at 01:04 pm by Psychomike
Thursday, February 21, 2008
1 Million Serbs In Streets!
SERBS BATTLE U.S. BACKED SUCCESSION MOVEMENT FOR KOSOVA(O) - WHAT WAS OUR CIVIL WAR OVER AGAIN?!?
Serb rioters broke into the U.S. Embassy Thursday and set fire to an office after a large protest against Kosovo's independence that drew an estimated 150,000 people.
Masked attackers broke into the building, which has been closed this week, and tried to throw furniture from an office. A blaze broke out but firefighters swiftly put out the flames.
Authorities drove armored jeeps down the street and fired tear gas to clear the crowd. The protesters dispersed into side streets where they continued clashing with authorities.
Around a million Serbs took to the streets in Belgrade Thursday amidst tight security measures protesting the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo.
Demonstrators carried signs condemning the decision of the Albanian leaders in Kosovo to declare independence, and attacking the European Union (EU) and the US to backing the independence.
The demonstration, telecasted by the Serbian TV, had the theme of "Kosovo is a Serbian Territory." http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1886106&Language=en Posted at 02:18 pm by Psychomike
Superdelegates Vs The People
Let's Call The Superdelegate Process What It Really Is: Election Rigging
By Ali Noorani, Movement Vision Lab
Posted on February 21, 2008, Printed on February 21, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/77380/
What's so super about superdelegates anyway? Do they contribute to an active democracy in America?
For reasons that escape me, I've moved on from flipping through People magazine and watching Simpsons reruns to reading Alexis De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America."
It is a heavy lift (read: it's a big book.)
Nevertheless, for a chap who wandered our nation between 1835 and 1840, De Tocqueville makes many observations relevant today. With the disclaimer that I have yet to climb through all 300+ pages of "Democracy in America" the current race for the presidential nomination struck a chord as I read.
Regarding the choice of our forebearers to create an electoral college rather than allowing the House of Representatives to elect the President, De Tocqueville writes, "It was thought that if the legislature was empowered to elect the head of the executive power, its members would, for some time before the election, be exposed to the maneuvers of corruption and the tricks of intrigue."
So, the electoral college was created as an attempt to evenly balance the power of voters -- and their states -- across the nation where numbers based strength varies. In essence, unelected electors funneled the states' votes according and are not susceptible to the politicking and politics of elected bodies like the House of Representatives.
To date, this formula has kept the coastal states from dominating our nation's political agenda and balanced (to some degree) the approach of presidents.
De Tocqueville goes onto observe, "parties are strongly interested in winning the election, not so much with a view to the triumph of their principles under the auspices of the President elect as to show by his election that the supporters of those principles now form the majority."
Foreshadowing the need to organize voters along common values De Tocqueville views our election of president as a battle of ideas between parties of individuals. Of course, we find that within parties there is a separate battle for ideas and control.
If this remains the case, are a modern political party's principles (perhaps an oxymoron) circumvented by giving disproportionate weight to one (super) delegate versus a (mortal) delegate?
If the battle for a party is a battle for ideas, superdelegates should serve no role in a democratic nomination process. Yes, democracy sucks; but, democracy shouldn't suck this much.
If the definition of democracy is, "That form of government in which the sovereign power is exercised by the people in a body," then it is fair to say that superdelegates circumvent democracy by granting their heavily weighted endorsements -- often at odds with the primary election decisions of the voters in their districts.
In the presence of democracy corrupted by power and money in so many ways, party nominations -- the very base from which a president operates -- one vote should count as one vote. Nothing more, nothing less. For a nominee to be anointed by the power and money of superdelegates is nothing more than rigging an election.
Someone get Jimmy Carter on the phone (that is, if he hasn't endorsed).
Ali Noorani is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition and a Taproots Fellow at the Center for Community Change.
© 2008 Movement Vision Lab All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/77380/Posted at 05:35 am by Psychomike
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The Cuban government announced at 3 am Castro has stepped down. Seems odd..... a fake election within a week, perhaps an announcement to follow that Castro is dead?
CASTRO WITHOUT TEARS
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was the illegitimate son of a Creole Sugar plantation
owner . At the age of 13 Castro helped organize a strike of the sugar workers- less to
do with class war than an ousted sons revenge.
In 1947 Castro would join the Cuban Peoples Party which accused the government
of turning Cuba over to U.S. capitalism and was very anti- Capitalist. Fidel ran for
office in 1952 but a coup led by Batista stopped the election. Castro would lead an
attack on the Moncado Barracks and was taken prisoner. In prison an officer came
forward to say he had been given poison to slip to Castro and kill him. He was court
martialled and Castro was thrust into the national spotlight.
Castro was put on trial, which was televised, and made a speech that would later be
made into a book, HISTORY WILL ABSOLVE ME. He was sentenced to 15 years
but was released after two and a promise from Batista of elections. Castro upon his
release joined up with Che and headed to the Sierra Maestra mountains with 80
men. Attacked by soldiers along the way, their ranks were reduced to 18. Fidel was
reported to be dead by the Cuban and then world press.
Herbert Mathews was an editor at the New York Times who decided to go to Cuba
and see if Castro was alive or dead. He found him very much alive, and in his first
article stated that Castro was pro-Capitalist and hated by the communists. This
article would change our governments approach to Castro, and no mention was
made of Castro being in a anti-Capitalist political group, or that Raoul Castro was
in the Cuban communist party.
Mathews reported that Castro had many forces and was batting Batista toe to toe.
Two years later Castro credited Mathews with bringing him to power. He was down
to 18 people, but Castro had them walk in circles to convince Mathews there were
many more. They also only had 12 rifles.
As aid from the CIA began to come in based on the Mathews fanciful articles,
Castro began taking territory away from owners and giving the land to the
peasants, who began to join up with him. Che was in charge of executing "counter-
revcolutionaries" and "deviationists" at these properties and cultivated a very
ruthless image. Former U.S. Ambassador to Cuba Earl T.
Smith would say, "We put Castro in power". A U.S. arms embargo against Batista,
and Batista being told to leave Cubaby Smith placed Castro in charge.
Once Castro was in power he received 200 million dollars in aid from the U.S. and
instant recognition of his government. Castro immediately ended the tourist trade
and outlawed prostitution. For 45 years these two acts would be praised by
supporting groups like the SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY as reason enough for
Castro's revolution.
By 1960 the U.S. owned phone system was nationalized, over 1 billion in property,
land and factories were seized by the government. Castro had declared there would
be free elections but kept delaying them. As Eisenhower tried to deal with Castro,
he moved closer to the Soviets.
Politicians who were organizing groups to aid in elections were arrested. Writers
who reported this were then arrested. Then homosexuals were told to register with
the government. They were then rounded up and sent to "work camps". We don't
know what happens to this day at those camps, as no Gay has ever been released
from them.
Castro instigated the ACTO DE REPUDIO. Party members show up at your home
or office, surround you and chant and threaten you. In 2003, 75 dissidents were
arrested for collecting signatures in favor of a referendum on Cuba's political
system. They collected over 10,000 names. Three were shot and killed, but protests
by the EU stopped more from being killed. Instead they were sentenced to 20 years
in jail. There is a group, The DAMAS DE BLANCO (which means women in white)
that dress all in white and carry white and pink parasols. They are the wives and
daughters of the 75 in jail. They are constantly attacked by the Acto repudio and
The Committee For The Revolution, an extensive neighborhood snitch network.
According to Cuba's Constitution, they had collected more than enough names for a
vote.
Spain , France and Germanyall tried to reason with Castro but were met with the
same stony silence they have received the last ten years when they offered to act as
go between with the United States to end the embargo. ( Der Speigel)
Here are things you might not know about Castro-
When the Soviet Union fell apart Castro decriminalized prostitution and welcomed
tourism. In other words, he turned to capitalism. No fool he.
He supports capital punishment, Amnesty International has repeatedly condemned
him. Members of the press caught reading western news sources get 20 years.
People with HIV are kept in work camps that neither their families or Red Cross
can visit. He is worth personally around 1 billion dollars but it could be much
higher. Romanian Lt. General Ion Pacepa the highest ranking Soviet bloc official to
defect said he was present in 1975 when Raul, Fidel and Nicolae Ceausessue agreed
to do a bi-lateral drug deal aimed at the United States.
The following is from Fidel: Hollywood 's Favorite Tyrant, Quote:
On Nov. 17, 1962, J. Edgar Hoovers' FBI cracked a terrorist plot (though the term
"terrorist" was not used at the time) by Castro-Cuban agents that targeted Macy's,
Gimbel's, Bloomindales and Manhattan's Grand Central Station with a dozen
incendiary devices and 500 kilos of TNT. The holocaust was set to go off the
following week, the day after Thanksgiving.
A little perspective: for their March 2004 Madrid subway blasts -- all 10 of them –
that killed and maimed almost 2,000 people, al Qaeda used a grand total of 100 kilos
of TNT. Fidel Castro's agents planned to set off five times that explosive power in
the three biggest department stores on earth, all packed to suffocation and pulsing
with holiday cheer on the year's biggest shopping day. Thousands of New Yorkers,
including women and children -- actually, given the date and targets, probably
mostly women and children -- were to be incinerated and entombed. (I document
this episode in the book, Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant.)
Castro planned his Manhattan holocaust short weeks after Nikita Khrushchev
foiled his plans for an even bigger one. "Say hello to my little friends!" Castro
dreamt of yelling at the hated Yankees in October 1962, right before the mushroom
clouds. But for the prudence of the Butcher of Budapest (Nikita Khrushchev),
Castro might have pulled it off. "If the missiles had remained," Fidel's sidekick Che
Guevara confided to the London Daily Worker in November 1962 regarding the
Cuban missile crisis, "We would have used them against the very heart of the
U.S.including New York."
Some think Fidel and Che Guevara's genocidal fantasy was a bigger factor
in Khrushchev's decision to yank the missiles than Kennedy's so-called blockade.
While Castro was begging, threatening, even trying to trick Khrushchev into
launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S. -- while he was ranting and
yelling and waving his arms about grabbing his Czech machine gun and "fighting
the Yankee invaders to the last man!" -- while frantically involved in all this, a
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