A campaign of distortion aims to discredit the liberation.
BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
Monday, November 14, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
Among the many distortions, misrepresentations and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.
What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.
Nevertheless, I want to take one more shot at exposing it for the lie that it itself really is. Although doing so will require going over ground that I and many others have covered before, I hope that revisiting this well-trodden terrain may also serve to refresh memories that have grown dim, to clarify thoughts that have grown confused, and to revive outrage that has grown commensurately dulled.
The main "lie" that George W. Bush is accused of telling us is that Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, or WMD as they have invariably come to be called. From this followed the subsidiary "lie" that Iraq under Saddam's regime posed a two-edged mortal threat. On the one hand, we were informed, there was a distinct (or even "imminent") possibility that Saddam himself would use these weapons against us or our allies; and on the other hand, there was the still more dangerous possibility that he would supply them to terrorists like those who had already attacked us on 9/11 and to whom he was linked.
This entire scenario of purported deceit was given a new lease on life by the indictment in late October of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Libby stands accused of making false statements to the FBI and of committing perjury in testifying before a grand jury that had been convened to find out who in the Bush administration had "outed" Valerie Plame, a CIA agent married to the retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The supposed purpose of leaking this classified information to the press was to retaliate against Mr. Wilson for having "debunked" (in his words) "the lies that led to war."
Now, as it happens, Mr. Libby was not charged with having outed Ms. Plame but only with having lied about when and from whom he first learned that she worked for the CIA. Moreover, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor who brought the indictment against him, made a point of emphasizing that "this indictment is not about the war":
This indictment is not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel.
This is simply an indictment that says, in a national-security investigation about the compromise of a CIA officer's identity that may have taken place in the context of a very heated debate over the war, whether some person--a person, Mr. Libby--lied or not.
No matter. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, spoke for a host of other opponents of the war in insisting:
This case is bigger than the leak of classified information. It is about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president.
Yet even stipulating--which I do only for the sake of argument--that no weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq in the period leading up to the invasion, it defies all reason to think that Mr. Bush was lying when he asserted that they did. To lie means to say something one knows to be false. But it is as close to certainty as we can get that Mr. Bush believed in the truth of what he was saying about WMD in Iraq.
How indeed could it have been otherwise? George Tenet, his own CIA director, assured him that the case was "a slam dunk." This phrase would later become notorious, but in using it, Mr. Tenet had the backing of all 15 agencies involved in gathering intelligence for the United States. In the National Intelligence Estimate of 2002, where their collective views were summarized, one of the conclusions offered with "high confidence" was that "Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions."
The intelligence agencies of Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Israel and--yes--France all agreed with this judgment. And even Hans Blix--who headed the U.N. team of inspectors trying to determine whether Saddam had complied with the demands of the Security Council that he get rid of the weapons of mass destruction he was known to have had in the past--lent further credibility to the case in a report he issued only a few months before the invasion:
The discovery of a number of 122-mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km [105 miles] southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. . . . They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.
Mr. Blix now claims that he was only being "cautious" here, but if, as he now also adds, the Bush administration "misled itself" in interpreting the evidence before it, he at the very least lent it a helping hand.
So, once again, did the British, the French and the Germans, all of whom signed on in advance to Secretary of State Colin Powell's reading of the satellite photos he presented to the U.N. in the period leading up to the invasion. Mr. Powell himself and his chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, now feel that this speech was the low point of his tenure as secretary of state. But Mr. Wilkerson (in the process of a vicious attack on the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense for getting us into Iraq) is forced to acknowledge that the Bush administration did not lack for company in interpreting the available evidence as it did:
I can't tell you why the French, the Germans, the Brits and us thought that most of the material, if not all of it, that we presented at the U.N. on 5 February 2003 was the truth. I can't. I've wrestled with it. [But] when you see a satellite photograph of all the signs of the chemical-weapons ASP--Ammunition Supply Point--with chemical weapons, and you match all those signs with your matrix on what should show a chemical ASP, and they're there, you have to conclude that it's a chemical ASP, especially when you see the next satellite photograph which shows the UN inspectors wheeling in their white vehicles with black markings on them to that same ASP, and everything is changed, everything is clean. . . . But George [Tenet] was convinced, John McLaughlin [Tenet's deputy] was convinced, that what we were presented [for Powell's UN speech] was accurate.
Going on to shoot down a widespread impression, Mr. Wilkerson informs us that even the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, known as INR, was convinced:
People say, well, INR dissented. That's a bunch of bull. INR dissented that the nuclear program was up and running. That's all INR dissented on. They were right there with the chems and the bios.
In explaining its dissent on Iraq's nuclear program, the INR had, as stated in the NIE of 2002, expressed doubt about:
Iraq's efforts to acquire aluminum tubes [which are] central to the argument that Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear-weapons program. . . . INR is not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors . . . in Iraq's nuclear-weapons program.
But, according to Wilkerson:
The French came in in the middle of my deliberations at the CIA and said, we have just spun aluminum tubes, and by God, we did it to this rpm, et cetera, et cetera, and it was all, you know, proof positive that the aluminum tubes were not for mortar casings or artillery casings, they were for centrifuges. Otherwise, why would you have such exquisite instruments?
In short, and whether or not it included the secret heart of Hans Blix, "the consensus of the intelligence community," as Mr. Wilkerson puts it, "was overwhelming" in the period leading up to the invasion of Iraq that Saddam definitely had an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, and that he was also in all probability well on the way to rebuilding the nuclear capability that the Israelis had damaged by bombing the Osirak reactor in 1981.
Additional confirmation of this latter point comes from Kenneth Pollack, who served in the National Security Council under Clinton. "In the late spring of 2002," Pollack has written:
I participated in a Washington meeting about Iraqi WMD. Those present included nearly twenty former inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the force established in 1991 to oversee the elimination of WMD in Iraq. One of the senior people put a question to the group: did anyone in the room doubt that Iraq was currently operating a secret centrifuge plant? No one did. Three people added that they believed Iraq was also operating a secret calutron plant (a facility for separating uranium isotopes).
No wonder, then, that another conclusion the NIE of 2002 reached with "high confidence" was that "Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material." (Hard as it is to believe, let alone to reconcile with his general position, Joseph C. Wilson IV, in a speech he delivered three months after the invasion at the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, offhandedly made the following remark: "I remain of the view that we will find biological and chemical weapons and we may well find something that indicates that Saddam's regime maintained an interest in nuclear weapons.")
But the consensus on which Mr. Bush relied was not born in his own administration. In fact, it was first fully formed in the Clinton administration. Here is Bill Clinton himself, speaking in 1998:
If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction program.
Here is his Secretary of State Madeline Albright, also speaking in 1998:
Iraq is a long way from [the USA], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.
Here is Sandy Berger, Clinton's National Security Adviser, who chimed in at the same time with this flat-out assertion about Saddam:
He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.
Finally, Mr. Clinton's secretary of defense, William Cohen, was so sure Saddam had stockpiles of WMD that he remained "absolutely convinced" of it even after our failure to find them in the wake of the invasion in March 2003.
Nor did leading Democrats in Congress entertain any doubts on this score. A few months after Mr. Clinton and his people made the statements I have just quoted, a group of Democratic senators, including such liberals as Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, and John Kerry, urged the President "to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons-of-mass-destruction programs."
Nancy Pelosi, the future leader of the Democrats in the House, and then a member of the House Intelligence Committee, added her voice to the chorus:
Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons-of-mass-destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.
This Democratic drumbeat continued and even intensified when Mr. Bush succeeded Mr. Clinton in 2001, and it featured many who would later pretend to have been deceived by the Bush White House. In a letter to the new president, a group of senators led by Bob Graham declared:
There is no doubt that . . . Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical, and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf war status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies.
Sen. Carl Levin also reaffirmed for Mr. Bush's benefit what he had told Mr. Clinton some years earlier:
Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations, and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed, speaking in October 2002:
In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical- and biological-weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaeda members.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, agreed as well:
There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. . . . We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.
Even more striking were the sentiments of Bush's opponents in his two campaigns for the presidency. Thus Al Gore in September 2002:
We know that [Saddam] has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.
And here is Mr. Gore again, in that same year:
Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.
Now to John Kerry, also speaking in 2002:
I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force--if necessary--to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.
Perhaps most startling of all, given the rhetoric that they would later employ against Mr. Bush after the invasion of Iraq, are statements made by Sens. Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd, also in 2002:
Kennedy: "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
Byrd: "The last U.N. weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical- and biological-warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons."
Liberal politicians like these were seconded by the mainstream media, in whose columns a very different tune would later be sung. For example, throughout the last two years of the Clinton administration, editorials in the New York Times repeatedly insisted that "without further outside intervention, Iraq should be able to rebuild weapons and missile plants within a year [and] future military attacks may be required to diminish the arsenal again."
The Times was also skeptical of negotiations, pointing out that it was "hard to negotiate with a tyrant who has no intention of honoring his commitments and who sees nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons as his country's salvation."
So, too, the Washington Post, which greeted the inauguration of George W. Bush in January 2001 with this admonition:
Of all the booby traps left behind by the Clinton administration, none is more dangerous--or more urgent--than the situation in Iraq. Over the last year, Mr. Clinton and his team quietly avoided dealing with, or calling attention to, the almost complete unraveling of a decade's efforts to isolate the regime of Saddam Hussein and prevent it from rebuilding its weapons of mass destruction. That leaves President Bush to confront a dismaying panorama in the Persian Gulf [where] intelligence photos . . . show the reconstruction of factories long suspected of producing chemical and biological weapons.
All this should surely suffice to prove far beyond any even unreasonable doubt that Mr. Bush was telling what he believed to be the truth about Saddam's stockpile of WMD. It also disposes of the fallback charge that Mr. Bush lied by exaggerating or hyping the intelligence presented to him. Why on earth would he have done so when the intelligence itself was so compelling that it convinced everyone who had direct access to it, and when hardly anyone in the world believed that Saddam had, as he claimed, complied with the 16 resolutions of the Security Council demanding that he get rid of his weapons of mass destruction?
Another fallback charge is that Mr. Bush, operating mainly through Mr. Cheney, somehow forced the CIA into telling him what he wanted to hear. Yet in its report of 2004, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, while criticizing the CIA for relying on what in hindsight looked like weak or faulty intelligence, stated that it "did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence, or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities.
The March 2005 report of the equally bipartisan Robb-Silberman commission, which investigated intelligence failures on Iraq, reached the same conclusion, finding "no evidence of political pressure to influence the intelligence community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. . . . Analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments."
Still, even many who believed that Saddam did possess WMD, and was ruthless enough to use them, accused Mr. Bush of telling a different sort of lie by characterizing the risk as "imminent." But this, too, is false: Mr. Bush consistently rejected imminence as a justification for war. Thus, in the State of the Union address he delivered only three months after 9/11, Mr. Bush declared that he would "not wait on events while dangers gather" and that he would "not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer." Then, in a speech at West Point six months later, he reiterated the same point: "If we wait for threats to materialize, we will have waited too long." And as if that were not clear enough, he went out of his way in his State of the Union address in 2003 (that is, three months before the invasion), to bring up the word "imminent" itself precisely in order to repudiate it:
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.
What of the related charge that it was still another "lie" to suggest, as Mr. Bush and his people did, that a connection could be traced between Saddam Hussein and the al Qaeda terrorists who had attacked us on 9/11? This charge was also rejected by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Contrary to how its findings were summarized in the mainstream media, the committee's report explicitly concluded that al Qaeda did in fact have a cooperative, if informal, relationship with Iraqi agents working under Saddam. The report of the bipartisan 9/11 commission came to the same conclusion, as did a comparably independent British investigation conducted by Lord Butler, which pointed to "meetings . . . between senior Iraqi representatives and senior al-Qaeda operatives."
Which brings us to Joseph C. Wilson, IV and what to my mind wins the palm for the most disgraceful instance of all.
The story begins with the notorious 16 words inserted--after, be it noted, much vetting by the CIA and the State Department--into Bush's 2003 State of the Union address:
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
This is the "lie" Mr. Wilson bragged of having "debunked" after being sent by the CIA to Niger in 2002 to check out the intelligence it had received to that effect. Mr. Wilson would later angrily deny that his wife had recommended him for this mission, and would do his best to spread the impression that choosing him had been the vice president's idea. But Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, through whom Mr. Wilson first planted this impression, was eventually forced to admit that "Cheney apparently didn't know that Wilson had been dispatched." (By the time Mr. Kristof grudgingly issued this retraction, Mr. Wilson himself, in characteristically shameless fashion, was denying that he had ever "said the vice president sent me or ordered me sent.") And as for his wife's supposed nonrole in his mission, here is what Valerie Plame Wilson wrote in a memo to her boss at the CIA:
My husband has good relations with the PM [the prime minister of Niger] and the former minister of mines . . ., both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.
More than a year after his return, with the help of Mr. Kristof, and also Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, and then through an op-ed piece in the Times under his own name, Mr. Wilson succeeded, probably beyond his wildest dreams, in setting off a political firestorm.
In response, the White House, no doubt hoping to prevent his allegation about the 16 words from becoming a proxy for the charge that (in Mr. Wilson's latest iteration of it) "lies and disinformation [were] used to justify the invasion of Iraq," eventually acknowledged that the president's statement "did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union address." As might have been expected, however, this panicky response served to make things worse rather than better. And yet it was totally unnecessary--for the maddeningly simple reason that every single one of the 16 words at issue was true.
That is, British intelligence had assured the CIA that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy enriched uranium from the African country of Niger. Furthermore--and notwithstanding the endlessly repeated assertion that this assurance has now been discredited--Britain's independent Butler commission concluded that it was "well-founded." The relevant passage is worth quoting at length:
a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.
b. The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.
c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium, and the British government did not claim this.
As if that were not enough to settle the matter, Mr. Wilson himself, far from challenging the British report when he was "debriefed" on his return from Niger (although challenging it is what he now never stops doing), actually strengthened the CIA's belief in its accuracy. From the Senate Intelligence Committee report:
He [the CIA reports officer] said he judged that the most important fact in the report [by Mr. Wilson] was that Niger officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Niger prime minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium.
And again:
The report on [Mr. Wilson's] trip to Niger . . . did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original CIA reports on the uranium deal.
This passage goes on to note that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research--which (as we have already seen) did not believe that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear weapons--found support in Mr. Wilson's report for its "assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq." But if so, this, as the Butler report quoted above points out, would not mean that Iraq had not tried to buy it--which was the only claim made by British intelligence and then by Mr. Bush in the famous 16 words.
The liar here, then, was not Mr. Bush but Mr. Wilson. And Mr. Wilson also lied when he told the Washington Post that he had unmasked as forgeries certain documents given to American intelligence (by whom it is not yet clear) that supposedly contained additional evidence of Saddam's efforts to buy uranium from Niger. The documents did indeed turn out to be forgeries; but, according to the Butler report:
The forged documents were not available to the British government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine [that assessment].
More damning yet to Mr. Wilson, the Senate Intelligence Committee discovered that he had never laid eyes on the documents in question:
[Mr. Wilson] also told committee staff that he was the source of a Washington Post article . . . which said, "among the envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because 'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.' " Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong" when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports.
To top all this off, just as Mr. Cheney had nothing to do with the choice of Mr. Wilson for the mission to Niger, neither was it true that, as Mr. Wilson "confirmed" for a credulous New Republic reporter, "the CIA circulated [his] report to the Vice President's office," thereby supposedly proving that Cheney and his staff "knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie." Yet--the mind reels--if Mr. Cheney had actually been briefed on Mr. Wilson's oral report to the CIA (which he was not), he would, like the CIA itself, have been more inclined to believe that Saddam had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger.
So much for the author of the best-selling and much-acclaimed book whose title alone--"The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity"--has set a new record for chutzpah.
But there is worse. In his press conference on the indictment against Mr. Libby, Patrick Fitzgerald insisted that lying to federal investigators is a serious crime both because it is itself against the law and because, by sending them on endless wild-goose chases, it constitutes the even more serious crime of obstruction of justice. By those standards, Mr. Wilson--who has repeatedly made false statements about every aspect of his mission to Niger, including whose idea it was to send him and what he told the CIA upon his return; who was then shown up by the Senate Intelligence Committee as having lied about the forged documents; and whose mendacity has sent the whole country into a wild-goose chase after allegations that, the more they are refuted, the more they keep being repeated--is himself an excellent candidate for criminal prosecution.
And so long as we are hunting for liars in this area, let me suggest that we begin with the Democrats now proclaiming that they were duped, and that we then broaden out to all those who in their desperation to delegitimize the larger policy being tested in Iraq--the policy of making the Middle East safe for America by making it safe for democracy--have consistently used distortion, misrepresentation and selective perception to vilify as immoral a bold and noble enterprise and to brand as an ignominious defeat what is proving itself more and more every day to be a victory of American arms and a vindication of American ideals.
Mr. Podhoretz is editor-at-large of Commentary and author of 10 books, most recently "The Norman Podhoretz Reader," edited by Thomas L. Jeffers (Free Press, 2004). This article will appear in Commentary's December issue.
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Who are the real racists?
Party trumps race' for Steele foes
By S.A. Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published November 2, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Black Democratic leaders in Maryland say that racially tinged attacks against Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in his bid for the U.S. Senate are fair because he is a conservative Republican.
Such attacks against the first black man to win a statewide election in Maryland include pelting him with Oreo cookies during a campaign appearance, calling him an "Uncle Tom" and depicting him as a black-faced minstrel on a liberal Web log.
Operatives for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) also obtained a copy of his credit report -- the only Republican candidate so targeted.
But black Democrats say there is nothing wrong with "pointing out the obvious."
"There is a difference between pointing out the obvious and calling someone names," said a campaign spokesman for Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
State Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, a black Baltimore Democrat, said she does not expect her party to pull any punches, including racial jabs at Mr. Steele, in the race to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes.
"Party trumps race, especially on the national level," she said. "If you are bold enough to run, you have to take whatever the voters are going to give you. It's democracy, perhaps at its worse, but it is democracy."
Delegate Salima Siler Marriott, a black Baltimore Democrat, said Mr. Steele invites comparisons to a slave who loves his cruel master or a cookie that is black on the outside and white inside because his conservative political philosophy is, in her view, anti-black. "Because he is a conservative, he is different than most public blacks, and he is different than most people in our community," she said. "His politics are not in the best interest of the masses of black people."
During the 2002 campaign, Democratic supporters pelted Mr. Steele with Oreo cookies during a gubernatorial debate at Morgan State University in Baltimore.
In 2001, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. called Mr. Steele an "Uncle Tom," when Mr. Steele headed the state Republican Party. Mr. Miller, Prince George's County Democrat, later apologized for the remark.
"That's not racial. If they call him the "N' word, that's racial," Mrs. Marriott said. "Just because he's black, everything bad you say about him isn't racial."
This week, the News Blog -- a liberal Web log run by Steve Gilliard, a black New Yorker -- removed a doctored photo of Mr. Steele that depicted him as a black-faced minstrel.
However, the blog has kept its headline "Simple Sambo wants to move to the big house." A caption beneath a photo of the lieutenant governor reads: "I's Simple Sambo and I's running for the Big House." A spokesman for the Maryland Democratic Party denounced the depiction as being "extremely offensive" and having "no place in politics or in any other aspect of public discourse," The Washington Post reported. Democrats have denied any connection to the News Blog.
Still, Mfume spokesman Joseph P. Trippi said Mr. Steele opens himself to such criticism by defending Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. for holding a Republican fundraiser in July at the all-white Elkridge Club in Baltimore.
"The facts are the facts. Ehrlich went to that country club, and Steele said it didn't bother him," Mr. Trippi said. "I think that says something ... and should be part of this debate."
Several club members told the Baltimore Sun that, though blacks are welcome as guests and there is no policy banning blacks from membership, the club never has had a black member in its 127-year history. Democrats also have used the club for various events, including Peter O'Malley, brother of and adviser to Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, a Democratic candidate for governor. Peter O'Malley held his wedding reception there in 2003.
State Sen. Verna Jones, Baltimore Democrat and vice chairman of the General Assembly's legislative black caucus, said black Republicans deserve criticism because the Republican Party has not promoted the interests of the black community.
"The public policies supported by Democratic principles are the ones that most impact the African-American community," she said. "I'm not saying [Mr. Steele] is a sell-out. That's not for me to say."
In July, however, Mr. Mfume noted how Republicans were rallying for Mr. Steele but his party had ignored his historic candidacy. "More voters in Maryland are carrying the impression that the Democratic Party talks the talk, but doesn't always walk the walk. People may find a way to cross over in the fall," he said.
Steele campaign spokesman Leonardo Alcivar said state Democrats are afraid of losing the black vote to Mr. Steele. "That has caused a great tremble throughout the Maryland Democratic Party," he said. "Of course [they are] going to condone racism. It's nothing new, and it's not surprising."
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
By S.A. Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published November 2, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Black Democratic leaders in Maryland say that racially tinged attacks against Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in his bid for the U.S. Senate are fair because he is a conservative Republican.
Such attacks against the first black man to win a statewide election in Maryland include pelting him with Oreo cookies during a campaign appearance, calling him an "Uncle Tom" and depicting him as a black-faced minstrel on a liberal Web log.
Operatives for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) also obtained a copy of his credit report -- the only Republican candidate so targeted.
But black Democrats say there is nothing wrong with "pointing out the obvious."
"There is a difference between pointing out the obvious and calling someone names," said a campaign spokesman for Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
State Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, a black Baltimore Democrat, said she does not expect her party to pull any punches, including racial jabs at Mr. Steele, in the race to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes.
"Party trumps race, especially on the national level," she said. "If you are bold enough to run, you have to take whatever the voters are going to give you. It's democracy, perhaps at its worse, but it is democracy."
Delegate Salima Siler Marriott, a black Baltimore Democrat, said Mr. Steele invites comparisons to a slave who loves his cruel master or a cookie that is black on the outside and white inside because his conservative political philosophy is, in her view, anti-black. "Because he is a conservative, he is different than most public blacks, and he is different than most people in our community," she said. "His politics are not in the best interest of the masses of black people."
During the 2002 campaign, Democratic supporters pelted Mr. Steele with Oreo cookies during a gubernatorial debate at Morgan State University in Baltimore.
In 2001, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. called Mr. Steele an "Uncle Tom," when Mr. Steele headed the state Republican Party. Mr. Miller, Prince George's County Democrat, later apologized for the remark.
"That's not racial. If they call him the "N' word, that's racial," Mrs. Marriott said. "Just because he's black, everything bad you say about him isn't racial."
This week, the News Blog -- a liberal Web log run by Steve Gilliard, a black New Yorker -- removed a doctored photo of Mr. Steele that depicted him as a black-faced minstrel.
However, the blog has kept its headline "Simple Sambo wants to move to the big house." A caption beneath a photo of the lieutenant governor reads: "I's Simple Sambo and I's running for the Big House." A spokesman for the Maryland Democratic Party denounced the depiction as being "extremely offensive" and having "no place in politics or in any other aspect of public discourse," The Washington Post reported. Democrats have denied any connection to the News Blog.
Still, Mfume spokesman Joseph P. Trippi said Mr. Steele opens himself to such criticism by defending Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. for holding a Republican fundraiser in July at the all-white Elkridge Club in Baltimore.
"The facts are the facts. Ehrlich went to that country club, and Steele said it didn't bother him," Mr. Trippi said. "I think that says something ... and should be part of this debate."
Several club members told the Baltimore Sun that, though blacks are welcome as guests and there is no policy banning blacks from membership, the club never has had a black member in its 127-year history. Democrats also have used the club for various events, including Peter O'Malley, brother of and adviser to Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, a Democratic candidate for governor. Peter O'Malley held his wedding reception there in 2003.
State Sen. Verna Jones, Baltimore Democrat and vice chairman of the General Assembly's legislative black caucus, said black Republicans deserve criticism because the Republican Party has not promoted the interests of the black community.
"The public policies supported by Democratic principles are the ones that most impact the African-American community," she said. "I'm not saying [Mr. Steele] is a sell-out. That's not for me to say."
In July, however, Mr. Mfume noted how Republicans were rallying for Mr. Steele but his party had ignored his historic candidacy. "More voters in Maryland are carrying the impression that the Democratic Party talks the talk, but doesn't always walk the walk. People may find a way to cross over in the fall," he said.
Steele campaign spokesman Leonardo Alcivar said state Democrats are afraid of losing the black vote to Mr. Steele. "That has caused a great tremble throughout the Maryland Democratic Party," he said. "Of course [they are] going to condone racism. It's nothing new, and it's not surprising."
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
More from crazy Hugo
VENEZUELA-US
Chavez: I'll respond if Bush slights Venezuelan gov't at summit
Caracas, Nov 2 (EFE).- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an increasingly vocal antagonist of the United States, says he once let slide a disparaging comment by George W. Bush about the South American nation's government but that if the U.S. leader tries it again at a summit this week, the slight will not go unanswered.
Chavez, a leftist admirer of Cuba's Fidel Castro, said that Bush "will get an immediate response" from him if the U.S. president implies he is not a democrat at the 4th Summit of the Americas to be held on Friday and Saturday in Mar del Plata, Argentina.
After recalling Bush's remark at a past summit that his government would push for "democracy in Haiti, Bolivia and Venezuela," Chavez said that he looked at the U.S. leader "out of the corner of my eye" but decided not to say anything.
"If President Bush says it again, he's going to get an immedite response from me, because (the Venezuelan) people are honorable and I'm not going to accept it if he runs over us," Chavez said, according to a Communications Ministry transcription of an interview he gave Tuesday night to the new international regional television channel Telesur.
He also said that he would give "a blunt response and an invitation to debate" if Bush insists on reviving the U.S. proposal for a Free Trade Area of the Americas, known as the FTAA, which the Venezuelan leader said was "imperialist," as well as "dead." "Bush will push for free trade and I will encourage him to debate. I don't care what they say," he remarked.
Regarding reports that U.S. authorities had asked Argentina to see to it that "nobody is disrespectful of Bush, and that (Chavez) does not interrupt him," the Venezuelan leader said that Washington had made the same request of former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso shortly before the 2nd Summit of the Americas held in Canada four years ago.
"You're not going to believe me, but Bush is afraid of you," Chavez said Cardoso told him at the time.
"Those who feel powerful don't like others to debate them. I don't care if they debate me. I like to incite debate," said Chavez, who the Bush administration has criticized as having autocratic tendencies.
"Sometimes I interrupt, but respectfully, because I believe that debates should be like that and that someone should not come, read a speech, finish and then we applaud them ... What a nuisance! It's better to interrupt!" he exclaimed.
Regarding his participation in a march to a Mar del Plata stadium to demonstrate opposition to Bush, a protest being organized by leftist Argentine groups, Chavez said that he had been invited but that his security team was still evaluating whether or not he would participate.
"I don't want to cause problems. It's true I'm going (to Argentina) with much humility to talk about my ideas. I'm very grateful for the invitation to that great gathering (i.e. the march). I know it's going to be really big and peaceful. If I can't go, fine, I won't go. But the important thing is that the people go to that funeral march for the FTAA," Chavez said.
"I want to go. I've said so," he continued, adding that "they've walled off part of the city and the stadium is a little outside the wall. So they told me that my being there, and (trying to) come back inside the wall - which seems like it's higher than the Great Wall of China - could create problems." EFE ar/bp
Chavez: I'll respond if Bush slights Venezuelan gov't at summit
Caracas, Nov 2 (EFE).- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an increasingly vocal antagonist of the United States, says he once let slide a disparaging comment by George W. Bush about the South American nation's government but that if the U.S. leader tries it again at a summit this week, the slight will not go unanswered.
Chavez, a leftist admirer of Cuba's Fidel Castro, said that Bush "will get an immediate response" from him if the U.S. president implies he is not a democrat at the 4th Summit of the Americas to be held on Friday and Saturday in Mar del Plata, Argentina.
After recalling Bush's remark at a past summit that his government would push for "democracy in Haiti, Bolivia and Venezuela," Chavez said that he looked at the U.S. leader "out of the corner of my eye" but decided not to say anything.
"If President Bush says it again, he's going to get an immedite response from me, because (the Venezuelan) people are honorable and I'm not going to accept it if he runs over us," Chavez said, according to a Communications Ministry transcription of an interview he gave Tuesday night to the new international regional television channel Telesur.
He also said that he would give "a blunt response and an invitation to debate" if Bush insists on reviving the U.S. proposal for a Free Trade Area of the Americas, known as the FTAA, which the Venezuelan leader said was "imperialist," as well as "dead." "Bush will push for free trade and I will encourage him to debate. I don't care what they say," he remarked.
Regarding reports that U.S. authorities had asked Argentina to see to it that "nobody is disrespectful of Bush, and that (Chavez) does not interrupt him," the Venezuelan leader said that Washington had made the same request of former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso shortly before the 2nd Summit of the Americas held in Canada four years ago.
"You're not going to believe me, but Bush is afraid of you," Chavez said Cardoso told him at the time.
"Those who feel powerful don't like others to debate them. I don't care if they debate me. I like to incite debate," said Chavez, who the Bush administration has criticized as having autocratic tendencies.
"Sometimes I interrupt, but respectfully, because I believe that debates should be like that and that someone should not come, read a speech, finish and then we applaud them ... What a nuisance! It's better to interrupt!" he exclaimed.
Regarding his participation in a march to a Mar del Plata stadium to demonstrate opposition to Bush, a protest being organized by leftist Argentine groups, Chavez said that he had been invited but that his security team was still evaluating whether or not he would participate.
"I don't want to cause problems. It's true I'm going (to Argentina) with much humility to talk about my ideas. I'm very grateful for the invitation to that great gathering (i.e. the march). I know it's going to be really big and peaceful. If I can't go, fine, I won't go. But the important thing is that the people go to that funeral march for the FTAA," Chavez said.
"I want to go. I've said so," he continued, adding that "they've walled off part of the city and the stadium is a little outside the wall. So they told me that my being there, and (trying to) come back inside the wall - which seems like it's higher than the Great Wall of China - could create problems." EFE ar/bp
Hugo's latest stunt - F-16s to Cuba/China
F-16 aircraft could be sent to Cuba or China
Venezuela could send to Cuba or China some F-16 planes previously bought from the United States, "as they are reluctant to sell us the spare parts," President Hugo Chávez said.
"Failure to perform the agreement allows for either party to waive it," Chávez cautioned during a ceremony to execute an agreement with Chinese company Wall to develop the Simón Bolívar telecommunications satellite.
"Therefore, we can do with those planes whatever we please. All of a sudden, we can send 10 planes to Cuba, or China to investigate the technology," he added.
As explained by Chávez, Venezuela has looked for spare parts elsewhere. "And they the United States) began to exert pressure on those countries to prevent them from providing support for the F-16 maintenance."
Recently, the US government forced Israel to freeze an agreement to streamline Venezuelan F-16, AFP reported.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Venezuela could send to Cuba or China some F-16 planes previously bought from the United States, "as they are reluctant to sell us the spare parts," President Hugo Chávez said.
"Failure to perform the agreement allows for either party to waive it," Chávez cautioned during a ceremony to execute an agreement with Chinese company Wall to develop the Simón Bolívar telecommunications satellite.
"Therefore, we can do with those planes whatever we please. All of a sudden, we can send 10 planes to Cuba, or China to investigate the technology," he added.
As explained by Chávez, Venezuela has looked for spare parts elsewhere. "And they the United States) began to exert pressure on those countries to prevent them from providing support for the F-16 maintenance."
Recently, the US government forced Israel to freeze an agreement to streamline Venezuelan F-16, AFP reported.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Letter from a Doctor at war...
Below is a letter written by a Doc receiving our wounded. Gives further insight to the sacrifice our men and women are doing overseas.
Hey guys!
Well, I?ll fill you in on a little of what goes on here?The Andrews? Aeromedical Staging Facility (ASF) is a place that's been around since the Vietnam war at least...and it probably has not seen as many casualties in its hallways and rooms as there are here now, since the time of that Southeast Asia conflict. We have missions either coming and/or going out each day (except sometimes Thurs), and our typical over-night ward census is around 25 to 35, but sometimes it gets even above 40 patients. The predominate mood of the personnel on the medical staff who work here tends to evolve over time, after arriving here?usually, at first shock and amazement...often to disgust and disillusionment...then on to acceptance and detachment... It's a job that's got to be done, and the only way to effectively keep from developing a DSM-IV psychiatric diagnosis (like the numerous PTSD and adjustment disorder patients we?ve had return from Iraq so far)...is learn to compartmentalize to some degree or another?
Every other day of the week, a C-141 or C-17 lands on the runway of Andrews AFB, arriving from Ramstein Air Base carrying up to 45 patients fresh from the Iraq theater, after usually only a 24 to 72 hour staging and stabilizing period that they've spent at the Landstuhl Army hospital in Germany. The sickest and most severe patients come off the plane first. Only the strongest team members among our ASF staff (which includes approx 20 nurses and med techs that are here with me on a four month TDY; most are deployed out of Wright-Pat AFB), can lift the first few stretchers that come off the aircraft and into the waiting ambulances. The very severe CCAT patients either go right on to Walter Reed Army Medical Center (for Army patients) or on to Bethesda Naval Medical Center (for USMC patients). It takes up to six men and women to lift one of these patient litters, since also on board each stretcher is usually the following equipment (suspended about the patient's chest and abdomen, on a frame attached to the sides of the litter): a ventilator, cardiac monitor, numerous drains (e.g, JP drains from massive wound sites), chest tubes and drains, NG tube and suction/drain, Codman intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring systems, Venodyne pumps (to prevent deep vein thrombosis), foley catheter, and sometimes a feeding tube, as well as bags of IV fluids, antibiotics, blood transfusion products, morphine, etc. Sometimes it's hard to actually even see the patients beneath the plethora of modern medical devices they are buried under. The fact that some of these warriors are missing limbs, to top it all off, doesn't make the load seem any lighter... These are the living memorials of the worst of war's nightmarish effects, barely alive and clinging on a thread?
After the ambulances and ambuses from Bethesda and WRAMC pull away with their patients, and with the CCAT teams, comprised of nurses, doctors, and respiratory therapists, that have also deplaned with the most critical patients...we load the remainder of the patients, some on litters and some ambulatory, into our waiting ambuses to take back to our staging facility/ward, for overnight staging and patient management (and sometimes sleep for them). Our casualties span the gamut and range from multiple shrapnel wounds from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which is just a sterile name for roadside bombs... to bullet wounds (many times the bullets are still embedded in the wounds)...to fractures and sprains from rolled-over humvees and other vehicles?to numerous Psychiatric cases, such as post traumatic stress d/o and major depression?You can usually easily detect who these types of patients are right as they step off the plane, by the sign of the "hundred-yard-stare" which is evident in their eyes. We see lots of very interesting things, and hear many curious stories about what things are like on the ground, and out along the roads, in Iraq. Overall, the morale seems high, and I frequently hear wounded soldiers tell me that they regret not being able to be back in Iraq or Afghanistan with their units, fighting with and defending their buddies who are still over there. Often when injured soldiers who are Special Forces come to us, they?re accompanied by an attendant and watched like a hawk at all times. It's kind of spooky to think that an E-4 knows such important intel that he can't be trusted alone for a minute without any non-special ops people around if he's injured and under medication.
On a typical night we will go through up to ten to twenty vials of IV morphine sulfate. Periodically, cries and moans come from rooms as I walk down the hallway making rounds, while medical technicians pull gauze from gaping wounds (every bullet and shrapnel wound gets a dressing change each night on our ward). In seconds, nurses rush to the scenes, often with needle caps between their teeth and alcohol swabs and syringes in hands, ready to provide relief with their injections for anxious wounded soldiers.
I'm usually able to get out of the ASF by 0130 or 0200 on the nights of our incoming (three to four days per week), and I drive home to my room to forget the worst of the sights and sounds, one more time. I'm up by 0630 or 0700 the next morning, back to the ward for my rounds, and then out to the flight line to load our overnight guests onto waiting C-130's, which will take them to various Army and Marine posts around the country. Most go back to hospitals that are closest to the bases that each mobilized (or, "mob'd") out of. A few, like some of our SOF patients, go who-knows-where...Some of these covert ops types, are even whisked away on private commercial jets...maybe in attempts to thwart anyone who may be out there attempting to track their movements and gain access to their knowledge.
Well, lots more intriguing stuff to write, but I gotta get back to the room and catch up on some badly needed sleep... and after a nap, then get up some energy to go and find a decent meal somewhere. All of us here realize that things could always be worse, and we could be over in theater getting bombed and shot at! Everyone on staff here seems to be holding up okay, though, and things seem to have settled into somewhat of a routine. Sometime soon, we?ll be having some debriefing sessions, in order to help anyone that may be getting affected emotionally/spiritually by the work here. There?s of course lots of carnage to witness and tough medical and trauma cases to continuously manage, as well as the ever present awareness of the acuity of this war that we?re engaged in over in the Middle East? What is inspiring, however, is witnessing the courage and strong spirits of many of the wounded young men and women we receive back from over there? There?s always hope left for our country, as long as we continue to raise self-less and brave kids like these?.
Glad we can still stay in touch. God bless everyone, and stay safe during the holidays!
- Eric
Sent by: PMA
Hey guys!
Well, I?ll fill you in on a little of what goes on here?The Andrews? Aeromedical Staging Facility (ASF) is a place that's been around since the Vietnam war at least...and it probably has not seen as many casualties in its hallways and rooms as there are here now, since the time of that Southeast Asia conflict. We have missions either coming and/or going out each day (except sometimes Thurs), and our typical over-night ward census is around 25 to 35, but sometimes it gets even above 40 patients. The predominate mood of the personnel on the medical staff who work here tends to evolve over time, after arriving here?usually, at first shock and amazement...often to disgust and disillusionment...then on to acceptance and detachment... It's a job that's got to be done, and the only way to effectively keep from developing a DSM-IV psychiatric diagnosis (like the numerous PTSD and adjustment disorder patients we?ve had return from Iraq so far)...is learn to compartmentalize to some degree or another?
Every other day of the week, a C-141 or C-17 lands on the runway of Andrews AFB, arriving from Ramstein Air Base carrying up to 45 patients fresh from the Iraq theater, after usually only a 24 to 72 hour staging and stabilizing period that they've spent at the Landstuhl Army hospital in Germany. The sickest and most severe patients come off the plane first. Only the strongest team members among our ASF staff (which includes approx 20 nurses and med techs that are here with me on a four month TDY; most are deployed out of Wright-Pat AFB), can lift the first few stretchers that come off the aircraft and into the waiting ambulances. The very severe CCAT patients either go right on to Walter Reed Army Medical Center (for Army patients) or on to Bethesda Naval Medical Center (for USMC patients). It takes up to six men and women to lift one of these patient litters, since also on board each stretcher is usually the following equipment (suspended about the patient's chest and abdomen, on a frame attached to the sides of the litter): a ventilator, cardiac monitor, numerous drains (e.g, JP drains from massive wound sites), chest tubes and drains, NG tube and suction/drain, Codman intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring systems, Venodyne pumps (to prevent deep vein thrombosis), foley catheter, and sometimes a feeding tube, as well as bags of IV fluids, antibiotics, blood transfusion products, morphine, etc. Sometimes it's hard to actually even see the patients beneath the plethora of modern medical devices they are buried under. The fact that some of these warriors are missing limbs, to top it all off, doesn't make the load seem any lighter... These are the living memorials of the worst of war's nightmarish effects, barely alive and clinging on a thread?
After the ambulances and ambuses from Bethesda and WRAMC pull away with their patients, and with the CCAT teams, comprised of nurses, doctors, and respiratory therapists, that have also deplaned with the most critical patients...we load the remainder of the patients, some on litters and some ambulatory, into our waiting ambuses to take back to our staging facility/ward, for overnight staging and patient management (and sometimes sleep for them). Our casualties span the gamut and range from multiple shrapnel wounds from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which is just a sterile name for roadside bombs... to bullet wounds (many times the bullets are still embedded in the wounds)...to fractures and sprains from rolled-over humvees and other vehicles?to numerous Psychiatric cases, such as post traumatic stress d/o and major depression?You can usually easily detect who these types of patients are right as they step off the plane, by the sign of the "hundred-yard-stare" which is evident in their eyes. We see lots of very interesting things, and hear many curious stories about what things are like on the ground, and out along the roads, in Iraq. Overall, the morale seems high, and I frequently hear wounded soldiers tell me that they regret not being able to be back in Iraq or Afghanistan with their units, fighting with and defending their buddies who are still over there. Often when injured soldiers who are Special Forces come to us, they?re accompanied by an attendant and watched like a hawk at all times. It's kind of spooky to think that an E-4 knows such important intel that he can't be trusted alone for a minute without any non-special ops people around if he's injured and under medication.
On a typical night we will go through up to ten to twenty vials of IV morphine sulfate. Periodically, cries and moans come from rooms as I walk down the hallway making rounds, while medical technicians pull gauze from gaping wounds (every bullet and shrapnel wound gets a dressing change each night on our ward). In seconds, nurses rush to the scenes, often with needle caps between their teeth and alcohol swabs and syringes in hands, ready to provide relief with their injections for anxious wounded soldiers.
I'm usually able to get out of the ASF by 0130 or 0200 on the nights of our incoming (three to four days per week), and I drive home to my room to forget the worst of the sights and sounds, one more time. I'm up by 0630 or 0700 the next morning, back to the ward for my rounds, and then out to the flight line to load our overnight guests onto waiting C-130's, which will take them to various Army and Marine posts around the country. Most go back to hospitals that are closest to the bases that each mobilized (or, "mob'd") out of. A few, like some of our SOF patients, go who-knows-where...Some of these covert ops types, are even whisked away on private commercial jets...maybe in attempts to thwart anyone who may be out there attempting to track their movements and gain access to their knowledge.
Well, lots more intriguing stuff to write, but I gotta get back to the room and catch up on some badly needed sleep... and after a nap, then get up some energy to go and find a decent meal somewhere. All of us here realize that things could always be worse, and we could be over in theater getting bombed and shot at! Everyone on staff here seems to be holding up okay, though, and things seem to have settled into somewhat of a routine. Sometime soon, we?ll be having some debriefing sessions, in order to help anyone that may be getting affected emotionally/spiritually by the work here. There?s of course lots of carnage to witness and tough medical and trauma cases to continuously manage, as well as the ever present awareness of the acuity of this war that we?re engaged in over in the Middle East? What is inspiring, however, is witnessing the courage and strong spirits of many of the wounded young men and women we receive back from over there? There?s always hope left for our country, as long as we continue to raise self-less and brave kids like these?.
Glad we can still stay in touch. God bless everyone, and stay safe during the holidays!
- Eric
Sent by: PMA
Havel praises Czech stance on Cuba
(PDM staff with CTK) 8 November - Former president Vaclav Havel praised Czech diplomacy for "taking again a principled attitude towards the dictatorial regime in Cuba," in an interview with CTK.
He was reacting to another in a series of diplomatic spats between Prague and Havana, which banned the celebrations of the Czech national holiday in a luxury Havana hotel on October 28 to which Cuban dissidents were also invited.
The Czechoslovak Independence Day celebration that the Cuban authorities labelled "a counter-revolutionary action," eventually took place in Czech charge d'affaires Petr Stiegler's residence.
The Czech Foreign Ministry handed a protest note to Aymee Hernandez, Cuban charge d'affaires in Prague, who categorically dismissed it.
Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda discussed the incident with his EU counterparts at their meeting yesterday.
"When the European Union was going to adopt a recommendation to the member states not to invite dissidents to the celebrations of their national holidays, it probably wanted to prevent similar things from happening. But such a policy is extremely short-sighted. It is a compromise with evil, it is accommodating the totalitarian power. I am glad that they [Czechs] contributed to the rejection of the draft resolution," Havel told CTK.
Hernandez told the Spanish news agency EFE that "the whole Cuban dissident movement is trumped up, hired by the United States" and that "if someone regrets the behaviour of the Czech government, it is the Cuban people."
The Czech Republic is critical of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and his totalitarian regime. It had pushed through U.N. resolutions criticising Cuba.
Havel, a former dissident, said that it is only a matter of a short time before Castro's regime collapses.
The international community can fight against it through embargoes, diplomatic boycotts, financial support to the regime's opponents as well as the biggest supply of information to them, Havel said.
Havel has focused on human rights observance, including in Cuba, since his second and last possible term as Czech president expired in early 2003.
Havel, 69, was Czechoslovak president from 1989-1992 and Czech president from 1993 to 2003.
CTK news edited by the staff of the Prague Daily Monitor, a Monitor CE service.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
He was reacting to another in a series of diplomatic spats between Prague and Havana, which banned the celebrations of the Czech national holiday in a luxury Havana hotel on October 28 to which Cuban dissidents were also invited.
The Czechoslovak Independence Day celebration that the Cuban authorities labelled "a counter-revolutionary action," eventually took place in Czech charge d'affaires Petr Stiegler's residence.
The Czech Foreign Ministry handed a protest note to Aymee Hernandez, Cuban charge d'affaires in Prague, who categorically dismissed it.
Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda discussed the incident with his EU counterparts at their meeting yesterday.
"When the European Union was going to adopt a recommendation to the member states not to invite dissidents to the celebrations of their national holidays, it probably wanted to prevent similar things from happening. But such a policy is extremely short-sighted. It is a compromise with evil, it is accommodating the totalitarian power. I am glad that they [Czechs] contributed to the rejection of the draft resolution," Havel told CTK.
Hernandez told the Spanish news agency EFE that "the whole Cuban dissident movement is trumped up, hired by the United States" and that "if someone regrets the behaviour of the Czech government, it is the Cuban people."
The Czech Republic is critical of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and his totalitarian regime. It had pushed through U.N. resolutions criticising Cuba.
Havel, a former dissident, said that it is only a matter of a short time before Castro's regime collapses.
The international community can fight against it through embargoes, diplomatic boycotts, financial support to the regime's opponents as well as the biggest supply of information to them, Havel said.
Havel has focused on human rights observance, including in Cuba, since his second and last possible term as Czech president expired in early 2003.
Havel, 69, was Czechoslovak president from 1989-1992 and Czech president from 1993 to 2003.
CTK news edited by the staff of the Prague Daily Monitor, a Monitor CE service.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Anti-Americanism has become ideology
LATIN AMERICA
BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
www.firmaspress.com
President Bush learned two lessons at the failed Summit of Mar del Plata: the visceral hatred that the ideas inspired by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez have for the United States, and the profound division that afflicts Latin America.
The devastating protest was not surprising, however. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the Left everywhere stopped offering options for governance or serious theories about development and equity and sought refuge in protest.
The enemies of globalization explain their ideas by stoning McDonald's to smithereens. Anticapitalists hurl pies at the president of the International Monetary Fund.
Anti-Americanism has turned into ideology. The communists have exchanged Das Kapital for T-shirts with the image of Ché Guevara and choruses of brief (and badly rhymed) slogans. The Left today is nothing but circus and street violence.
But that strategy, along with the corruption and follies of many governments, has burrowed deeply, especially in Latin America, where a growing number of citizens despise democracy as a method to organize coexistence and reject the market economy as a way to create and assign wealth.
Throughout almost the entire region, populism has revitalized itself in either of its two variants: the for-now tranquil and vegetarian form favored by Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Uruguay's Tabaré Vázquez and Argentina's Néstor Kirchner; and the ferocious and authoritarian form defended by Venezuela's Chávez and Cuba's Castro, all of them sworn enemies of international free trade, as was seen in Mar del Plata.
Eleven years ago, when the first Summit of the Americas was held in Miami in 1994, the atmosphere was totally different. I remember having a long conversation at the time with Argentine President Carlos Menem and his foreign minister, Guido di Tella, from which it could be deduced that Latin America had come of age and was taking the same sensible road that the First World had taken.
No one doubted that the way to development and an end to poverty was through free trade, market economics and international cooperation, in the manner of Spain, Singapore and the other Asian Dragons, and other successful nations. Within that context, the Free Trade Area of the Americas announced by President Clinton opened the door to hope.
There was also a chart to reach safe port: the so-called Washington Consensus. Through the control of inflation and the monetary mass -- through fiscal balance, a reduction in public expenditure, an opening to international trade and the privatization of the entrepreneurial activities of the official sector -- sustained growth and reduced poverty could be achieved.
And that prescription was not only for the Third World, because Europe itself insisted on its application within the European Union, as reflected in the Maastricht accords that later gave life to the euro. Simply put, that was sensible governance on the eve of the 21st century.
In Latin America, however, things generally proceeded otherwise. The populist culture was so deeply entrenched that public expenditure could not be controlled, and in some countries it was impossible to privatize the ruinous public enterprises. In other countries, the privatization processes were scandalous forms of corruption and embezzlement, which often converted state monopolies into private monopolies without allowing the market to behave freely.
The result of the failed reforms? A return to statism, a distrust in international trade and a disbelief in democracy and the market. They all led to the victories at the polls of Lucio Gutiérrez in Ecuador, Chávez, Lula, Vázquez and Kirchner. It was a return to the past, a stubborn rejection of the fact that the entire 20th century was misspent trying out the diverse variants of collectivist populism.
Mar del Plata, then, was a confrontation between the cheery original vision of the first Summit of the Americas, more than a decade ago, and the darker vision held by half the continent after a period of frustrations and failures.
It's true that Chile remains as an example that political and economic freedom, when exercised together, achieve the miracle of development and greater equity -- in Chile, Latin America's leading nation, poverty has been reduced from 42 percent to 18 percent in 15 years. But a more reasonable forecast points to pessimism.
As Brazilians say sarcastically about their own country: Latin America is the continent of the future -- and always will be.
©2005 Firmas Press
BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
www.firmaspress.com
President Bush learned two lessons at the failed Summit of Mar del Plata: the visceral hatred that the ideas inspired by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez have for the United States, and the profound division that afflicts Latin America.
The devastating protest was not surprising, however. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the Left everywhere stopped offering options for governance or serious theories about development and equity and sought refuge in protest.
The enemies of globalization explain their ideas by stoning McDonald's to smithereens. Anticapitalists hurl pies at the president of the International Monetary Fund.
Anti-Americanism has turned into ideology. The communists have exchanged Das Kapital for T-shirts with the image of Ché Guevara and choruses of brief (and badly rhymed) slogans. The Left today is nothing but circus and street violence.
But that strategy, along with the corruption and follies of many governments, has burrowed deeply, especially in Latin America, where a growing number of citizens despise democracy as a method to organize coexistence and reject the market economy as a way to create and assign wealth.
Throughout almost the entire region, populism has revitalized itself in either of its two variants: the for-now tranquil and vegetarian form favored by Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Uruguay's Tabaré Vázquez and Argentina's Néstor Kirchner; and the ferocious and authoritarian form defended by Venezuela's Chávez and Cuba's Castro, all of them sworn enemies of international free trade, as was seen in Mar del Plata.
Eleven years ago, when the first Summit of the Americas was held in Miami in 1994, the atmosphere was totally different. I remember having a long conversation at the time with Argentine President Carlos Menem and his foreign minister, Guido di Tella, from which it could be deduced that Latin America had come of age and was taking the same sensible road that the First World had taken.
No one doubted that the way to development and an end to poverty was through free trade, market economics and international cooperation, in the manner of Spain, Singapore and the other Asian Dragons, and other successful nations. Within that context, the Free Trade Area of the Americas announced by President Clinton opened the door to hope.
There was also a chart to reach safe port: the so-called Washington Consensus. Through the control of inflation and the monetary mass -- through fiscal balance, a reduction in public expenditure, an opening to international trade and the privatization of the entrepreneurial activities of the official sector -- sustained growth and reduced poverty could be achieved.
And that prescription was not only for the Third World, because Europe itself insisted on its application within the European Union, as reflected in the Maastricht accords that later gave life to the euro. Simply put, that was sensible governance on the eve of the 21st century.
In Latin America, however, things generally proceeded otherwise. The populist culture was so deeply entrenched that public expenditure could not be controlled, and in some countries it was impossible to privatize the ruinous public enterprises. In other countries, the privatization processes were scandalous forms of corruption and embezzlement, which often converted state monopolies into private monopolies without allowing the market to behave freely.
The result of the failed reforms? A return to statism, a distrust in international trade and a disbelief in democracy and the market. They all led to the victories at the polls of Lucio Gutiérrez in Ecuador, Chávez, Lula, Vázquez and Kirchner. It was a return to the past, a stubborn rejection of the fact that the entire 20th century was misspent trying out the diverse variants of collectivist populism.
Mar del Plata, then, was a confrontation between the cheery original vision of the first Summit of the Americas, more than a decade ago, and the darker vision held by half the continent after a period of frustrations and failures.
It's true that Chile remains as an example that political and economic freedom, when exercised together, achieve the miracle of development and greater equity -- in Chile, Latin America's leading nation, poverty has been reduced from 42 percent to 18 percent in 15 years. But a more reasonable forecast points to pessimism.
As Brazilians say sarcastically about their own country: Latin America is the continent of the future -- and always will be.
©2005 Firmas Press
House With Bride for Sale on Ebay
7:56 AM PST - Thursday, November 03, 2005AP Staff
DENVER
For $600,000, a 40- to 60-year-old man can buy a house in a trendy Denver neighborhood that comes complete with a bride. Deborah Hale, 48, has placed an ad on eBay offering to sell her home in the Washington Park area to a compatible man who wants to spend his life with her. She also has her own Web site outlining the deal. advertisement
"I'm looking for my soul mate," Hale told the Rocky Mountain News Tuesday. She did not immediately return a telephone message left at her home Wednesday.
Hale lives part-time in the 1910 bungalow-style house. She also has a jewelry business in Albuquerque, N.M.
She has received about 60 responses.
"I have to say that the e-mails that I have got have been very kind and very nice," Hale said.
The deadline for bidding is Valentine's Day 2006.
Hale's Web site is http://www.housewithbride.com . Her eBay ad is listed under "House With Bride."
Doing business with Cuba seminar scheduled
Note: sadly, it's all about the money . . . spotted this today on the wires...
Nov 9, 2005 8:59 AM
"During a panel discussion, those of us who have done business with Cuba will offer our experiences in exporting and allow for questions from the audience,” said Rodney Mosier, executive vice president of the Texas Wheat Producers Board.
Did you know that trade with Cuba is legal? You can legally export products to Cuba and get paid in advance through a program supported by the U.S. Government.
A seminar has been developed to help people learn more about doing business with Cuba. The seminar will be held, Tuesday, Nov. 29, from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the Amarillo Civic Center Grand Plaza in conjunction with the Amarillo Farm and Ranch Show. It will provide comprehensive information about trading with Cuba, including the process, realistic expectations, important contacts and the necessary licenses.
“The seminar will focus on the potential of the Cuban market and how to conduct business with Cuba. During a panel discussion, those of us who have done business with Cuba will offer our experiences in exporting and allow for questions from the audience,” said Rodney Mosier, executive vice president of the Texas Wheat Producers Board.
There is no charge to attend the seminar thanks to the following sponsors: WTAMU Small Business Development Center, Texas-Cuba Trade Alliance, Texas Sorghum Producers, Texas Corn Growers and the Texas Wheat Producers Board.
“We encourage anyone who is involved in the manufacturing or marketing of the products that may legally be sold to Cuba to attend and find out more,” said Mosier. Legal exports to Cuba include: agricultural products, food, live animals, wood products and medical supplies.
The presenters for the seminar are: Jaime Malaga, Dept. of Agricultural & Applied Economics, Texas Tech University, Cynthia Thomas, president of TriDimension Strategies, L.L.C. and Wayne Cleveland, executive director, Texas Sorghum Producers.
For more information, call 806-372-5151 or visit www.SmallBusinessDevelopmentCenter.com
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Nov 9, 2005 8:59 AM
"During a panel discussion, those of us who have done business with Cuba will offer our experiences in exporting and allow for questions from the audience,” said Rodney Mosier, executive vice president of the Texas Wheat Producers Board.
Did you know that trade with Cuba is legal? You can legally export products to Cuba and get paid in advance through a program supported by the U.S. Government.
A seminar has been developed to help people learn more about doing business with Cuba. The seminar will be held, Tuesday, Nov. 29, from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the Amarillo Civic Center Grand Plaza in conjunction with the Amarillo Farm and Ranch Show. It will provide comprehensive information about trading with Cuba, including the process, realistic expectations, important contacts and the necessary licenses.
“The seminar will focus on the potential of the Cuban market and how to conduct business with Cuba. During a panel discussion, those of us who have done business with Cuba will offer our experiences in exporting and allow for questions from the audience,” said Rodney Mosier, executive vice president of the Texas Wheat Producers Board.
There is no charge to attend the seminar thanks to the following sponsors: WTAMU Small Business Development Center, Texas-Cuba Trade Alliance, Texas Sorghum Producers, Texas Corn Growers and the Texas Wheat Producers Board.
“We encourage anyone who is involved in the manufacturing or marketing of the products that may legally be sold to Cuba to attend and find out more,” said Mosier. Legal exports to Cuba include: agricultural products, food, live animals, wood products and medical supplies.
The presenters for the seminar are: Jaime Malaga, Dept. of Agricultural & Applied Economics, Texas Tech University, Cynthia Thomas, president of TriDimension Strategies, L.L.C. and Wayne Cleveland, executive director, Texas Sorghum Producers.
For more information, call 806-372-5151 or visit www.SmallBusinessDevelopmentCenter.com
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Greenpeace fined for reef damage
Greenpeace divers were inspecting Tubbataha's reefs for damage
Environmental group Greenpeace has been fined almost $7,000 (£4,000) for damaging a coral reef at a World Heritage site in the Philippines.
Their flagship Rainbow Warrior II ran aground at Tubbataha Reef Marine Park, in the Sulu Sea, 650km (400 miles) south-east of Manila.
Park officials said almost 100 sq m (1,076 sq ft) of reef had been damaged.
Greenpeace agreed to pay the fine, but blamed the accident on outdated maps provided by the Philippines government.
"The chart indicated we were a mile and a half" from the coral reef when the ship ran aground, regional Greenpeace official Red Constantino told AFP news agency.
"This accident could have been avoided if the chart was accurate," he said, adding, however, that Greenpeace felt "responsible" for the damage.
'Immediate action'
The accident happened while the Rainbow Warrior was on a four-month tour of the Asia-Pacific region to promote environmentally-friendly energy sources.
Greenpeace divers were at the Tubbataha park, off the coast of Palawan island, to inspect the effect of global warming on the coral reef.
The Rainbow Warrior escaped serious damage
Mr Constantino said the reef appeared to be healthy, with no evidence of bleaching which is believed to be caused by warmer sea temperatures.
The Rainbow Warrior II escaped serious damage and was towed into deeper water by its own rubber boats.
Tubbataha park manager, Angelique Songco, praised the work Greenpeace was doing to protect the environment.
"We also appreciate the immediate action they took to get the full assessment of the damage," she said.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Bush Bashed at Latin Summit
Humberto Fontova
Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005
"Damned if you do," they say, "and damned if you don't." President Bush's Latin American policy is a perfect case in point. Last week he went down to the Summit of The Americas in Mar De Plata, Argentina, to lobby for free trade among free nations. "Bush go home!" shrieked Latin leftists. "U.S. get out!" they bellowed while burning American flags – in between torching and looting Argentine-owned stores.
"Capitalism is the greatest cause of unemployment and poverty!" raved Hugo Chavez at his own anti-American rally in a nearby soccer stadium. "The great loser today was George W. Bush!" crowed Chavez, who also saluted Cindy Sheehan during his tirade. "The man [Bush] went away wounded. You could see defeat on his face!"
The Venezuelan buffoon wore a Che Guevara emblem as he worked the 40,000-strong crowd at the stadium. Hugo's backdrop was a banner of Che Guevara six stories high. In front of him were a sea of Che T-hirts and flags.
Regarding The Summit of The Americas, Time magazine writes: "Che Guevara was the icon of the streets," which is fitting. In August of 1960, Time magazine in a cover story hailed Che Guevara as "The brains of the Cuban Revolution." Raul Castro was "the fist" and Fidel "the heart."
But forget that idiocy for a second (Fidel Castro – and Fidel Castro alone – was the brains of the Cuban revolution.) I say fitting, because probably 90 percent of the people cheering and whooping for Che and Fidel at Cuban rallies in 1959 later fled for their very lives to the U.S. The other 10 percent tried but failed.
The ones who made it make up that tiny percentage of Cuban-Americans today who vote Democratic and lobby against the embargo, so-called. And this from a nation that previously had immigration patterns going in the opposite direction. In 1958 more Americans lived in Cuba than Cubans in the U.S.
If I'd been a U.S. official in Argentina last week, I'd have been snapping pictures and taking down names. "Oh, Mr. Figueroa," I'd say upon inspecting an Argentine application for a U.S. visa next year as the Argentine economy implodes. "Wasn't that you we saw burning U.S. flags last year at Mar De Plata? See this picture here? ... sure looks like it. Please step to the back of the line, Senor Figueroa. We'll be right with you – right about the time hell freezes over!"
"Capitalism is the road to hell! We will bury capitalism!" whooped the Venezuelan Baboon as he worked the anti-American mob into a froth with Che Guevara gazing sternly in the background. "Our mission is socialist because it puts social aspects first. Capitalists put capital first."
Easy to say when you're awash with oil and with today's oil prices. The rest of Latin America, unfortunately, will have to work for a living.
The Venezuelan Orangutan has even blamed the recent earthquakes in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan and the mudslides in Mexico and Guatemala on capitalism. They were "nature's answer to a world global capitalist model that has left the world dangerously off balance," he screeched. "This model is destroying the world. The world is in danger. Never has there been such disasters, hurricanes, droughts, torrential rains. The world is dangerously off balance!"
Exactly one month ago, The Iberian Summit was held in Salamanca, Spain, hosting most of these same Latin American luminaries. They spent 90 percent of the time bashing the U.S. and concluded the summit with a unanimous declaration blasting the Bush administration for not engaging in free trade with the Stalinist regime that enslaves Cuba – the kleptocratic regime that robbed $2 billion from U.S. stockholders (and multiple times that from Cubans) in 1960, crowing about it gleefully, and that has not repaid a penny.
Last week, attempting to trade freely with all of Latin America was a fiendish, selfish Yankee imperialist plot. Last month, according to this same crowd, not trading freely with one Latin American burglar and mass-murderer was a fiendish and selfish Yankee plot. I wish they'd make up their minds.
But we do trade with Cuba. You'd never know it from Castro's agents (both on his payroll and off), but the U.S. today is Cuba's top food supplier and seventh-biggest trading partner. Forget what you hear from Fidel and his American echo chamber about an "embargo," much less a "blockade." Instead, actually study the diluted version in force today.
For companies like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill (top lobbyists against the "embargo"), this "embargo" amounts to this: no U.S. Export-Import bank financing of any deal with the current rulers of Cuba. In other words, no U.S. taxpayer bailout for politically connected millionaires entering into boneheaded business deals with Communist deadbeats and thieves.
Currently, ADM is perfectly free to sell Castro whatever it wants. But because of the nefarious machinations and subterfuges of the dreaded "Miami Mafia," their congressional representatives and allies, the U.S. taxpayer will not be left holding the bag if Archer Daniels Midland sells Cuba on credit and Castro sticks it to them as he has to everyone else. Mexico's Bancomex recently closed its offices in Havana and froze Cuban assets in three different countries in an attempt to recoup its staggering losses from financing trade with Cuba.
Back in the '50s, the U.S. traded with Cuba. According to Castroites (both in Cuba and in academic institutions worldwide), that caused humiliation, abuse and impoverishment. "Economic enslavement" was Che's term. "Yankee imperialism! Capitalist exploitation! Bloodsucking vampires stealing our resources! Dumping junk on us! ... blah ... blah ... blah." ("In fact, these Yankee factories, refineries and showrooms are so vile and corrupting we think we'll steal them," they decided in july 1960.)
Okay, fine, Ike finally said in late 1960. In that case we'll close down shop down there. You're on your own.
"Yankee blockade! Capitalist strangulation! Starving our children! Denying them medicine! Starving us! ... blah ... blah ... blah."
Turns out leaving them alone ALSO causes humiliation, abuse and impoverishment. We can't win. Will they please make up their minds?
It's like little kids throwing a tantrum where nothing satisfies them. Yet Leftist politicians and academics take these brats and their infantile tantrums seriously.
We saw it in Argentina last week. We saw it in Spain last month. Yet we sent almost $1 billion in foreign aid to these pack of Latin American jackals last year. Enough is enough, I say.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005
"Damned if you do," they say, "and damned if you don't." President Bush's Latin American policy is a perfect case in point. Last week he went down to the Summit of The Americas in Mar De Plata, Argentina, to lobby for free trade among free nations. "Bush go home!" shrieked Latin leftists. "U.S. get out!" they bellowed while burning American flags – in between torching and looting Argentine-owned stores.
"Capitalism is the greatest cause of unemployment and poverty!" raved Hugo Chavez at his own anti-American rally in a nearby soccer stadium. "The great loser today was George W. Bush!" crowed Chavez, who also saluted Cindy Sheehan during his tirade. "The man [Bush] went away wounded. You could see defeat on his face!"
The Venezuelan buffoon wore a Che Guevara emblem as he worked the 40,000-strong crowd at the stadium. Hugo's backdrop was a banner of Che Guevara six stories high. In front of him were a sea of Che T-hirts and flags.
Regarding The Summit of The Americas, Time magazine writes: "Che Guevara was the icon of the streets," which is fitting. In August of 1960, Time magazine in a cover story hailed Che Guevara as "The brains of the Cuban Revolution." Raul Castro was "the fist" and Fidel "the heart."
But forget that idiocy for a second (Fidel Castro – and Fidel Castro alone – was the brains of the Cuban revolution.) I say fitting, because probably 90 percent of the people cheering and whooping for Che and Fidel at Cuban rallies in 1959 later fled for their very lives to the U.S. The other 10 percent tried but failed.
The ones who made it make up that tiny percentage of Cuban-Americans today who vote Democratic and lobby against the embargo, so-called. And this from a nation that previously had immigration patterns going in the opposite direction. In 1958 more Americans lived in Cuba than Cubans in the U.S.
If I'd been a U.S. official in Argentina last week, I'd have been snapping pictures and taking down names. "Oh, Mr. Figueroa," I'd say upon inspecting an Argentine application for a U.S. visa next year as the Argentine economy implodes. "Wasn't that you we saw burning U.S. flags last year at Mar De Plata? See this picture here? ... sure looks like it. Please step to the back of the line, Senor Figueroa. We'll be right with you – right about the time hell freezes over!"
"Capitalism is the road to hell! We will bury capitalism!" whooped the Venezuelan Baboon as he worked the anti-American mob into a froth with Che Guevara gazing sternly in the background. "Our mission is socialist because it puts social aspects first. Capitalists put capital first."
Easy to say when you're awash with oil and with today's oil prices. The rest of Latin America, unfortunately, will have to work for a living.
The Venezuelan Orangutan has even blamed the recent earthquakes in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan and the mudslides in Mexico and Guatemala on capitalism. They were "nature's answer to a world global capitalist model that has left the world dangerously off balance," he screeched. "This model is destroying the world. The world is in danger. Never has there been such disasters, hurricanes, droughts, torrential rains. The world is dangerously off balance!"
Exactly one month ago, The Iberian Summit was held in Salamanca, Spain, hosting most of these same Latin American luminaries. They spent 90 percent of the time bashing the U.S. and concluded the summit with a unanimous declaration blasting the Bush administration for not engaging in free trade with the Stalinist regime that enslaves Cuba – the kleptocratic regime that robbed $2 billion from U.S. stockholders (and multiple times that from Cubans) in 1960, crowing about it gleefully, and that has not repaid a penny.
Last week, attempting to trade freely with all of Latin America was a fiendish, selfish Yankee imperialist plot. Last month, according to this same crowd, not trading freely with one Latin American burglar and mass-murderer was a fiendish and selfish Yankee plot. I wish they'd make up their minds.
But we do trade with Cuba. You'd never know it from Castro's agents (both on his payroll and off), but the U.S. today is Cuba's top food supplier and seventh-biggest trading partner. Forget what you hear from Fidel and his American echo chamber about an "embargo," much less a "blockade." Instead, actually study the diluted version in force today.
For companies like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill (top lobbyists against the "embargo"), this "embargo" amounts to this: no U.S. Export-Import bank financing of any deal with the current rulers of Cuba. In other words, no U.S. taxpayer bailout for politically connected millionaires entering into boneheaded business deals with Communist deadbeats and thieves.
Currently, ADM is perfectly free to sell Castro whatever it wants. But because of the nefarious machinations and subterfuges of the dreaded "Miami Mafia," their congressional representatives and allies, the U.S. taxpayer will not be left holding the bag if Archer Daniels Midland sells Cuba on credit and Castro sticks it to them as he has to everyone else. Mexico's Bancomex recently closed its offices in Havana and froze Cuban assets in three different countries in an attempt to recoup its staggering losses from financing trade with Cuba.
Back in the '50s, the U.S. traded with Cuba. According to Castroites (both in Cuba and in academic institutions worldwide), that caused humiliation, abuse and impoverishment. "Economic enslavement" was Che's term. "Yankee imperialism! Capitalist exploitation! Bloodsucking vampires stealing our resources! Dumping junk on us! ... blah ... blah ... blah." ("In fact, these Yankee factories, refineries and showrooms are so vile and corrupting we think we'll steal them," they decided in july 1960.)
Okay, fine, Ike finally said in late 1960. In that case we'll close down shop down there. You're on your own.
"Yankee blockade! Capitalist strangulation! Starving our children! Denying them medicine! Starving us! ... blah ... blah ... blah."
Turns out leaving them alone ALSO causes humiliation, abuse and impoverishment. We can't win. Will they please make up their minds?
It's like little kids throwing a tantrum where nothing satisfies them. Yet Leftist politicians and academics take these brats and their infantile tantrums seriously.
We saw it in Argentina last week. We saw it in Spain last month. Yet we sent almost $1 billion in foreign aid to these pack of Latin American jackals last year. Enough is enough, I say.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Castro’s exiled daughter discusses heritage
Alina Fernandez, the illegitimate daughter of Fidel Castro, spoke to students about her life in Cuba on Oct. 26.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Jennifer Peters, News Editor
November 09, 2005
Alina Fernandez, author of the autobiography “Castro’s Daughter: An Exile’s Memoir of Cuba,” discussed her childhood in Cuba as the illegitimate child of the country’s Communist dictator, Fidel Castro.
Fernandez, born in 1956, appeared as part of the annual Latin Heritage Month Community Dinner, held on Oct. 26.
Castro’s first visit occurred when Fernandez, a young child at the time, was busy watching cartoons on the family’s television set.
She was accustomed to having her cartoons interrupted for news about the revolution, much of which included footage of Castro.
“This man, the man who one night stepped out of my TV screen into my living room, Fidel Castro, didn’t come to our house very often,” Fernandez said. “[He came] mostly at night.”
Although Castro visited on numerous occasions throughout Fernandez’s childhood, it was not until she was 10 years old that Fernandez’s mother finally told her the truth: Fidel Castro was her father.
To Fernandez, it seemed as if Castro was everywhere. He would be on her television set, in her living room, and leading a revolution which would forever change the island nation of Cuba.
“Sometimes I would wonder if there were 10 Castro's acting at the same time because in just one year he had become the chief of the army, executed an enemy of the revolution, had the counter revolution,” Fernandez said. “He had erased on the Cuban map any hope of resistance.”
Castro treated Fernandez with one of two extreme feelings, she said, depending on his mood. Either he utterly adored the child or he painfully neglected her.
Castro’s influence over Fernandez’s life never diminished, even as she grew older.
As a teenager, however, Fernandez began to feel disillusioned by the revolution and by her position in Cuban society.
“My deception with the Cuban revolution began when I was a teenager who could do nothing else but yell slogans [and] march in union brawls,” Fernandez said.
Based on the political practices she witnessed under Castro’s rule, and the neglect she felt from her father, she renounced her high position in Cuban society.
In 1993, Fernandez was forced to leave her homeland and seek refuge in Spain.
In the time since she left, she has had no contact with her father.
Now living in Miami, Fernandez is the host of a daily radio program on Cuban and Cuban-American issues.
“On my radio show [I discuss] everything but politics,” Fernandez said.
However, politics cannot always be avoided when discussing the issues of a particular culture, she is quick to point out.
“There’s always something going on in Cuba,” she said. “You worry about human rights, hunger strikes.”
The dinner was held to award members of the St. John’s Latin community.
The dinner brought to an end a month-long series of events in honor of Latin Heritage Month.
“The events were very successful,” said Diana Lopez, coordinator of student development and a member of the Latin Heritage Month committee. “We had no less than 80 people at each event.”
And while the events were successful, Lopez is still hoping that Latin Heritage Month, as well as Latin programming in general, can grow and improve.
“Just because there isn’t a Latin Heritage Month event, we still have to do Latin programming,” Lopez said.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Jennifer Peters, News Editor
November 09, 2005
Alina Fernandez, author of the autobiography “Castro’s Daughter: An Exile’s Memoir of Cuba,” discussed her childhood in Cuba as the illegitimate child of the country’s Communist dictator, Fidel Castro.
Fernandez, born in 1956, appeared as part of the annual Latin Heritage Month Community Dinner, held on Oct. 26.
Castro’s first visit occurred when Fernandez, a young child at the time, was busy watching cartoons on the family’s television set.
She was accustomed to having her cartoons interrupted for news about the revolution, much of which included footage of Castro.
“This man, the man who one night stepped out of my TV screen into my living room, Fidel Castro, didn’t come to our house very often,” Fernandez said. “[He came] mostly at night.”
Although Castro visited on numerous occasions throughout Fernandez’s childhood, it was not until she was 10 years old that Fernandez’s mother finally told her the truth: Fidel Castro was her father.
To Fernandez, it seemed as if Castro was everywhere. He would be on her television set, in her living room, and leading a revolution which would forever change the island nation of Cuba.
“Sometimes I would wonder if there were 10 Castro's acting at the same time because in just one year he had become the chief of the army, executed an enemy of the revolution, had the counter revolution,” Fernandez said. “He had erased on the Cuban map any hope of resistance.”
Castro treated Fernandez with one of two extreme feelings, she said, depending on his mood. Either he utterly adored the child or he painfully neglected her.
Castro’s influence over Fernandez’s life never diminished, even as she grew older.
As a teenager, however, Fernandez began to feel disillusioned by the revolution and by her position in Cuban society.
“My deception with the Cuban revolution began when I was a teenager who could do nothing else but yell slogans [and] march in union brawls,” Fernandez said.
Based on the political practices she witnessed under Castro’s rule, and the neglect she felt from her father, she renounced her high position in Cuban society.
In 1993, Fernandez was forced to leave her homeland and seek refuge in Spain.
In the time since she left, she has had no contact with her father.
Now living in Miami, Fernandez is the host of a daily radio program on Cuban and Cuban-American issues.
“On my radio show [I discuss] everything but politics,” Fernandez said.
However, politics cannot always be avoided when discussing the issues of a particular culture, she is quick to point out.
“There’s always something going on in Cuba,” she said. “You worry about human rights, hunger strikes.”
The dinner was held to award members of the St. John’s Latin community.
The dinner brought to an end a month-long series of events in honor of Latin Heritage Month.
“The events were very successful,” said Diana Lopez, coordinator of student development and a member of the Latin Heritage Month committee. “We had no less than 80 people at each event.”
And while the events were successful, Lopez is still hoping that Latin Heritage Month, as well as Latin programming in general, can grow and improve.
“Just because there isn’t a Latin Heritage Month event, we still have to do Latin programming,” Lopez said.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Chávez blasts Fox - calls him ''puppy of the empire'' ...
VENEZUELA
CARACAS - (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called his Mexican counterpart a ''puppy of the empire'' for supporting a Washington-backed free-trade zone at the Summit of the Americas.
Mexico reacted by calling in the Venezuelan ambassador, Vladimir Villegas Poljak, to explain Chávez's remarks.
''How sad that the president of a great country like Mexico allowed himself to be the puppy of the empire,'' Chávez said Wednesday evening in his first public speech since returning from the 34-nation summit in Argentina.
The barb comes after Mexican President Vicente Fox, apparently irked by Chávez's strident calls against the trade pact, said in comments to news media after the summit, ``there we have some presidents, fortunately a minority, who blame other countries for all their problems.''
Fox, a staunch supporter of the trade zone, also criticized Argentine President Néstor Kirchner, for failing to support the pact.
Sent by: Sr.Cohiba
CARACAS - (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called his Mexican counterpart a ''puppy of the empire'' for supporting a Washington-backed free-trade zone at the Summit of the Americas.
Mexico reacted by calling in the Venezuelan ambassador, Vladimir Villegas Poljak, to explain Chávez's remarks.
''How sad that the president of a great country like Mexico allowed himself to be the puppy of the empire,'' Chávez said Wednesday evening in his first public speech since returning from the 34-nation summit in Argentina.
The barb comes after Mexican President Vicente Fox, apparently irked by Chávez's strident calls against the trade pact, said in comments to news media after the summit, ``there we have some presidents, fortunately a minority, who blame other countries for all their problems.''
Fox, a staunch supporter of the trade zone, also criticized Argentine President Néstor Kirchner, for failing to support the pact.
Sent by: Sr.Cohiba
'Hey, kids, need a ride to a protest rally?'
Nov 10, 2005
by Larry Elder
World Can't Wait -- an anti-Bush, anti-war group, recently staged nationwide protests. The organization coordinated rallies in Chicago, Seattle, New York, San Francisco -- and Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Unified School District took things a step further. The district helpfully agreed to provide buses -- that's right, buses -- as well as "adult supervision" to the nearly 800 high school students who walked out of 10 high schools. District officials said they thought it best to provide adults and transportation, since, you know, the kids intended to go to the rally, anyway. "Our issue . . . was safety," said the district's chief operating officer, "and I think we fulfilled our mission, frankly."
Really? Forgive some of us for thinking that the district's mission was . . . education. And, given the less-than-superb academic performance of Los Angeles public school students, the educrats, one would have thought, would have frowned on allowing the kids to skip classes.
In the case of L.A. Unified School District third-graders, according to the 2005 standardized CAT/6 test, 76 percent scored below the national average in reading tests, as did 70 percent of seventh-graders. In math, 54 percent of third-graders tested below the national average, with 68 percent of seventh-graders also below the national norm. For language, 65 percent of third-graders scored below the national average, with 70 percent of seventh-graders failing to reach the national average.
One L.A. Unified teacher reportedly gave students class credit for attending the rally! Now, since the Los Angeles district seems so concerned about student safety, can we expect the district to ferry students to and from, say, a pro-Iraq war/pro-Bush rally? How about a no-new-taxes rally? Or an anti-Roe v. Wade rally?
Consider the L.A. Unified public school music teacher, who routinely calls Republicans "stupid." The school where he teaches, by the way, purports to follow a "code of conduct" that condemns discrimination based on race, sexual preference or religious beliefs. Yet the teacher, according to one of his students, constantly condemns Republicans as "crazy religious Christians." The music teacher excitedly told the class about a "song" someone e-mailed him. He decided to serenade his class by singing the ditty a cappella:
The Battle Hymn of the Republicans
Mine eyes have seen the bungling of that stumbling moron Bush;
He has blathered all the drivel that the neo-cons can push;
He has lost sight of all reason 'cause his head is up his tush;
The Doofus marches on.
I have heard him butcher syntax like a kindergarten fool;
There is warranted suspicion that he never went to school;
Should we fault him for the policies -- or is he just their tool?
The lies keep piling on.
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
His wreckage will live on.
I have seen him cut the taxes of the billionaires' lone heir;
As he spends another zillion on an aircraft carrier;
Let the smokestacks keep polluting -- do we really need clean air?
The surplus is now gone.
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Your safety net is gone!
Now he's got a mighty hankerin' to bomb a prostrate state;
Though the whole world knows it's crazy -- and the U.N. says to wait;
When he doesn't have the evidence, "We must prevaricate."
Diplomacy is done!
Oh, a trumped-up war is excellent; we have no moral bounds;
Should the reasons be disputed, we'll just make up other grounds;
Enraging several billions -- to his brainlessness redounds;
The Doofus marches on!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
The Doofus marches on.
One student in the class, a self-described "conservative Christian Republican," almost bolted from the room. The student, however, feared the teacher's reputation for vindictiveness that could result in fewer assigned solos, or, even worse, not getting an invitation for the class's out-of-town concerts.
According to the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by a 10-to-1 ratio in the faculty of 150 departments at 32 elite colleges and universities. At 13 of the schools, they found only one Republican. And four of the schools showed no registered Republican in the departments examined.
Former First Lady Barbara Bush once marveled at how "any Republican" gets elected, given the anti-GOP bias in the media. And she admits she did not think her son would win: "I just thought, it's too difficult, and you're not gonna like this, but my gut feeling is that all the media is against George, Republicans, any Republican." Republicans fight not only media bias, but bias in academia.
In any case, the L.A. Unified School District showed great experience and agility in coordinating buses. The mayor of New Orleans is probably impressed. And, at least no college or university supplied a bus to the World Can't Wait rally. But don't give them any ideas.
Larry Elder is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and publishes a monthly newsletter entitled "The Elder Statement."
Sent by: Sr.Cohiba
by Larry Elder
World Can't Wait -- an anti-Bush, anti-war group, recently staged nationwide protests. The organization coordinated rallies in Chicago, Seattle, New York, San Francisco -- and Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Unified School District took things a step further. The district helpfully agreed to provide buses -- that's right, buses -- as well as "adult supervision" to the nearly 800 high school students who walked out of 10 high schools. District officials said they thought it best to provide adults and transportation, since, you know, the kids intended to go to the rally, anyway. "Our issue . . . was safety," said the district's chief operating officer, "and I think we fulfilled our mission, frankly."
Really? Forgive some of us for thinking that the district's mission was . . . education. And, given the less-than-superb academic performance of Los Angeles public school students, the educrats, one would have thought, would have frowned on allowing the kids to skip classes.
In the case of L.A. Unified School District third-graders, according to the 2005 standardized CAT/6 test, 76 percent scored below the national average in reading tests, as did 70 percent of seventh-graders. In math, 54 percent of third-graders tested below the national average, with 68 percent of seventh-graders also below the national norm. For language, 65 percent of third-graders scored below the national average, with 70 percent of seventh-graders failing to reach the national average.
One L.A. Unified teacher reportedly gave students class credit for attending the rally! Now, since the Los Angeles district seems so concerned about student safety, can we expect the district to ferry students to and from, say, a pro-Iraq war/pro-Bush rally? How about a no-new-taxes rally? Or an anti-Roe v. Wade rally?
Consider the L.A. Unified public school music teacher, who routinely calls Republicans "stupid." The school where he teaches, by the way, purports to follow a "code of conduct" that condemns discrimination based on race, sexual preference or religious beliefs. Yet the teacher, according to one of his students, constantly condemns Republicans as "crazy religious Christians." The music teacher excitedly told the class about a "song" someone e-mailed him. He decided to serenade his class by singing the ditty a cappella:
The Battle Hymn of the Republicans
Mine eyes have seen the bungling of that stumbling moron Bush;
He has blathered all the drivel that the neo-cons can push;
He has lost sight of all reason 'cause his head is up his tush;
The Doofus marches on.
I have heard him butcher syntax like a kindergarten fool;
There is warranted suspicion that he never went to school;
Should we fault him for the policies -- or is he just their tool?
The lies keep piling on.
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
His wreckage will live on.
I have seen him cut the taxes of the billionaires' lone heir;
As he spends another zillion on an aircraft carrier;
Let the smokestacks keep polluting -- do we really need clean air?
The surplus is now gone.
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Your safety net is gone!
Now he's got a mighty hankerin' to bomb a prostrate state;
Though the whole world knows it's crazy -- and the U.N. says to wait;
When he doesn't have the evidence, "We must prevaricate."
Diplomacy is done!
Oh, a trumped-up war is excellent; we have no moral bounds;
Should the reasons be disputed, we'll just make up other grounds;
Enraging several billions -- to his brainlessness redounds;
The Doofus marches on!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll screw ya'!
The Doofus marches on.
One student in the class, a self-described "conservative Christian Republican," almost bolted from the room. The student, however, feared the teacher's reputation for vindictiveness that could result in fewer assigned solos, or, even worse, not getting an invitation for the class's out-of-town concerts.
According to the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by a 10-to-1 ratio in the faculty of 150 departments at 32 elite colleges and universities. At 13 of the schools, they found only one Republican. And four of the schools showed no registered Republican in the departments examined.
Former First Lady Barbara Bush once marveled at how "any Republican" gets elected, given the anti-GOP bias in the media. And she admits she did not think her son would win: "I just thought, it's too difficult, and you're not gonna like this, but my gut feeling is that all the media is against George, Republicans, any Republican." Republicans fight not only media bias, but bias in academia.
In any case, the L.A. Unified School District showed great experience and agility in coordinating buses. The mayor of New Orleans is probably impressed. And, at least no college or university supplied a bus to the World Can't Wait rally. But don't give them any ideas.
Larry Elder is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and publishes a monthly newsletter entitled "The Elder Statement."
Sent by: Sr.Cohiba
Where the Left Is Coming From
John L. Perry
Friday, Nov. 11, 2005
Out of the Cold War communist scare, incubated by McCarthyism, has evolved a virulent strain of mutant political virus – leftover leftists masquerading as innocent liberals.
Regardless of Joe McCarthy's hyperventilating, there really were some card-carrying communists he exposed – lurking among the far-more numerous non-communist lefties he slandered and terrified.
During the Cold War, the American left had a patron state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. After Ronald Reagan ran the Evil Empire out of business, the leftists in this country were forsaken with no puppeteer, no identity, no cause. They had no following other than themselves, and that was one sickly parade.
Red, pink, pale, whatever, the leftists went to ground under variations of camouflage. Many unerringly sought refuge in assorted safe havens, such as university faculties, newspaper editorial rooms, television opinion pulpits (both taxpayer- and shareholder-funded), Hollywood smut studios and tax-exempt political-action front groups.
In their hiding they clutched to their bosoms the one enduring, radical possession that motivated them way back there in "the bad old, good old days." It never left their consciousness. It fuels them today.
Ashamed of America
Far more than their slavish adoration of the Soviet Union as the very model of a modern major socialist state there was – all along – their rancid embarrassment by and consequent hatred of their own native land, the greatest of all aberrations among nation states, this United States of America.
They had been willing to give their all to destroy, and if not destroy then betray, this country. Today, with all that residual frustrated fury still festering within them, and passed along to their willing ideological heirs, they are even more determined to destroy what they did not create, and could never have created: this nation under God.
To draw a true bead on them, it helps to remember what was going on back in the 1930s-to-1980s. That was when there actually were such things as "Communist Party discipline" and Americans who lived covertly under it or tagged along beside it, too timid or too wise to risk overt recruitment.
Those ranks of pseudo-intellectual, ersatz proletarians were splintered into two principal sub-sets of subversives: the Marxists who marched lock-step with Joseph Stalin and those who sided with his hated rival, Leon Trotsky, who was booted out of the Bolshevik pantheon. Trotsky fled to Mexico, where Stalin dispatched an assassin to plant the point of a pick ax in his brain.
A No-Brainer
Differences between Stalinists and Trotskyites were significant. Stalin believed, or at least conned an awful lot of people into believing he believed, that given enough time "socialism in one country" (that would be his Russia of course) would somehow segue into a stateless state of workers' paradise – the famous "withering away."
But Marxism didn't exactly work out that way. Instead of atrophying, the state under Stalinist rule grew ever bigger, ever crueler. Some wither. Some paradise. The Marxist god not only failed; it wound up as the biggest ideological and political bankruptcy in recorded history.
While all that was going on, and before Trotsky felt the pick ax fall, he was preaching a related but significantly opposing doctrine. Like Joe Stalin, V.I. Lenin, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, he wanted a "better world" (if you bought what "better" was). Trotsky, however, chose a particular route: Before things could get better, he reasoned, they must first get worse. At least he was honest about what "worse" was.
Leon's Little Helpers
If you accepted Trotsky's world view, then it fell to reason that the duty of all good Marxists was to do everything in their power to help make things worse – and the worse, the better.
With the Communist Party of the U.S.A. in tatters, along with the Soviet master-state, there was very little wiggle room within the Marxist camp in the United States to advocate old-fashion, down-home, Uncle Joe type communism.
Old-line commies couldn't very well ply their trade openly in America anymore (thanks, ironically, to both McCarthy and Reagan). There was simply no longer a public taste in this country for all that crap.
Trotsky was dead and gone (they did manage to extract the pick ax and photograph it), but not the Trotskyite philosophy.
Waiting to Sprout
And there was enough covert, fertile environment in which the Trotskyite seeds could lie dormant until the demise of the old Democratic Party in the early Clinton Era and its capture and replacement by what is today a European-style, crypto-socialist Democratic Party.
Its stellar players are two of California's finest: Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, both inheritors of the Trotskyite mantle.
Is this an assertion that these two lovelies are communists? Or that they ever were, whether card-carrying or fellow-traveling?
No, it's not. That would be naughty, even McCarthy-like, for only they know for a certainty what they ever were or maybe still are.
What's important is that – knowingly or instinctively or accidentally – they are the primary practitioners on the American political stage of the resurrected Trotskyite philosophy.
How to Tell
Here is the red-paper litmus test: Can you think of any one thing either of them has propounded, any single act of political consequence either has taken that could not in all honesty be described as contributing to making things worse for America?
What is their equivalent of a Great Satan state? Certainly not the People's Republic of China, certainly not the Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea, certainly not Fidel Castro's communist Cuba, certainly not Syria or Iran. Just the U.S. of A.
Who is their Public Enemy Number One? Not Osama bin Laden, not whoever at the moment is running the al-Q'aeda shop in Iraq, not that nut of a dictator in North Korea, not the dictator about to lose his job in Syria, not the radical Islamist puppet president of Iran, not Fidel. Just George W. Bush.
Other biggies of the new Democratic Party, within and outside Congress, along with their billionaire-funded TV propaganda groups, have joined Mesdames Boxer and Pelosi in practicing Trotskyism. Their obvious aim: Do all in their power to make things worse for America – so things can "get better."
League of Losers
Small wonder they have failed miserably at the voting booths to capture both houses of Congress, the White House and most of the governorships across the continent. Now they are about to lose even a hand-hold on the Supreme Court, which was their last, best hope.
Even if poor old Leon hadn't met up with a pick ax, Trotskyism would still have failed during and after the Cold War, just as Stalinist Marxism failed.
Today's permutation of Trotskyism will also fail, even under the tender guidance of the pro-Marxist new Democratic Party – especially under its guidance.
Their Political DNA
So enough already of referring to the likes of Boxer, Pelosi et al as "liberals." That's the cover that Cold War communists operated under. It's the camouflage that today's inheritors of the Trotskyite philosophy relish.
How happy they must be making Joe McCarthy, posthumously.
It's time these Typhoid Mary carriers of this mutant virus of Trotskyism were understood for, and called, what they really are – leftover lefties who just can't say farewell to the Marxist god that failed the whole sorry lot of them.
John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for NewsMax.com.
Sent by: Sr.Cohiba
Friday, Nov. 11, 2005
Out of the Cold War communist scare, incubated by McCarthyism, has evolved a virulent strain of mutant political virus – leftover leftists masquerading as innocent liberals.
Regardless of Joe McCarthy's hyperventilating, there really were some card-carrying communists he exposed – lurking among the far-more numerous non-communist lefties he slandered and terrified.
During the Cold War, the American left had a patron state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. After Ronald Reagan ran the Evil Empire out of business, the leftists in this country were forsaken with no puppeteer, no identity, no cause. They had no following other than themselves, and that was one sickly parade.
Red, pink, pale, whatever, the leftists went to ground under variations of camouflage. Many unerringly sought refuge in assorted safe havens, such as university faculties, newspaper editorial rooms, television opinion pulpits (both taxpayer- and shareholder-funded), Hollywood smut studios and tax-exempt political-action front groups.
In their hiding they clutched to their bosoms the one enduring, radical possession that motivated them way back there in "the bad old, good old days." It never left their consciousness. It fuels them today.
Ashamed of America
Far more than their slavish adoration of the Soviet Union as the very model of a modern major socialist state there was – all along – their rancid embarrassment by and consequent hatred of their own native land, the greatest of all aberrations among nation states, this United States of America.
They had been willing to give their all to destroy, and if not destroy then betray, this country. Today, with all that residual frustrated fury still festering within them, and passed along to their willing ideological heirs, they are even more determined to destroy what they did not create, and could never have created: this nation under God.
To draw a true bead on them, it helps to remember what was going on back in the 1930s-to-1980s. That was when there actually were such things as "Communist Party discipline" and Americans who lived covertly under it or tagged along beside it, too timid or too wise to risk overt recruitment.
Those ranks of pseudo-intellectual, ersatz proletarians were splintered into two principal sub-sets of subversives: the Marxists who marched lock-step with Joseph Stalin and those who sided with his hated rival, Leon Trotsky, who was booted out of the Bolshevik pantheon. Trotsky fled to Mexico, where Stalin dispatched an assassin to plant the point of a pick ax in his brain.
A No-Brainer
Differences between Stalinists and Trotskyites were significant. Stalin believed, or at least conned an awful lot of people into believing he believed, that given enough time "socialism in one country" (that would be his Russia of course) would somehow segue into a stateless state of workers' paradise – the famous "withering away."
But Marxism didn't exactly work out that way. Instead of atrophying, the state under Stalinist rule grew ever bigger, ever crueler. Some wither. Some paradise. The Marxist god not only failed; it wound up as the biggest ideological and political bankruptcy in recorded history.
While all that was going on, and before Trotsky felt the pick ax fall, he was preaching a related but significantly opposing doctrine. Like Joe Stalin, V.I. Lenin, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, he wanted a "better world" (if you bought what "better" was). Trotsky, however, chose a particular route: Before things could get better, he reasoned, they must first get worse. At least he was honest about what "worse" was.
Leon's Little Helpers
If you accepted Trotsky's world view, then it fell to reason that the duty of all good Marxists was to do everything in their power to help make things worse – and the worse, the better.
With the Communist Party of the U.S.A. in tatters, along with the Soviet master-state, there was very little wiggle room within the Marxist camp in the United States to advocate old-fashion, down-home, Uncle Joe type communism.
Old-line commies couldn't very well ply their trade openly in America anymore (thanks, ironically, to both McCarthy and Reagan). There was simply no longer a public taste in this country for all that crap.
Trotsky was dead and gone (they did manage to extract the pick ax and photograph it), but not the Trotskyite philosophy.
Waiting to Sprout
And there was enough covert, fertile environment in which the Trotskyite seeds could lie dormant until the demise of the old Democratic Party in the early Clinton Era and its capture and replacement by what is today a European-style, crypto-socialist Democratic Party.
Its stellar players are two of California's finest: Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, both inheritors of the Trotskyite mantle.
Is this an assertion that these two lovelies are communists? Or that they ever were, whether card-carrying or fellow-traveling?
No, it's not. That would be naughty, even McCarthy-like, for only they know for a certainty what they ever were or maybe still are.
What's important is that – knowingly or instinctively or accidentally – they are the primary practitioners on the American political stage of the resurrected Trotskyite philosophy.
How to Tell
Here is the red-paper litmus test: Can you think of any one thing either of them has propounded, any single act of political consequence either has taken that could not in all honesty be described as contributing to making things worse for America?
What is their equivalent of a Great Satan state? Certainly not the People's Republic of China, certainly not the Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea, certainly not Fidel Castro's communist Cuba, certainly not Syria or Iran. Just the U.S. of A.
Who is their Public Enemy Number One? Not Osama bin Laden, not whoever at the moment is running the al-Q'aeda shop in Iraq, not that nut of a dictator in North Korea, not the dictator about to lose his job in Syria, not the radical Islamist puppet president of Iran, not Fidel. Just George W. Bush.
Other biggies of the new Democratic Party, within and outside Congress, along with their billionaire-funded TV propaganda groups, have joined Mesdames Boxer and Pelosi in practicing Trotskyism. Their obvious aim: Do all in their power to make things worse for America – so things can "get better."
League of Losers
Small wonder they have failed miserably at the voting booths to capture both houses of Congress, the White House and most of the governorships across the continent. Now they are about to lose even a hand-hold on the Supreme Court, which was their last, best hope.
Even if poor old Leon hadn't met up with a pick ax, Trotskyism would still have failed during and after the Cold War, just as Stalinist Marxism failed.
Today's permutation of Trotskyism will also fail, even under the tender guidance of the pro-Marxist new Democratic Party – especially under its guidance.
Their Political DNA
So enough already of referring to the likes of Boxer, Pelosi et al as "liberals." That's the cover that Cold War communists operated under. It's the camouflage that today's inheritors of the Trotskyite philosophy relish.
How happy they must be making Joe McCarthy, posthumously.
It's time these Typhoid Mary carriers of this mutant virus of Trotskyism were understood for, and called, what they really are – leftover lefties who just can't say farewell to the Marxist god that failed the whole sorry lot of them.
John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for NewsMax.com.
Sent by: Sr.Cohiba
Chavez's troops get provocative book...
VENEZUELA
The Venezuelan army is distributing a book that focuses on asymmetrical warfare, such as the war between the U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents, and argues that ''revolutionary Islam'' and U.S. religious extremism are moral equivalents.
By PHIL GUNSON
Special to The Herald
CARACAS - A book published and distributed by the Venezuelan army argues that ''revolutionary Islam'' and U.S. religious extremism are moral equivalents and quotes approvingly from the Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal.
The 250-page Peripheral Warfare and Revolutionary Islam was written by Spanish politician and academic Jorge Verstrynge and is being distributed on the personal orders of Army Chief Gen. Raúl Baduel, a long-time supporter of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
Baduel's office said he's not available for an interview until January. Armed Forces Inspector General Gen. Melvin López Hidalgo said he was unaware of the book but argued that its publication by the army should not be taken as ''tacit support for the opinions it contains.'' It's simply an example of ''freedom of expression,'' he added.
The book focuses on asymmetrical warfare, a term for ''David and Goliath'' conflicts between adversaries of vastly different capacities, such as the war between U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents.
Verstrynge was a keynote speaker at a recent military conference in Caracas on asymmetrical warfare, which has been adopted by the Venezuelan military as a key defensive concept, based on a possible attack by U.S. forces to seize Venezuela's oil wealth or topple Chávez.
''For us, it would have to be a war of resistance,'' said Baduel in a speech last month.
Chávez, an anti-American populist who has vowed to build a revolutionary ''21st Century socialism'' in Venezuela, has repeatedly alleged that Washington plans to assassinate him and invade his country -- allegations strongly denied by the Bush administration.
Verstrynge, born in Morocco to Belgian and Spanish parents, was a leading member of Spain's right-wing Popular Party before switching to the ruling Socialists. A political-science professor at Madrid's Complutense University, he has authored a number of other books.
'It is unfair to attack `revolutionary Islam' '' and not ''U.S. religious extremism,'' he wrote, adding that Washington has plans to ''re-colonize'' the world that he called ``a danger never equaled in history.''
NOT A TERRORIST
Retired Gen. Alberto Mueller, an advisor to the Defense Ministry, said the army is publishing several books on asymmetrical warfare because, with no conventional central command once the war starts, it's important for a soldier to know ''different currents of thought so that he can choose'' a course of action, depending on the circumstances.
Such a conflict would be, ''a war without rules,'' Mueller added, and 'you cannot call a man a `terrorist' for defending his own country.''
One foreign military officer in Venezuela, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of his job, said the Venezuelan army does appear to be endorsing the book's contents. ''It's even got the army's coat of arms on it,'' the official said. ``What more of an endorsement could you have?''
Verstrynge's book, which relies heavily on quotes from other people, also repeatedly cites the words of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, a terrorist active in Europe and the Middle East in the 1970s.
An admirer of Osama bin Laden, Ramírez is best-known for his daring kidnap of 11 OPEC oil ministers in Vienna in 1975. He was seized in Sudan in 1994 and transported to France, where he is serving a life sentence for the 1975 murder of two secret agents and an informer in Paris.
Chávez sparked a controversy in 1999 by writing an effusive response to a letter from the jailed terrorist in which he signed off, ''with profound faith in the cause and in the mission -- now and forever!'' The president later said the letter did not imply ``political solidarity.''
SUICIDE BOMBINGS
Verstrynge quotes approvingly from Ramírez's view that suicide bombings are morally superior to conventional bombings because they produce fewer unintended civilian deaths.
Terrorism is ''profoundly human,'' Verstrynge quotes the Venezuelan as saying, because it puts ''the flesh-and-blood man . . . back at the center of the battle'' instead of hardware, and ``saves lives.''
These views contrast with the Venezuelan government's official position of condemning all forms of terrorism. Chávez on Thursday condemned the terror bombings in Jordan, and his government has fiercely attacked Washington's failure to extradite to Venezuela Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, accused of several terror attacks.
Sent by: Sr.Cohiba
The Venezuelan army is distributing a book that focuses on asymmetrical warfare, such as the war between the U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents, and argues that ''revolutionary Islam'' and U.S. religious extremism are moral equivalents.
By PHIL GUNSON
Special to The Herald
CARACAS - A book published and distributed by the Venezuelan army argues that ''revolutionary Islam'' and U.S. religious extremism are moral equivalents and quotes approvingly from the Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal.
The 250-page Peripheral Warfare and Revolutionary Islam was written by Spanish politician and academic Jorge Verstrynge and is being distributed on the personal orders of Army Chief Gen. Raúl Baduel, a long-time supporter of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
Baduel's office said he's not available for an interview until January. Armed Forces Inspector General Gen. Melvin López Hidalgo said he was unaware of the book but argued that its publication by the army should not be taken as ''tacit support for the opinions it contains.'' It's simply an example of ''freedom of expression,'' he added.
The book focuses on asymmetrical warfare, a term for ''David and Goliath'' conflicts between adversaries of vastly different capacities, such as the war between U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents.
Verstrynge was a keynote speaker at a recent military conference in Caracas on asymmetrical warfare, which has been adopted by the Venezuelan military as a key defensive concept, based on a possible attack by U.S. forces to seize Venezuela's oil wealth or topple Chávez.
''For us, it would have to be a war of resistance,'' said Baduel in a speech last month.
Chávez, an anti-American populist who has vowed to build a revolutionary ''21st Century socialism'' in Venezuela, has repeatedly alleged that Washington plans to assassinate him and invade his country -- allegations strongly denied by the Bush administration.
Verstrynge, born in Morocco to Belgian and Spanish parents, was a leading member of Spain's right-wing Popular Party before switching to the ruling Socialists. A political-science professor at Madrid's Complutense University, he has authored a number of other books.
'It is unfair to attack `revolutionary Islam' '' and not ''U.S. religious extremism,'' he wrote, adding that Washington has plans to ''re-colonize'' the world that he called ``a danger never equaled in history.''
NOT A TERRORIST
Retired Gen. Alberto Mueller, an advisor to the Defense Ministry, said the army is publishing several books on asymmetrical warfare because, with no conventional central command once the war starts, it's important for a soldier to know ''different currents of thought so that he can choose'' a course of action, depending on the circumstances.
Such a conflict would be, ''a war without rules,'' Mueller added, and 'you cannot call a man a `terrorist' for defending his own country.''
One foreign military officer in Venezuela, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of his job, said the Venezuelan army does appear to be endorsing the book's contents. ''It's even got the army's coat of arms on it,'' the official said. ``What more of an endorsement could you have?''
Verstrynge's book, which relies heavily on quotes from other people, also repeatedly cites the words of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, a terrorist active in Europe and the Middle East in the 1970s.
An admirer of Osama bin Laden, Ramírez is best-known for his daring kidnap of 11 OPEC oil ministers in Vienna in 1975. He was seized in Sudan in 1994 and transported to France, where he is serving a life sentence for the 1975 murder of two secret agents and an informer in Paris.
Chávez sparked a controversy in 1999 by writing an effusive response to a letter from the jailed terrorist in which he signed off, ''with profound faith in the cause and in the mission -- now and forever!'' The president later said the letter did not imply ``political solidarity.''
SUICIDE BOMBINGS
Verstrynge quotes approvingly from Ramírez's view that suicide bombings are morally superior to conventional bombings because they produce fewer unintended civilian deaths.
Terrorism is ''profoundly human,'' Verstrynge quotes the Venezuelan as saying, because it puts ''the flesh-and-blood man . . . back at the center of the battle'' instead of hardware, and ``saves lives.''
These views contrast with the Venezuelan government's official position of condemning all forms of terrorism. Chávez on Thursday condemned the terror bombings in Jordan, and his government has fiercely attacked Washington's failure to extradite to Venezuela Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, accused of several terror attacks.
Sent by: Sr.Cohiba
Friday, November 11, 2005
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
You Know You Have Reached Middle Age If...
1. You've come to the annoying realization that your parents were right about almost everything.
2. A gardener cuts your grass even though you have a brand-new lawn mower in the garage.
3. Now that you can afford front-row seat at a rock concert you can't imagine why anyone would want to be there.
4. Your baby pictures are in black and white.
5. Your prescriptions refill number is programmed into your "speed dial."
6. You have Christmas cards in the mail by December 1st.
7. You've stopped worrying about hair loss and started worrying about memory loss.
8. You own more electrical appliances than there are outlets in your home.
9. You've named your eyeglasses by the activity they permit you to do.
10. Some of your mortgage payment actually goes against the principal.
11. The expression "Feel the burn" has more to do with your stomach and less to do with your muscles.
12. You have more frequent-flier mileage than mileage on your car.
13. You vividly remember the day the price of gas went over one dollar a gallon.
14. You've stopped worrying about the size of your penis and started worrying about the size of your prostate.
15. You're looking for a new home with the master bedroom on the first floor.
16. The waitress at Denny's points out the "senior specials" in the big print on the back of the menu.
17. Your tattoos have folds.
18. You have trouble falling asleep at night in a dark room and a comfortable bed, but can easily nod off any afternoon while driving seventy miles an hour on the freeway.
19. Your spouse and kids complain that you're "tuning them out," but a dog barking three blocks away keeps you up all night.
20. You dial the phone and then can't remember who you called.
21. The fear of "turning into your parents" has been replaced by the fear of "turning into your grandparents."
22. You no longer have all of your original teeth, but you take comfort in the fact that you still have both of you original hips.
23. When you see a mother and her teenage daughter, you fantasize about the mother.
24. You remember having to get up and walk across the room to change channels on a television set.
25. Your computer has more memory than you do.
26. You'd stop and take time to smell the flowers, except you can no longer bend over that far without throwing out your back.
27. You're overjoyed to learn that sex uses up as many calories as jogging six miles.
28. You need a weed whacker to trim the hair growing from your nose, ears, and eyebrows.
30. You'd rather buy control-top panty hose than go to the gym.
31. You've received letters from cemeteries inviting you to purchase a burial plot and you've actually considered it.
33. When the flight attendant makes the preboarding announcement for folks that need a little extra time getting down the jetway, you consider it.
34. There's a tube of Ben-Gay in your medicine cabinet.
35. You've told someone, "I haven't seen him/her in twenty years."
36. You have to unbutton your pants after a meal and take them off completely after a big meal.
37. You think "Boys in the 'hood" is a nickname for the Ku Klux Klan.
38. You drive to an out-of-town pharmacy where nobody knows you to pick up your monthly prescription of Viagra.
39. The only illegal herbs you're interested in smuggling into this country are Cuban cigars.
40. There are parts of your body that you can no longer see without using multiple mirrors.
41. As a public service, you have agreed to never appear on the beach in a Speedo again.
42. You are secretly disappointed that we are still waiting for the advent of moving sidewalks, 3-D television, and flying cars.
43. The bag boy volunteers to help load groceries into your car in the "ten items or less" lane.
44. The group picture from your high school reunion could be the "before" picture for the Hair Club for Men.
45. You've mixed up the names of your children with the dog's.
46. One cabinet in the kitchen is devoted entirely to bottles of vitamins.
47. You use marijuana for medicinal reasons.
48. You've come to the realization that whoever said "You're not getting older, you're getting better" was not under oath.
49. You're ineligible to enlist in or be drafted into any branch of the armed services.
50. You'd like to live long enough to break even on your Social Security taxes.
2. A gardener cuts your grass even though you have a brand-new lawn mower in the garage.
3. Now that you can afford front-row seat at a rock concert you can't imagine why anyone would want to be there.
4. Your baby pictures are in black and white.
5. Your prescriptions refill number is programmed into your "speed dial."
6. You have Christmas cards in the mail by December 1st.
7. You've stopped worrying about hair loss and started worrying about memory loss.
8. You own more electrical appliances than there are outlets in your home.
9. You've named your eyeglasses by the activity they permit you to do.
10. Some of your mortgage payment actually goes against the principal.
11. The expression "Feel the burn" has more to do with your stomach and less to do with your muscles.
12. You have more frequent-flier mileage than mileage on your car.
13. You vividly remember the day the price of gas went over one dollar a gallon.
14. You've stopped worrying about the size of your penis and started worrying about the size of your prostate.
15. You're looking for a new home with the master bedroom on the first floor.
16. The waitress at Denny's points out the "senior specials" in the big print on the back of the menu.
17. Your tattoos have folds.
18. You have trouble falling asleep at night in a dark room and a comfortable bed, but can easily nod off any afternoon while driving seventy miles an hour on the freeway.
19. Your spouse and kids complain that you're "tuning them out," but a dog barking three blocks away keeps you up all night.
20. You dial the phone and then can't remember who you called.
21. The fear of "turning into your parents" has been replaced by the fear of "turning into your grandparents."
22. You no longer have all of your original teeth, but you take comfort in the fact that you still have both of you original hips.
23. When you see a mother and her teenage daughter, you fantasize about the mother.
24. You remember having to get up and walk across the room to change channels on a television set.
25. Your computer has more memory than you do.
26. You'd stop and take time to smell the flowers, except you can no longer bend over that far without throwing out your back.
27. You're overjoyed to learn that sex uses up as many calories as jogging six miles.
28. You need a weed whacker to trim the hair growing from your nose, ears, and eyebrows.
30. You'd rather buy control-top panty hose than go to the gym.
31. You've received letters from cemeteries inviting you to purchase a burial plot and you've actually considered it.
33. When the flight attendant makes the preboarding announcement for folks that need a little extra time getting down the jetway, you consider it.
34. There's a tube of Ben-Gay in your medicine cabinet.
35. You've told someone, "I haven't seen him/her in twenty years."
36. You have to unbutton your pants after a meal and take them off completely after a big meal.
37. You think "Boys in the 'hood" is a nickname for the Ku Klux Klan.
38. You drive to an out-of-town pharmacy where nobody knows you to pick up your monthly prescription of Viagra.
39. The only illegal herbs you're interested in smuggling into this country are Cuban cigars.
40. There are parts of your body that you can no longer see without using multiple mirrors.
41. As a public service, you have agreed to never appear on the beach in a Speedo again.
42. You are secretly disappointed that we are still waiting for the advent of moving sidewalks, 3-D television, and flying cars.
43. The bag boy volunteers to help load groceries into your car in the "ten items or less" lane.
44. The group picture from your high school reunion could be the "before" picture for the Hair Club for Men.
45. You've mixed up the names of your children with the dog's.
46. One cabinet in the kitchen is devoted entirely to bottles of vitamins.
47. You use marijuana for medicinal reasons.
48. You've come to the realization that whoever said "You're not getting older, you're getting better" was not under oath.
49. You're ineligible to enlist in or be drafted into any branch of the armed services.
50. You'd like to live long enough to break even on your Social Security taxes.
Holiday In Kabul
Top-end hotel fills gap in Kabul
By Andrew North
BBC News, Kabul
The hotel helps fill a shortage of guest accommodation in the city
The Afghan capital, Kabul, has a new, international standard five-star hotel, the first to be built since the fall of the Taleban four years ago.
President Hamid Karzai opened the Serena hotel, which has been built around the remains of another hotel badly damaged by fighting.
It is hoped that it will help attract more business people to invest in the poverty-stricken country and in the longer term attract wealthy tourists.
The Serena looks and feels like a five-star hotel anywhere, with its marble floors and expensive fittings.
It has everything one would expect - swimming pool, gym and 177 luxury rooms.
The starting price for a room is $250 a night - a fortune in a country where most people earn that in a year.
It has taken more than two years to build at a cost of $35m.
Shortage
Much of that has gone on making the original Kabul hotel earthquake resistant but also on making the building total self sufficient because of Kabul's still shattered infrastructure.
The hotel has taken more than two years to build at a cost of $35m
The hotel has its own water wells and sewage system. In-house generators provide all its power.
This is not Kabul's first five-star. That title goes to the city's Intercontinental, built in the late 60s but badly hit during the decades of war. It also suffers from being on the city's outskirts.
The Serena is right in the centre near the presidential palace.
Its backer is Prince Aga Khan, leader of the world's Ismaili Muslims whose development foundation built it at the request of the Afghan government.
There is a shortage of hotel accommodation in the city.
Most visitors here stay in guest houses and the government is hoping this new hotel will attract more foreign investors.
Another famous Kabul hotel, the Ariana, is currently off limits to developers even though the building is sound because it has been taken over by the CIA for its local headquarters.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
By Andrew North
BBC News, Kabul
The hotel helps fill a shortage of guest accommodation in the city
The Afghan capital, Kabul, has a new, international standard five-star hotel, the first to be built since the fall of the Taleban four years ago.
President Hamid Karzai opened the Serena hotel, which has been built around the remains of another hotel badly damaged by fighting.
It is hoped that it will help attract more business people to invest in the poverty-stricken country and in the longer term attract wealthy tourists.
The Serena looks and feels like a five-star hotel anywhere, with its marble floors and expensive fittings.
It has everything one would expect - swimming pool, gym and 177 luxury rooms.
The starting price for a room is $250 a night - a fortune in a country where most people earn that in a year.
It has taken more than two years to build at a cost of $35m.
Shortage
Much of that has gone on making the original Kabul hotel earthquake resistant but also on making the building total self sufficient because of Kabul's still shattered infrastructure.
The hotel has taken more than two years to build at a cost of $35m
The hotel has its own water wells and sewage system. In-house generators provide all its power.
This is not Kabul's first five-star. That title goes to the city's Intercontinental, built in the late 60s but badly hit during the decades of war. It also suffers from being on the city's outskirts.
The Serena is right in the centre near the presidential palace.
Its backer is Prince Aga Khan, leader of the world's Ismaili Muslims whose development foundation built it at the request of the Afghan government.
There is a shortage of hotel accommodation in the city.
Most visitors here stay in guest houses and the government is hoping this new hotel will attract more foreign investors.
Another famous Kabul hotel, the Ariana, is currently off limits to developers even though the building is sound because it has been taken over by the CIA for its local headquarters.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Bolton Rebukes UN Vote Against Cuba Embargo for `Irrelevancy'
Bolton Rebukes UN Vote Against Cuba Embargo for `Irrelevancy'
Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations General Assembly voted for the 14th consecutive year to call for an end to the 43- year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, drawing a rebuke from John Bolton, the new U.S. envoy to the world body.
``This is a complete exercise in irrelevancy,'' Ambassador Bolton told reporters in New York. ``For a General Assembly that has not yet seriously attempted to reform the UN Human Rights Commission to adopt this exercise in Cuban propaganda really tells you something.''
Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau joined the U.S. in voting against the non-binding resolution, which urges the U.S. to ``repeal and invalidate'' the embargo that has been in effect since 1962, three years after Fidel Castro seized control of the Caribbean island and transformed it into a bastion of communism. Micronesia abstained. The resolution was adopted today by a vote of 182 to 4.
The Bush administration said the resolution was an attempt to shift blame for Castro's shortcomings and that the General Assembly should not deal with the question.
``The United States trade embargo is a bilateral issue and should not come before the General Assembly,'' U.S. envoy Ronald Godard said. ``If the people of Cuba are jobless, hungry or lack medical care, as Castro admits, it is because of his economic mismanagement, not the embargo.''
Godard said the U.S. would ease restrictions on trade and travel after Cuba allows ``free and fair'' elections and the formation of independent trade unions.
U.S. Exports
He said the U.S. since 1992 has licensed $1.1 billion in sales and donations of medicine and medical equipment to Cuba. In the past five years more than $5 billion in U.S. farm commodities have been exported to Cuba, he said.
Envoys from the European Union, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Malaysia, Mexico, North Korea, Russia, South Africa and Vietnam spoke against the embargo before vote.
``The European Union believes that critical engagement with the Cuban government, alongside dialogue with wider Cuban civil society, is the most effective way to promote peaceful change in Cuba,'' U.K. envoy Paul Johnston said in a speech on behalf of the European body.
``Never before, as in the past 18 months, was the blockade enforced with so much viciousness and brutality,'' Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said. ``There has been a hysterical, unprecedented escalation in the enforcement of new and aggressive measures, including the threat to use military means against Cuba.''
Roque said the embargo has cost Cuba $82 billion in lost income during the past 42 years.
He said Cuba would ultimately overcome the ``the helpless haughtiness of President Bush, which has taken him farther than anyone else in this madness.''
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations General Assembly voted for the 14th consecutive year to call for an end to the 43- year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, drawing a rebuke from John Bolton, the new U.S. envoy to the world body.
``This is a complete exercise in irrelevancy,'' Ambassador Bolton told reporters in New York. ``For a General Assembly that has not yet seriously attempted to reform the UN Human Rights Commission to adopt this exercise in Cuban propaganda really tells you something.''
Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau joined the U.S. in voting against the non-binding resolution, which urges the U.S. to ``repeal and invalidate'' the embargo that has been in effect since 1962, three years after Fidel Castro seized control of the Caribbean island and transformed it into a bastion of communism. Micronesia abstained. The resolution was adopted today by a vote of 182 to 4.
The Bush administration said the resolution was an attempt to shift blame for Castro's shortcomings and that the General Assembly should not deal with the question.
``The United States trade embargo is a bilateral issue and should not come before the General Assembly,'' U.S. envoy Ronald Godard said. ``If the people of Cuba are jobless, hungry or lack medical care, as Castro admits, it is because of his economic mismanagement, not the embargo.''
Godard said the U.S. would ease restrictions on trade and travel after Cuba allows ``free and fair'' elections and the formation of independent trade unions.
U.S. Exports
He said the U.S. since 1992 has licensed $1.1 billion in sales and donations of medicine and medical equipment to Cuba. In the past five years more than $5 billion in U.S. farm commodities have been exported to Cuba, he said.
Envoys from the European Union, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Malaysia, Mexico, North Korea, Russia, South Africa and Vietnam spoke against the embargo before vote.
``The European Union believes that critical engagement with the Cuban government, alongside dialogue with wider Cuban civil society, is the most effective way to promote peaceful change in Cuba,'' U.K. envoy Paul Johnston said in a speech on behalf of the European body.
``Never before, as in the past 18 months, was the blockade enforced with so much viciousness and brutality,'' Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said. ``There has been a hysterical, unprecedented escalation in the enforcement of new and aggressive measures, including the threat to use military means against Cuba.''
Roque said the embargo has cost Cuba $82 billion in lost income during the past 42 years.
He said Cuba would ultimately overcome the ``the helpless haughtiness of President Bush, which has taken him farther than anyone else in this madness.''
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Sunday, November 06, 2005
The Education of a Pacifist
What to do if you happen upon a peace rally by stupid, naïve,
hemp-shirt-wearing college idiots, to teach them why force is sometimes
needed:
1) Approach dumb rich ignorant student talking about "peace" and saying
there should be, "no retaliation."
2) Engage in brief conversation, ask if military force is appropriate.
3) When he says "No," ask, "Why not?"
4) Wait until he says something to the effect of, "Because that would just
cause more innocent deaths, which would be awful and we should not cause
more violence."
5) When he's in mid sentence, punch him in the face as hard as you can.
6) When he gets back up to punch you, point out that it would be a
mistake and contrary to his values to strike you, because that would, "be
awful and he should not cause more violence."
7) Wait until he agrees that he has pledged not to commit additional
violence.
8) Punch him in the face again, harder this time.
Repeat steps 5 through 8 until they understand that sometimes it is
necessary to punch back.
hemp-shirt-wearing college idiots, to teach them why force is sometimes
needed:
1) Approach dumb rich ignorant student talking about "peace" and saying
there should be, "no retaliation."
2) Engage in brief conversation, ask if military force is appropriate.
3) When he says "No," ask, "Why not?"
4) Wait until he says something to the effect of, "Because that would just
cause more innocent deaths, which would be awful and we should not cause
more violence."
5) When he's in mid sentence, punch him in the face as hard as you can.
6) When he gets back up to punch you, point out that it would be a
mistake and contrary to his values to strike you, because that would, "be
awful and he should not cause more violence."
7) Wait until he agrees that he has pledged not to commit additional
violence.
8) Punch him in the face again, harder this time.
Repeat steps 5 through 8 until they understand that sometimes it is
necessary to punch back.
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Denver Voters OK Marijuana Possession
By JON SARCHE, Associated Press WriterWed Nov 2, 7:40 AM ET
Residents of the Mile High City have voted to legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults. Authorities, though, said state possession laws will be applied instead.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday, 54 percent, or 56,001 voters, cast ballots for the ordinance, while 46 percent, or 48,632 voters, voted against it.
Under the measure, residents over 21 years old could possess up to an ounce of marijuana.
"We educated voters about the facts that marijuana is less harmful to the user and society than alcohol," said Mason Tvert, campaign organizer for SAFER, or Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation. "To prohibit adults from making the rational, safer choice to use marijuana is bad public policy."
Bruce Mirken of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project said he hoped the approval will launch a national trend toward legalizing a drug whose enforcement he said causes more problems than it cures.
Seattle, Oakland, Calif., and a few college towns already have laws making possession the lowest law enforcement priority.
The Denver proposal seemed to draw at least as much attention for supporters' campaign tactics as it did for the question of legalizing the drug.
Tvert argued that legalizing marijuana would reduce consumption of alcohol, which he said leads to higher rates of car accidents, domestic and street violence and crime.
The group criticized Mayor John Hickenlooper for opposing the proposal, noting his ownership of a popular brewpub. It also said recent violent crimes — including the shootings of four people last weekend — as a reason to legalize marijuana to steer people away from alcohol use.
Those tactics angered local officials and some voters. Opponents also said it made no sense to prevent prosecution by Denver authorities while marijuana charges are most often filed under state and federal law.
The measure would not affect the medical marijuana law voters approved in 2000. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that medical marijuana laws in Colorado and nine other states would not protect licensed users from federal prosecution.
Also Tuesday, voters in the ski resort town of Telluride rejected a proposal to make possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by people 18 or older the town's lowest law enforcement priority. The measure was rejected on a vote of 308-332.
Residents of the Mile High City have voted to legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults. Authorities, though, said state possession laws will be applied instead.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday, 54 percent, or 56,001 voters, cast ballots for the ordinance, while 46 percent, or 48,632 voters, voted against it.
Under the measure, residents over 21 years old could possess up to an ounce of marijuana.
"We educated voters about the facts that marijuana is less harmful to the user and society than alcohol," said Mason Tvert, campaign organizer for SAFER, or Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation. "To prohibit adults from making the rational, safer choice to use marijuana is bad public policy."
Bruce Mirken of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project said he hoped the approval will launch a national trend toward legalizing a drug whose enforcement he said causes more problems than it cures.
Seattle, Oakland, Calif., and a few college towns already have laws making possession the lowest law enforcement priority.
The Denver proposal seemed to draw at least as much attention for supporters' campaign tactics as it did for the question of legalizing the drug.
Tvert argued that legalizing marijuana would reduce consumption of alcohol, which he said leads to higher rates of car accidents, domestic and street violence and crime.
The group criticized Mayor John Hickenlooper for opposing the proposal, noting his ownership of a popular brewpub. It also said recent violent crimes — including the shootings of four people last weekend — as a reason to legalize marijuana to steer people away from alcohol use.
Those tactics angered local officials and some voters. Opponents also said it made no sense to prevent prosecution by Denver authorities while marijuana charges are most often filed under state and federal law.
The measure would not affect the medical marijuana law voters approved in 2000. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that medical marijuana laws in Colorado and nine other states would not protect licensed users from federal prosecution.
Also Tuesday, voters in the ski resort town of Telluride rejected a proposal to make possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by people 18 or older the town's lowest law enforcement priority. The measure was rejected on a vote of 308-332.
The Clare Luce Democrats
From The Wall Street Journal
The Clare Luce Democrats
How they're lying about "he lied us into war."
Thursday, November 3, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
Harry Reid pulled the Senate into closed session Tuesday, claiming that "The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this Administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq." But the Minority Leader's statement was as demonstrably false as his stunt was transparently political.
What Mr. Reid's pose is "really all about" is the emergence of the Clare Boothe Luce Democrats. We're referring to the 20th-century playwright, and wife of Time magazine founder Henry Luce, who was most famous for declaring that Franklin D. Roosevelt had "lied us into war" with the Nazis and Tojo. So intense was the hatred of FDR among some Republicans that they held fast to this slander for years, with many taking their paranoia to their graves.
We are now seeing the spectacle of Bush-hating Democrats adopting a similar slander against the current President regarding the Iraq War. The indictment by Patrick Fitzgerald of Vice Presidential aide I. Lewis Libby has become their latest opening to promote this fiction, notwithstanding the mountains of contrary evidence. To wit:
• In July 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a bipartisan 500-page report that found numerous failures of intelligence gathering and analysis. As for the Bush Administration's role, "The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," (our emphasis).
• The Butler Report, published by the British in July 2004, similarly found no evidence of "deliberate distortion," although it too found much to criticize in the quality of prewar intelligence.
• The March 2005 Robb-Silberman report on WMD intelligence was equally categorical, finding "no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. . . .analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments."
• Finally, last Friday, there was Mr. Fitzgerald: "This indictment's not about the propriety of the war, and people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who are--have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel."
In short, everyone who has looked into the question of whether the Bush Administration lied about intelligence, distorted intelligence, or pressured intelligence agencies to produce assessments that would support a supposedly pre-baked decision to invade Iraq has come up with the same answer: No, no, no and no.
Everyone, that is, except Joseph Wilson IV. He first became the Democrats' darling in July 2003, when he published an op-ed claiming he'd debunked Mr. Bush's "16 words" on Iraqi attempts to purchase African yellowcake and that the Administration had distorted the evidence about Saddam's weapons programs to fit its agenda. This Wilson tale fit the "lied us into war" narrative so well that he was adopted by the John Kerry presidential campaign.
Only to be dropped faster than a Paris Hilton boyfriend after the Senate Intelligence and Butler reports were published. Those reports clearly showed that, while Saddam had probably not purchased yellowcake from Niger, the dictator had almost certainly tried--and that Mr. Wilson's own briefing of the CIA after his mission supported that conclusion. Mr. Wilson somehow omitted that fact from his public accounts at the time.
He also omitted to explain why the CIA had sent him to Niger: His wife, who worked at the CIA, had suggested his name for the trip, a fact Mr. Wilson also denied, but which has also since been proven. In other words, the only real support there has ever been for the "Bush lied" storyline came from a man who is himself a demonstrable liar. If we were Nick Kristof and the other writers who reported Mr. Wilson's facts as gospel, we'd be apologizing to our readers.
Yet, incredibly, Mr. Wilson has once again become the Democrats' favorite mascot because they want him as a prop for their "lied us into war" revival campaign. They must think the media are stupid, because so many Democrats are themselves on the record in the pre-Iraq War period as declaring that Saddam had WMD. Here is Al Gore from September 23, 2002, amid the Congressional debate over going to war: "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Or Hillary Rodham Clinton, from October 10, 2002: "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. . . ."
Or Senator Jay Rockefeller, the Democratic Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who is now leading the "Bush lied" brigades (from October 10, 2002): "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. . . .We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." If Mr. Bush is a liar, what does the use of the phrase "unmistakable evidence" make Mr. Rockefeller? A fool?
The scandal here isn't what happened before the war. The scandal is that the same Democrats who saw the same intelligence that Mr. Bush saw, who drew the same conclusions, and who voted to go to war are now using the difficulties we've encountered in that conflict as an excuse to rewrite history. Are Republicans really going to let them get away with it?
The Clare Luce Democrats
How they're lying about "he lied us into war."
Thursday, November 3, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
Harry Reid pulled the Senate into closed session Tuesday, claiming that "The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this Administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq." But the Minority Leader's statement was as demonstrably false as his stunt was transparently political.
What Mr. Reid's pose is "really all about" is the emergence of the Clare Boothe Luce Democrats. We're referring to the 20th-century playwright, and wife of Time magazine founder Henry Luce, who was most famous for declaring that Franklin D. Roosevelt had "lied us into war" with the Nazis and Tojo. So intense was the hatred of FDR among some Republicans that they held fast to this slander for years, with many taking their paranoia to their graves.
We are now seeing the spectacle of Bush-hating Democrats adopting a similar slander against the current President regarding the Iraq War. The indictment by Patrick Fitzgerald of Vice Presidential aide I. Lewis Libby has become their latest opening to promote this fiction, notwithstanding the mountains of contrary evidence. To wit:
• In July 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a bipartisan 500-page report that found numerous failures of intelligence gathering and analysis. As for the Bush Administration's role, "The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," (our emphasis).
• The Butler Report, published by the British in July 2004, similarly found no evidence of "deliberate distortion," although it too found much to criticize in the quality of prewar intelligence.
• The March 2005 Robb-Silberman report on WMD intelligence was equally categorical, finding "no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. . . .analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments."
• Finally, last Friday, there was Mr. Fitzgerald: "This indictment's not about the propriety of the war, and people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who are--have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel."
In short, everyone who has looked into the question of whether the Bush Administration lied about intelligence, distorted intelligence, or pressured intelligence agencies to produce assessments that would support a supposedly pre-baked decision to invade Iraq has come up with the same answer: No, no, no and no.
Everyone, that is, except Joseph Wilson IV. He first became the Democrats' darling in July 2003, when he published an op-ed claiming he'd debunked Mr. Bush's "16 words" on Iraqi attempts to purchase African yellowcake and that the Administration had distorted the evidence about Saddam's weapons programs to fit its agenda. This Wilson tale fit the "lied us into war" narrative so well that he was adopted by the John Kerry presidential campaign.
Only to be dropped faster than a Paris Hilton boyfriend after the Senate Intelligence and Butler reports were published. Those reports clearly showed that, while Saddam had probably not purchased yellowcake from Niger, the dictator had almost certainly tried--and that Mr. Wilson's own briefing of the CIA after his mission supported that conclusion. Mr. Wilson somehow omitted that fact from his public accounts at the time.
He also omitted to explain why the CIA had sent him to Niger: His wife, who worked at the CIA, had suggested his name for the trip, a fact Mr. Wilson also denied, but which has also since been proven. In other words, the only real support there has ever been for the "Bush lied" storyline came from a man who is himself a demonstrable liar. If we were Nick Kristof and the other writers who reported Mr. Wilson's facts as gospel, we'd be apologizing to our readers.
Yet, incredibly, Mr. Wilson has once again become the Democrats' favorite mascot because they want him as a prop for their "lied us into war" revival campaign. They must think the media are stupid, because so many Democrats are themselves on the record in the pre-Iraq War period as declaring that Saddam had WMD. Here is Al Gore from September 23, 2002, amid the Congressional debate over going to war: "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Or Hillary Rodham Clinton, from October 10, 2002: "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. . . ."
Or Senator Jay Rockefeller, the Democratic Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who is now leading the "Bush lied" brigades (from October 10, 2002): "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. . . .We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." If Mr. Bush is a liar, what does the use of the phrase "unmistakable evidence" make Mr. Rockefeller? A fool?
The scandal here isn't what happened before the war. The scandal is that the same Democrats who saw the same intelligence that Mr. Bush saw, who drew the same conclusions, and who voted to go to war are now using the difficulties we've encountered in that conflict as an excuse to rewrite history. Are Republicans really going to let them get away with it?
Monday, October 10, 2005
'Don't Shoot! I'm Che!'
Humberto Fontova
Monday, Oct. 10, 2005
October 8 was the 38th anniversary of the day the quaking "guerrilla hero" was prompted to say: "Don't Shoot! I'm Che! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!" ("Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant")
According to many eyewitness accounts, Che's own victims conducted themselves much differently on their last day alive. "Viva Cuba Libre! Viva Cristo Rey! Abajo Comunismo!"
"The defiant yells would make the walls of La Cabana tremble," wrote eyewitness Armando Valladares.
Outside Havana and in the countryside, Che's murder victims often faced the firing squads untrussed, shoved in front of a recently dug pit with their hands free. "Aim right HERE!" was a favorite among some of the these as they reached below the belt. This was a favorite, they say, of the campesinos Castro and Che's firing squads murdered during the Escambray rebellion. "'Cause y'all ain't got any!" yelled these Cuban rednecks right before the volley shattered their bodies.
Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro's theft of their humble family farm.
On Christmas Eve 1961 Juana Diaz spat in the faces of the executioners who were binding and gagging her. They'd found her guilty of feeding and hiding "bandits" (Cuban rednecks who took up arms to fight the theft of their land). When the blast from that firing squad demolished her face and torso, Juana was six months pregnant.
Traditionally, only one or two members of a firing squad have loaded guns. The rest shoot blanks. Not Castro's and Che's. In these, all ten members shot (and still shoot) live ammo – all ten bullets rip into the staked hero or heroine.
This incorporates more members into Castro's criminal organization, more members to resist desperately any overthrow of the system, with the consequent settling of accounts.
Cuba's population in 1960 was 6.2 million. According to the human Rights group Freedom House, 500,000 Cubans (young and old, male and female) have passed through Castro's prison camps. At one time during 1961-62, 300,000 Cubans were jailed for political offenses islandwide. This makes Castro's political incarceration rate higher than Stalin's and Hitler's.
"Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!"
This is from Che's famous "Motorcycle Diaries," recently made into a heartwarming movie by Robert Redford. It seems that Mr. Redford omitted this passage from his touching film. The "acrid odor of gunpowder and blood" never reached Guevara's nostrils from actual combat. It always came from the close-range murders of defenseless men (and boys.)
In actual combat (puerile skirmishes, actually) his imbecilities defy belief. Compared to Che "The Lionhearted" Guevara, Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup" comes across like Hannibal. The century's most famous guerrilla fighter in fact never fought in anything properly describable as a guerrilla war (see "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant,"). When he finally started getting a tiny taste of one in Bolivia, he was promptly routed.
"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary," declared the Cuban Revolution's chief executioner, Che Guevara. "These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate."
By the way, exactly a month after this declaration by his chief executioner, Castro received an engraved invitation: Harvard Law School was asking the honor of his presence to address the school. "Castro visit triumphant!" blared the Harvard Law Record on April 30, 1959. "The audience got what it wanted – the chance of seeing the Cuban hero in person, if not at as close a range as might have been desired!"
Castro brought the house down, the very roof shook with the cheers and whoops of the faculty and student body at the world's most prestigious institution of Western jurisprudence.
One defector claims Che signed 400 death warrants during the first month of the Cuban Revolution. Another says over 600. Cuban journalist Luis Ortega, who knew Che as early as 1954, writes in his book "Yo Soy El Che!" that Guevara sent 1,897 men to the firing squad. In his book "Che Guevara: A Biography," Daniel James writes that Che himself admitted to ordering "several thousand" executions during the first few years of the Castro regime.
The scope of Che Guevara's mass murder is unclear. The exact number of widows and orphans is in dispute. The number of men (and boys) who Che sent, without trial, to be bound to a stake and blown apart by bullets runs from the hundreds to the thousands.
And the mass executioner's T-shirt adorns the very people who oppose capital punishment – as Harvard Law School's faculty certainly did while clapping, hyperventilating and throwing their panties at Castro on stage.
Che's image is particularly ubiquitous on college campuses. But in the wrong places. He belongs in the marketing, PR and advertising departments. His lessons and history are fascinating and valuable, but only in light of P.T. Barnum. One born every minute, Mr. Barnum? If only you'd lived to see the Che phenomenon. Actually, ten are born every second.
His pathetic whimpering on his last day alive: "Don't shoot!" I'm Che!" I'm worth more to you alive than dead!" proves that this murdering swine was unfit to carry his victims' slop buckets.
Humberto Fontova is the author of "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant," a Conservative Book Club main selection described as "Absolutely devasting. A shocking read you'll never forget" by David Limbaugh.
Monday, Oct. 10, 2005
October 8 was the 38th anniversary of the day the quaking "guerrilla hero" was prompted to say: "Don't Shoot! I'm Che! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!" ("Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant")
According to many eyewitness accounts, Che's own victims conducted themselves much differently on their last day alive. "Viva Cuba Libre! Viva Cristo Rey! Abajo Comunismo!"
"The defiant yells would make the walls of La Cabana tremble," wrote eyewitness Armando Valladares.
Outside Havana and in the countryside, Che's murder victims often faced the firing squads untrussed, shoved in front of a recently dug pit with their hands free. "Aim right HERE!" was a favorite among some of the these as they reached below the belt. This was a favorite, they say, of the campesinos Castro and Che's firing squads murdered during the Escambray rebellion. "'Cause y'all ain't got any!" yelled these Cuban rednecks right before the volley shattered their bodies.
Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro's theft of their humble family farm.
On Christmas Eve 1961 Juana Diaz spat in the faces of the executioners who were binding and gagging her. They'd found her guilty of feeding and hiding "bandits" (Cuban rednecks who took up arms to fight the theft of their land). When the blast from that firing squad demolished her face and torso, Juana was six months pregnant.
Traditionally, only one or two members of a firing squad have loaded guns. The rest shoot blanks. Not Castro's and Che's. In these, all ten members shot (and still shoot) live ammo – all ten bullets rip into the staked hero or heroine.
This incorporates more members into Castro's criminal organization, more members to resist desperately any overthrow of the system, with the consequent settling of accounts.
Cuba's population in 1960 was 6.2 million. According to the human Rights group Freedom House, 500,000 Cubans (young and old, male and female) have passed through Castro's prison camps. At one time during 1961-62, 300,000 Cubans were jailed for political offenses islandwide. This makes Castro's political incarceration rate higher than Stalin's and Hitler's.
"Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!"
This is from Che's famous "Motorcycle Diaries," recently made into a heartwarming movie by Robert Redford. It seems that Mr. Redford omitted this passage from his touching film. The "acrid odor of gunpowder and blood" never reached Guevara's nostrils from actual combat. It always came from the close-range murders of defenseless men (and boys.)
In actual combat (puerile skirmishes, actually) his imbecilities defy belief. Compared to Che "The Lionhearted" Guevara, Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup" comes across like Hannibal. The century's most famous guerrilla fighter in fact never fought in anything properly describable as a guerrilla war (see "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant,"). When he finally started getting a tiny taste of one in Bolivia, he was promptly routed.
"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary," declared the Cuban Revolution's chief executioner, Che Guevara. "These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate."
By the way, exactly a month after this declaration by his chief executioner, Castro received an engraved invitation: Harvard Law School was asking the honor of his presence to address the school. "Castro visit triumphant!" blared the Harvard Law Record on April 30, 1959. "The audience got what it wanted – the chance of seeing the Cuban hero in person, if not at as close a range as might have been desired!"
Castro brought the house down, the very roof shook with the cheers and whoops of the faculty and student body at the world's most prestigious institution of Western jurisprudence.
One defector claims Che signed 400 death warrants during the first month of the Cuban Revolution. Another says over 600. Cuban journalist Luis Ortega, who knew Che as early as 1954, writes in his book "Yo Soy El Che!" that Guevara sent 1,897 men to the firing squad. In his book "Che Guevara: A Biography," Daniel James writes that Che himself admitted to ordering "several thousand" executions during the first few years of the Castro regime.
The scope of Che Guevara's mass murder is unclear. The exact number of widows and orphans is in dispute. The number of men (and boys) who Che sent, without trial, to be bound to a stake and blown apart by bullets runs from the hundreds to the thousands.
And the mass executioner's T-shirt adorns the very people who oppose capital punishment – as Harvard Law School's faculty certainly did while clapping, hyperventilating and throwing their panties at Castro on stage.
Che's image is particularly ubiquitous on college campuses. But in the wrong places. He belongs in the marketing, PR and advertising departments. His lessons and history are fascinating and valuable, but only in light of P.T. Barnum. One born every minute, Mr. Barnum? If only you'd lived to see the Che phenomenon. Actually, ten are born every second.
His pathetic whimpering on his last day alive: "Don't shoot!" I'm Che!" I'm worth more to you alive than dead!" proves that this murdering swine was unfit to carry his victims' slop buckets.
Humberto Fontova is the author of "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant," a Conservative Book Club main selection described as "Absolutely devasting. A shocking read you'll never forget" by David Limbaugh.
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