Fwd: Castro on Bush in the ME and other things ...

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

  Reflections by The Commander In Chief: An Epiphany Gift

  By Fidel Castro

  Prensa Latina

  January 16, 2008

  http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=31485BD9-52D1-4271-835E-80271420062C)&language=EN

  Havana

  The wires made the announcement ahead of time. On

  January 6th we learned of Bush's trip to the Middle

  East, just as soon as his very Christian Christmas

  holiday break was over. He would be going to Muslim

  territory, lands having a different religion and

  culture from that of the Europeans, who converted to

  Christianity, declared war on the infidels, in the 11th

  century A.D.

  The Christians themselves killed each other, both for

  religious reasons and national interests. It seemed

  that everything had been overcome by history. Religious

  beliefs remained that should be respected, the same as

  their legends and traditions, whether Christian or

  otherwise. On this side of the Atlantic, as in many

  parts of the world, children anxiously awaited every

  6th of January, gathering enough hay for the camels

  bringing the Three Wise Men. I also shared in these

  hopes during the early years of my life, asking those

  three fortunate Wise Men for the impossible, with the

  same wishful thinking that some compatriots expect

  miracles from our determined and dignified Revolution.

  I am not physically apt to speak directly to the

  citizens of the municipality where I was nominated for

  our elections next Sunday. I do what I can: I write.

  For me, this is a new experience: writing is not the

  same as speaking. Today, that I have more time to

  inform myself and to meditate about what I see, I have

  barely enough time to write.

  One always expects good tidings; bad tidings tend to

  surprise and demoralize us. Being prepared for the

  worst is the only way to be prepared for the best.

  It seems unreal to see Bush, the conqueror of other

  peoples' raw materials and energy resources, setting

  out guidelines for the world careless about how many

  hundreds of thousands or millions of people die or how

  many clandestine prisons and torture centers must be

  created to attain his objectives. "Sixty or more

  corners of the world" must expect pre-emptive attacks.

  Let us not shut our eyes; Cuba is one of those dark

  corners. The head of the empire said that in just so

  many words and I have warned the international

  community of this on more than one occasion.

  In Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, a

  few miles from Iran, AP says that "The President of the

  United States, George W. Bush said Sunday that Iran is

  threatening the security of the world, and that the

  United States and Arab allies must join together to

  confront the danger before it's too late.

  "Bush has accused the Teheran government of funding

  terrorists, undermining stability in Lebanon, and

  sending weapons to the Taliban, the Afghan religious

  militia. He added that Iran is trying to intimidate its

  neighbors with alarming rhetoric, defying the United

  Nations and destabilizing the region as a whole by

  refusing to be open about its nuclear program."

  "'Iranian actions threaten the security of nations

  everywhere' Bush said. Therefore, the United States is

  strengthening our long-range commitments to security

  with our friends in the Persian Gulf and calling on our

  friends to confront this danger."

  "Bush spoke at the Emirates Palace Hotel, built at a

  cost of 3 billion dollars, and where a suite costs

  2,450 dollars a night. It is one kilometer from end to

  end and has a 1.3 kilometer white sand beach. According

  to Steven Pike, spokesman of the of the US Embassy in

  the United Arab Emirates, every grain of sand on this

  beach was imported from Algeria."

  The entire world knows that he wants war against Iran,

  it is his war. Furthermore, he promises that U.S.

  troops will remain in Iraq for at least 10 more years.

  What is worse is that the main candidates of the two

  parties in line to succeed him are incapable of

  remedying this. Not one of them dares to even slightly

  contest this imperial practice, which is based on the

  excuse of fighting terrorism, an evil engendered by the

  system itself and its colossal and unsustainable

  consumerism, while striving for the impossible:

  sustained growth, full employment and no inflation.

  These were not the dreams of Martin Luther King,

  Malcolm X and Abraham Lincoln; nor were they the dreams

  of those great dreamers throughout humanity's turbulent

  history.

  Whoever has the time to read and analyze the news

  coming in on the Internet, cable and in books, can

  ascertain the contradictions to which the world has

  been driven.

  In an article run by El PaÃs, a widely read Spanish

  newspaper, the subject of the prices of food and fuel

  are dealt with. Signed by Paul Kennedy, professor of

  history and director of International Security Studies

  at Yale University and one of the country's most

  influential intellectuals, the article states that "oil

  is the greatest element of dependency for the United

  States in terms of external forces."

  "By the mid-18th century, Great Britain had the largest

  shipbuilding industry in the world. Yet, as its yards

  were launching hundreds if not thousands of sailing

  ships each year, certain English inventors were

  creating the magic of the steam engine, which used vast

  amounts of energy secured in the especially bituminous

  depots of South Wales. The steam and coal engine

  carried the British Empire onward for another 150

  years."

  Later on he indicates the point of view that is most

  interesting for us: the ever-greater interconnection

  between oil and foods. The reasons are well-known: the

  enormous energy demands of the large Asian economies

  and the inability of the wealthiest countries -the

  United States, Japan and Europe- to reduce their

  consumption.

  "But global soy bean demand is also spiraling upward,

  again, chiefly due to the rising consumption in Asia;

  China's tens of millions of pigs devour an awful amount

  of soy bean meal in a year. The soy bean futures prices

  are 80 percent higher this year (December 2007) than

  last (2006)."

  "No one can be certain of that, but the continued

  increases in overall world population, and the surge in

  real incomes for more than two billion people over the

  recent past, will surely translate into ever-greater

  demand for the world's protein: for more beef, more

  pork, more chicken, more fish, and thus for more grains

  to feed them."

  The Yale professor might as well have added: more eggs

  and more milk, since their production requires

  considerable amounts of fodder. But a little later, he

  alludes to an article published in The Economist, the

  main newspaper of European finance, describing it as

  "highly detailed, impressive and very scary"; it is

  entitled "The End of Cheap Food". "That magazine began

  its food-price index way back in 1845. The price index

  is higher today than in anytime in its entire 162

  years."

  Brazil, which is now self-reliant in fuel and has

  abundant reserves, will doubtlessly escape this

  dilemma. Stretching on a plateau at 300 to 900 meters

  altitude, it is 77 times bigger than Cuba. This sister

  republic enjoys 3 different climates. Almost every food

  can be grown there. It is no hit by tropical

  hurricanes. Together with Argentina, they could save

  the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean,

  including Mexico, although they could never guarantee

  security for them because they are at the mercy of an

  empire which will not allow that union.

  Writing, as many people know, is an instrument of

  expression that lacks speed, tone and the intonation of

  spoken language, and it doesn't use gestures. It also

  takes several times our scarce available time. Writing

  has the advantage that it can been done at any time,

  day or night, but one doesn't know who will read it;

  very few can resist the temptation to improve it, to

  include what was not said or to cross out what was

  said; sometimes one has the urge to throw it all in the

  waste basket since you don't have the interlocutor

  there in front of you. All my life I have transmitted

  ideas about events as I was seeing them, from the

  darkest ignorance until today when I have more time

  available and I have the possibility of observing the

  crimes being committed against our planet and our

  species.

  To the youngest of our revolutionaries, in particular,

  I recommend to be extremely demanding with themselves

  and to observe an iron-clad discipline. They should

  avoid being ambitious for power, presumptuous or

  boasters. They should be watchful about bureaucratic

  methods and mechanisms and avoid succumbing to simple

  slogans. They should recognize bureaucratic procedure

  for the worst obstacle they are and use science and

  computation without falling prey to the excessively

  technical and unintelligible jargon of the elitist

  specialists. They should always be hunger for

  knowledge; and perseverance, and both physical and

  mental exercises should be part of their lives.

  In this new era in which we live, capitalism is not

  even a useful instrument. It is like a tree with rotten

  roots, from whence only the worst forms of

  individualism, corruption and inequality sprout. Nor

  should we give away anything to those who could be

  producing and who don't produce, or who produce very

  little. Reward the merits of those who work with their

  hands or their minds.

  Just as we have universalized higher education, we must

  also universalize simple physical labor; it helps us to

  at least carry out a part of the infinite investments

  demanded by everyone, as if there was an enormous

  reserve of money and labor force. Be especially wary of

  those inventing State enterprises with just any excuse

  and then managing the easy profits as if they had been

  capitalists all their lives, sowing egoism and

  privileges.

  Until we become aware of such realities, no effort can

  be made, as Martà would have said, to "timely prevent"

  that the empire which he saw surging up, living as he

  did in its entrails, may destroy the future of

  humanity.

  We must be dialectic and creative. There is no other

  possible alternative.

  We are grateful for Bush playing his part as one of the

  Wise Men, visiting the place where the son on the

  carpenter Joseph was born, if truly someone knows where

  the exact spot of that humble crib is, where the

  Nazarene was born. The leader of the empire bears the

  gift, this time, of tens of billions of dollars to the

  Arab countries to buy weapons that come from the

  industrial-military complex; and at the same time, two

  dollars for every one supplied to them to arm the state

  of Israel, where the United Nations agency which

  tackles the subject assures us that 3.5 million

  Palestinians have been deprived of their rights or

  expelled from their territory.

  His obsessive instrument is to threaten the world with

  nuclear war. Only he is capable of bearing this

  Epiphany Gift.

  Fidel Castro Ruz

  January 14, 2008.

  7:12 pm.

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