Comments on: Fidel’s Final Hurrah

By: msvohyoqar

msvohyoqar — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:42:10 +0000

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By: Jason Stadnik

Jason Stadnik — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 00:40:25 +0000

I think Cuba will prosper. Even if FC dies within next hours,days or months.Who cares.I think Cuba will beat USA financialy one of this days.God will help Cubans to get out of the poverty.

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 20:50:29 +0000

It is US bashing when you make shit up out of whole cloth like when you made your initial statement that â€œAmericans did nothing to liberate death camps.â€ If you knew half the facts that you claim about the camps you would have known about Dachau and would have known not to say easily refutable nonsense.

East Germany and the USSR hanging them? Not all of them. How do you think the Soviets built the R-1?

By: jcummings

jcummings — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 16:58:45 +0000

Its not US bashing to point out that hte US had no interest, as policy, in saving Jews and other victims of Hitler and fascism. They did everything they could to not allow Jews to come to America, hence creating a problem that was taken advantage of by the Zionists.

Yes, summary executions are a war crime. Between the US hiring Nazis post ww2 and EAst Germany and USSR hanging them, I certainly prefer the latter, war crime or not.

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:26:14 +0000

Sorry, should have put an emoticon in

I would have a problem with the summary execution of anyone at times of war; summary execution being that without judicial procedure. If the Nazis had done that to US troops, it would be considered a war crime.

BTW,

It took me all of 30 seconds to find the reference on Google to Dachau, granted, that my memory of my visit helped. Perhaps you might find it salutary to first check your facts before making a statement that “Americans did nothing to liberate death camps.” By so doing, perhaps you can avoid accusations of bashing the US.

By: jcummings

jcummings — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:04:15 +0000

“Bash the US”….Even if we have disagreements, M. Paul, you are too intelligent to simply put it that way. I actually did not visit Dachau, the trip was focused on Eastern camps. However, I have no problem with the US summarily executing Nazis.

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:46:13 +0000

If you visited the camps, then surely you would have known the history of the liberation of Dacau, especially the part about the American troops making the town residents see what had been going on under their noses as well as having them clean it up.

Indeed, one would imagine that you would find another opportunity to bash the US, given the summary executions committed by US troops of some of the camp guards in reaction to the horror of what they saw.

By: jcummings

jcummings — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 04:15:36 +0000

I actually have been to most of the camps. I went on a “march of the living” trip when I was seventeen. It contributed greatly to my thinking. I concede being incorrect – but stand by the broader point that American policy – and in particular after the war not letting in Jewish refugees – was not motivated by saving the victims of fascism.

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 03:04:56 +0000

Don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but you should make a visit to Dachau sometime. In fact, everyone should visit Dachau some time in their life.

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:45:05 +0000

Americans idd nothing to liberate death camps One wonders which is worse: your tendentiousness or your ignorance of the facts:

U.S. forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945, a few days after the Nazis began evacuating the camp. On the day of liberation, an underground prisoner resistance organization seized control of Buchenwald to prevent atrocities by the retreating camp guards. American forces liberated more than 20,000 prisoners at Buchenwald. They also liberated Dora-Mittelbau, Flossenbuerg, Dachau, and Mauthausen.

A lot of this was a matter of geography: the worst camps were in the east: Auschwitz, Treblinka, etc. Nevertheless, you are wrong on the facts.

By: jcummings

jcummings — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:27:22 +0000

America entered WW2 too late, and mainly out of pressure from the anti-fascist movement, and to protect investments. Unlike Brits, Canucks or Russians, the Americans idd nothing to liberate death camps. They also had intelligence on traintracks to death camps and did nothing about them, and protected US corporate assets in Germany….and then empowered Nazi and Fascist colloborators after the war. Yes WW2 was just, but the US’s role was murky.

By: richard locicero

richard locicero — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:35:32 +0000

Who knows what the maniacs in the Bush Administration “Think?” Maybe they would see it as a welcome diversion from Mess-O-Potamia and a way to buck up the base.

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:34:29 +0000

WWII

By: jcummings

jcummings — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:28:55 +0000

Explain this paranoid obsession, and how it has had a detrimental effect on activism….

Also, what has been good about US power for humanity, ever?

By: John Mc

John Mc — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 19:41:58 +0000

JC, I never have purported to be some dynamo of social activism, and I certainly don’t need to show my ‘progressive’ or ‘lefty’ credentials to anyone in order to question them on a statement that they made in a blog forum. My point was that I just don’t see any reason to be as dismissive as you are about the report, and then I linked your attitude to the disturing and growing trend amongst the far left of paranoid obsession with US power (a trend, in my belief, that is harmful to social activism).

By: Marc Cooper

Marc Cooper — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:56:05 +0000

Ifail to see the greater significance of the accuracy of predicting fidel’s actual state of health.

The reason we don’t know is because the cuban dictatorship has deemed it a state secret.

I am confident that the bush admin would at this point prefer that the castro bros stay in charge so as to not have to deal with the disruption of a possible rupture. Both governments need each other to justify their own failed policies.

Btw. I saw the CNN report. Goodman’s doctor hasn’t seen Fidel in weeks and is not privvy to the latest. The doctor is in Spain. Fidel is in cuba. Why the disbelief that he actually may be dying?

By: richard locicero

richard locicero — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:54:13 +0000

Well maybe Michael Ledeen will confirm.

By: Dalton Schnack

Dalton Schnack — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:47:33 +0000

What has shaped the present US policy toward Cuba? Simple: You can’t win Florida’s electoral votes without the support of the Miami Cubans.

And what do the Miami Cubans expect in return after Castro passes? Simple: Cuba. They want repatriation and the return of their land and property in Cuba that was “illegally” confiscated by the Castro regime.

And, of course, there are all those potential tourist dollars to be harvested.

How do you spell “Ahmed Chalabi” in Spanish?

BahÃa de Cochinos anyone?

By: jcummings

jcummings — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:37:03 +0000

From CNN/Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s blog:
I always find the news gathering at CNN to be remarkable. In Spain, we have reporter Al Goodman, who chased down leads all day, eventually contacting a doctor who has examined Castro, and who denied the Spanish newspaper’s report.

By: richard locicero

richard locicero — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:32:40 +0000

Remember when the Soviet Union fell and the “Smart Money” said Cuba would fall in a year or so? Didn’t happen. So I think we should all take the predictions of what will happen in a post-Castro Cuba with the small small mountain of salt. I agree with Reg that, on a scale of human rights violators, Cuba was a a lot better than many and worse than others and, in things like education and public health, a lot better than most Latin countries. And I think that MB is right that the real problem that Cuba presented was an alternative economic model that threatened US hegemony in the region. The fact that Castro was, in many ways, an old fashioned Caudillo, was a happy bonus for US policy makers as it made it possible for them to clothe their concerns in psuedo-Human Rights language when the real issue was the uncompensated nationalisation of American property.

I have no doubt that the neocons would jump at this and the Miami “Last Standers” will want a crusade to “Liberate” the island and we’ll see see end of Spanish speaking Achmed Chalibis. But the only saving grace is we are a country weary of foreign adventures and a tapped-out treasury. We’ll make trouble but at this point, frankly, Chavez has more resources to engage Cuba with than we do.