Cuba says US is 'international criminal'

[Mika]

Source: Focus Information Agency

Havana. Cuba on Thursday accused the US government of being an "international criminal" after Washington said it was keeping Cuba on a list of countries that allegedly support terrorism.

The forceful reaction came after the US State Department issued a report lumping Cuba with Iran, Syria and Sudan on a blacklist as sponsors of terrorism.

"The author (of the report) is an international criminal," said Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.

Read more: http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n179497

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Cuba's right.

[WestSeattle2]

4. They are, but it's kind of like

Ted Bundy accusing John Gacy of being a murderer.

[FiveGoodMen]

7. Worldwide, the US has done a lot more damage than Cuba

Especially lately.

[Psephos]

17. US has also done more good worldwide than Cuba

but that doesn't get mentioned as often.

Gets old.

[FiveGoodMen]

24. Hardly stacks up against killing a million innocent civilians for no reason at all

[Pavulon]

27. That number is a joke, by an order of mag

and it server to dismiss the real number of people who have suffered in Iraq.

IBC is a reasonable source.

[ronnie624]

51. Yeah, right.

IBC (lol) is a better source of information than the research centers of Johns Hopkins and Columbia University.

Whatever.

Global Rogue State

Ignoring both minor bombing raids and the numerous subversive efforts not involving military forces, since the end of World War II the United States has committed acts of aggression against Guatemala (1954), Lebanon (1958), the Dominican Republic (1965), Vietnam (1954-75), Laos (1964-1975), Cambodia (1969-1975), Nicaragua (1980-'990), Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989). I would argue that the Persian Gulf war was also a case of U.S. aggression, as the U.S. took advantage of Iraq's aggression against Kuwait to smash a regional power that had defied it. In short, the U.S. has been the number one international aggressor over the past 50 years.

In the case of the Vietnam War, the global rogue was able to ignore the 1954 Geneva Accords, place a puppet in power in South Vietnam, invade and bomb all of Indochina, killing as many as four million people over two decades, without the slightest interference from the UN or World Court. In the case of Panama, the rogue invaded in 1989 to capture its leader, Noriega, allegedly for drug dealing and authoritarian rule. But Noriega had been on the U. S. payroll for years while dealing in drugs and ruling by terror. The real reason for the invasion was Noriega's refusal to collaborate with the U.S. in its illegal attacks on Nicaragua. Again, the U.S. veto and overall power allowed this multi-leveled rogue operation to go forward without impediment.

<http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Terrorism/Global_Rogue.html>

[TankLV]

69. oooooo....!

[Bette Noir]

2. What terrorism is Cuba supposed to support?

Cuba Libre?

[JVS]

14. I'm guessing this is probably related to the fact that Cuba has sent troops and weapons into many...

civil wars in Africa and Latin America.

Stuff like their involvment in the Angolan civil war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angolan_Civil_War#1970s

[lsewpershad]

21. America still has soldiers

in numerous places and continues to support destabilizing efforts in many countries. What does this make the US?

[JVS]

22. Similar to Cuba in this respect.

This whole back and forth is between kitchen utensils.

[Judi Lynn]

23. It would be interesting if you could actually show any comparison.

Just the period of time Ronald Reagan graced the White House has been described, concerning Latin America, by Chalmers Johnson as the Reagan years the worst decade for Central America since the Spanish conquest."

From the Nation:

On the day after the September 11 attack, Democratic Senator Zell Miller of Georgia declared, "I say, bomb the hell out of them. If there's collateral damage, so be it." "Collateral damage" is another of those hateful euphemisms invented by our military to prettify its killing of the defenseless. It is the term Pentagon spokesmen use to refer to the Serb and Iraqi civilians who were killed or maimed by bombs from high-flying American warplanes in our campaigns against Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein. It is the kind of word our new ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, might have used in the 1980s to explain the slaughter of peasants, Indians and church workers by American-backed right-wing death squads in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua while he was ambassador to Honduras. These activities made the Reagan years the worst decade for Central America since the Spanish conquest.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011015/johnson

Take time to inform yourself of US involvement throughout South America, Central America, etc. from the time immediately following World War II to this moment. It's going to require you give up something in order to spend your time learning about it, but unless you actually know what you're talking about, your opinion is lightweight.

[Pavulon]

28. Cool Pic of cubans in angola..(long way from home)

Cuba played the cold war game and so did we. They arent wearing a glowing halo. My opinion is informed and grounded in context of us policy towards LA since Teddy was in office.

[Judi Lynn]

29. For DU'ers who've only heard the bogus story of US/Cuba/Angola:

Washington D.C.: The National Security Archive today posted a selection of secret Cuban government documents detailing Cuba's policy and involvement in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. The records are a sample of dozens of internal reports, memorandum and communications obtained by Piero Gleijeses, a historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, for his new book, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (The University of North Carolina Press).

Peter Kornbluh, director of the Archive’s Cuba Documentation Project, called the publication of the documents “a significant step toward a fuller understanding Cuba’s place in the history of Africa and the Cold War,” and commended the Castro government’s decision to makes its long-secret archives accessible to scholars like Professor Gleijeses. “Cuba has been an important actor on the stage of foreign affairs,” he said. “Cuban documents are a missing link in fostering an understanding of numerous international episodes of the past.”

Conflicting Missions provides the first comprehensive history of the Cuba's role in Africa and settles a longstanding controversy over why and when Fidel Castro decided to intervene in Angola in 1975. The book definitively resolves two central questions regarding Cuba's policy motivations and its relationship to the Soviet Union when Castro astounded and outraged Washington by sending thousands of soldiers into the Angolan civil conflict. Based on Cuban, U.S. and South African documents and interviews, the book concludes that:

• Castro decided to send troops to Angola on November 4, 1975, in response to the South African invasion of that country, rather than vice versa as the Ford administration persistently claimed;
  
  
• The United States knew about South Africa's covert invasion plans, and collaborated militarily with its troops, contrary to what Secretary of State Henry Kissinger testified before Congress and wrote in his memoirs.
  
  
• Cuba made the decision to send troops without informing the Soviet Union and deployed them, contrary to what has been widely alleged, without any Soviet assistance for the first two months.

Professor Gleijeses is the first scholar to gain access to closed Cuban archives—a process that took more than six years of research trips to Cuba—including those of the Communist Party Central Committee, the armed forces and the foreign ministry. Classified Cuban documents used in the book include: minutes of meetings with Fidel Castro, Che Guevara's handwritten correspondence from Zaire, military directives from Raul Castro, briefing papers from intelligence chieftain, Manuel Piniero, field commander reports, internal Cuban government memoranda, and Cuban-Soviet communications and military accords.
In addition to research in Cuba, the author also worked extensively in the archives of the United States, Belgium, Great Britain, and West and East Germany, teaching himself to read Portuguese and Afrikaans so that he could evaluate primary documents written in those languages.

Gleijeses also interviewed over one hundred fifty protagonists, among them the former CIA station chief in Luanda, Robert Hultslander who spoke on the record for the first time for this book. "History has shown," Hultslander noted, "that Kissinger's policy on Africa itself was shortsighted and flawed." He also commented on the forces of Jonas Savimbi, the rebel chief recently killed in Angola: "I was deeply concerned ... about UNITA's purported ties with South Africa, and the resulting political liability such carried. I was unaware at the time, of course, that the U.S. would eventually beg South Africa to directly intervene to pull its chestnuts out of the fire."

In this first account of Cuba's policy in Africa based on documentary evidence, Gleijeses describes and analyzes Castro's dramatic dispatch of 30,000 Cubans to Angola in 1975-76, and he traces the roots of this policy—from Havana's assistance to the Algerian rebels fighting France in 1961 to the secret war between Havana and Washington in Zaire in 1964-65 and Cuba's decisive contribution to Guinea-Bissau's war of independence from 1966-1974.

"Conflicting Missions is above all the story of a contest, staged in Africa, between Cuba and the United States," according to its author, which started in Zaire in 1964-65 and culminated in a major Cold War confrontation in Angola in 1975-76. Using Cuban and US documents, as well as the semi-official history of South Africa's 1975 covert operation in Angola (available only in Afrikaans), this book is the first to present the internationalized Angolan conflict from three sides—Cuba and the MPLA, the United States and the covert CIA operation codenamed IAFEATURE and South Africa, whose secret incursion prompted Castro's decision to commit Cuban troops.

Conflicting Missions also argues that Secretary Kissinger's account of the US role in Angola, most recently repeated in the third volume of his memoirs, is misleading. Testifying before Congress in 1976, Kissinger stated "We had no foreknowledge of South Africa's intentions, and in no way cooperated militarily." In Years of Renewal Dr. Kissinger also denied that the United States and South Africa had collaborated in the Angolan conflict; Gleijeses' research strongly suggests that they did. The book quotes Kissinger aide Joseph Sisco conceding that the Ford administration "certainly did not discourage" South Africa's intervention, and presents evidence that the CIA helped the South Africans ferry arms to key battlefronts. The book also reproduces portions of a declassified memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and Chinese leader Teng Hsiao-p'ing which shows that Chinese officials raised concerns about South Africa's involvement in Angola in response to Ford and Kissinger's entreaties for Beijing's continuing support. The memcon quotes President Ford as telling the Chinese "we had nothing to do with the South African involvement." Drawing on the Cuban documents, the book challenges Kissinger's account in his memoirs about the arrival of Cubans in Angola. The first Cuban military advisers did not arrive in Angola until late August 1975, and the Cubans did not participate in the fighting until late October, after South Africa had invaded.

In assessing the motivations of Cuba's foreign policy, Cuba's relations with the Soviet Union, and the nature of the Communist threat in Africa, Gleijeses shows that CIA and INR intelligence reports were often sophisticated and insightful, unlike the decisions of the policymakers in Washington.

Summaries of the Cuban documents, and several declassified U.S. records relating to Cuba and Africa, follow:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB67/

[Pavulon]

30. "Cuba's relations with the Soviet Union" (still picking off the fleas)

they made a call. The lined up with a defunct ideology and now are paying the price for it. Their neighbors (cayman for example) are progressive states where people dont flee to the US.

Cuba has more to gain with a relationship with the us than the other way around. They do make great tasty cigars but not much else we need from them.

Cuba was ussr aligned and eventually that mindset in their government will die off. Until then, we can just wait.

[Judi Lynn]

32. How do you explain the constant Caribbean migration, with people from many of those islands

piling into boats to travel hundreds of miles, even, to get to other places?

How do you account for all the people in Latin America who forge through Mexico to get to the US, and the HUNDREDS who die annually in the effort to cross the desert to get into the country from California to Texas, or who drown even coming up the Pacific side, as we DO read in newspaper accounts.

Just a few weeks ago, a boat with Brazilians and Domincans was caught trying to get here. From whom and what terrifying government do you presume they were fleeing?

[Pavulon]

36. Better Life by breaking immingration law vs asylum

Brazil has poverty that is generally not understood by people who have not been there. Most people have no idea what that is like. If i lived in a slum in Brazil I would risk my life to leave.

However one can legally apply and get a work visit from there into the us. Travel is not restricted by the government. People do not defect from brazil.

Cuba restricts media and speech. Cuba sets situations where people can seek asylum in the us from the government.

I know you are not ignorant of this situation so please do not play dumb. I have done a bit of traveling and see both sides of most things. Both the US and Cuba can benefit from better ties, but cuba has to move along in the realm of human rights.

[Judi Lynn]

38. Cuba is the only country whose citizens are offered freebies, as well as instant legal status

the minute they manage to arrive here on their own power, without being intercepted at sea.

No other country's illegal immigrant citizens are offered the absolute luxury of total freedom from being rounded up, imprisoned, and returned, as well as instant access to a work visa, social security, food stamps, Section 8 US-taxpayer-subsidized housing, medical treatment, even financial assistance for education.

If those things were also held out to people from other countries we would have been SWAMPED long, long ago.

[Pavulon]

40. And if Cuba was not screwed up, they would stay home

not like they give out a free wonderful lifestyle as soon as you hit the beach. People get here and WORK. If it were a socialist paradise they would not RISK DEATH to get here.

Only the USSR came so close to starting events that would kill us all as our happy soon to be dead friend castro.

[Judi Lynn]

43. As I already said, what compels the other people who RISK DEATH coming here

across far greater distances in the Caribbean, or across the desert, where they KNOW hundreds of people die annually?

You probably haven't taken the time to notice, but even the corporate media started referring to the people who take boats here as "economic immigrants" rather than "asylum seekers."

http://images.jupiterimages.com.nyud.net:8090/common/detail/28/63/22846328.jpg
Anthropologists tell us Florida and Cuban indigenous people used to make that trip in their own home-made boats regularly, also. No "go fast" smuggler boats for them.

[L. Coyote]

62. We literally bribe redneck Cubans to immigrate, just to prop up a false political paradigm.

Not to mention, to influence Florida politics!!
What impact did their votes have on the USA in 2000?
The policy can be said to have aided in Bush's overthrow!

[Pavulon]

66. With MIGS and to play baseball

guys from their national team defect b e cause they are not allowed to leave. And defectors flying migs to the us are examples of people who can not leave a place escaping.

[imdjh]

65. We buy Cuban sugar

And if I'm not mistaken we will buy even more of it once Charlie Crist manages to bankrupt Florida and open up as much of it to development as he possibly can.

[Pavulon]

67. Cuba has nothing except cigars

that can not be acquired from many other sources. I do agree with you florida statement. They are destroying the state.

[Billy Burnett]

3. Unbelievable! The US harbors CIA terrorists like Posada and Bosch, then accuses Cuba of terrorism?

The bastards (on the CIA payroll) blew up a Cuban jetliner killing 73, then they went on a campaign of bombing Cuban hotels, theaters, and other public/tourism hot spots. They are currently being harbored by the US government.

:wtf: :wow:

:hi:

[Algorem]

5. + what's with this dumass comic strip Crankshaft with this Castro-threw-spitballs thing?

[provis99]

6. this is news?

We're a country that's trying to figure out how to charge our own past administration with war crimes and crimes against humanity, but we put Cuba on a terrorist list? Does everyone in the State Department think like John Bolton?

[Canuckistanian]

8. Nice détente there, guys

You reach out to Cuba with a delegation a few weeks ago - then next accuse them of being "sponsors of terror".

Confused much?

[Judi Lynn]

19. The delegation has been totally aware of US history in this hemisphere.

It should be important enough that everyone would take the time to do his/her homework on the subject.

Barbara Lee, from "the delegation" was the only one in the House of Reprentatives to make a formal stand in opposing _{George W. Bush's} war. She has been going to Cuba to meet and talk with officials since the 1970's. At the risk of being labeled a commie lover by absolute idiots she has been completely aware of what has happened to Cuba which would compel them to fear swaggering, pompous assholes who manage to gain office and make a point of putting the screws to Cuba even more.

Do yourself the favor of becoming informed about what has happened between the U.S. and Cuba since the 1800's. It's a filthy picture, and you should be aware it's not the doing of the tiny island which spends less in one year for self-defense than the United States spends in 12 hours.

Why not struggle to be informed? Making statements from a position of total ignorance loses credibility for you.

[Mika]

20. Confused and consistent. Not by accident.

Keeping the Cuba "standoff" on the table keeps the campaign (and lobbying) dollars flowing to both sides (R & D, pro & anti trade) - its a win/win for US political campaign coffers.
:party:


:puke:

[razors edge]

9. Sounds like they are warming up to us.

It's always good to know a little bit about someone before you become close friends.

[Solly Mack]

10. America harbors war criminals and those who've committed crimes against humanity

In fact, such people preside over our courts, teach in our universities, are paraded around as experts, and left free to cause more damage.


But gee, don't let hypocrisy get in the way of all that self-satisfied finger-pointing.

[Old Hob]

11. OK, I'm confused now. Weren't we being all nicey nice with Cuba just a few days ago?

now were antagonizing them with more "axis of evil" rhetoric. WTF?

[EFerrari]

16. The State Department is still a sewer. n/t

[Moderate2008]

12. Do they support terrorism? (nt)

[harmonicon]

13. no.

[Vidar]

15. Cuba's right: the US continues its terrorism.

[ConcernedCanuk]

18. I agree with Cuba

.
.
.

USA just cannot continue to invade, occupy and slaughter people in other nations and have any sort of moral authority.

How many bombs has Cuba dropped today?

. . :freak: . .

[David__77]

25. Cuba is correct, absolutely.

On the other hand, I do not believe that Cuba's intervention in the internal affairs of other countries was always helpful or progressive. For instance, its military support for Ethiopia's Mengistu Miriam was wrong and helped facilitate the oppression of Eritreans and other national minorities in the country. But, today, it's the US that is interfering and subverting, not Cuba, which doesn't even support FARC or other armed groups any more.

[fascisthunter]

26. and until America Holds those responsible for Terrorist Actions

Cuba is right. Until we hold people accountable, we are condoning such behavior and have nothing but words to stand by.

[joshcryer]

31. Way to bridge the gap.

:shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

33. They didn't create the gap, nor have they conducted a terror campaign and economic war against us

lasting over many decades, at a cost of thousands of lives.

Bring a few facts into the conversation.

[joshcryer]

34. Irrelevant.

This isn't language you use if you want to reconcile.

[Judi Lynn]

35. It's not their place to reconcile, they didn't commit the aggression. n/t

[Pavulon]

37. They played their part by pointing thermonuclear weapons at us.

they played in the cold war. They were whores to the USSR and that was their play at the time. They lost. So they can modernize like the rest of the functional world or go be like N. Korea. Other than making good cigars cost more this will have little to no bearing on most americans.

[Judi Lynn]

39. Whores? Grow up. The soviet union got involved because no one was protecting them from invasion.

Regardless of what right-wing a-holes maintain, no other government yet has the authority to cancel out a people's revolution against a barbaric, racist, brutal, death-squad prone government, no matter HOW huge that government is, and how closely it looms upon the small ones.

You don't OWN Cuba through your government. Get your nose out of their business.

[Pavulon]

41. A whore takes money

cuba's communist government took plenty and just about killed us all. The USSR collapsed and cuba holds on to their dictator and communist pipe dream. Again they can be normal and move on, or hang out with N. Korea. I could not give two rat fucks.

For their own benefit they can normalize, if not, no impact to me. This is not about ME it is about policy applied by many administrations of both parties.

[Judi Lynn]

45. It's about a group of radical, violent, power mad reactionaries who seized control of US Cuba policy

No one should be completely ignorant of that fact.

The Democratic Presidents made attempts to loosen the hardship, and they were followed by Republicans who tightened it all up even worse.

As has been pointed out here, even JFK and Robert Kennedy, at different times, intended to completely alter the relationship. That's what John Kennedy was working on at the time he was murdered.

Kennedy Sought Dialogue with Cuba

INITIATIVE WITH CASTRO ABORTED BY ASSASSINATION,
DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SHOW

Oval Office Tape Reveals Strategy to hold clandestine Meeting in Havana; Documents record role of ABC
News correspondent Lisa Howard as secret intermediary in Rapprochement effort

Posted - November 24, 2003

Washington D.C. - On the 40th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the eve of the broadcast of a new documentary film on Kennedy and Castro, the National Security Archive today posted an audio tape of the President and his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, discussing the possibility of a secret meeting in Havana with Castro. The tape, dated only seventeen days before Kennedy was shot in Dallas, records a briefing from Bundy on Castro's invitation to a U.S. official at the United Nations, William Attwood, to come to Havana for secret talks on improving relations with Washington. The tape captures President Kennedy's approval if official U.S. involvement could be plausibly denied.

The possibility of a meeting in Havana evolved from a shift in the President's thinking on the possibility of what declassified White House records called "an accommodation with Castro" in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Proposals from Bundy's office in the spring of 1963 called for pursuing "the sweet approach…enticing Castro over to us," as a potentially more successful policy than CIA covert efforts to overthrow his regime. Top Secret White House memos record Kennedy's position that "we should start thinking along more flexible lines" and that "the president, himself, is very interested in ." Castro, too, appeared interested. In a May 1963 ABC News special on Cuba, Castro told correspondent Lisa Howard that he considered a rapprochement with Washington "possible if the United States government wishes it. In that case," he said, "we would be agreed to seek and find a basis" for improved relations.

The untold story of the Kennedy-Castro effort to seek an accommodation is the subject of a new documentary film, KENNEDY AND CASTRO: THE SECRET HISTORY, broadcast on the Discovery/Times cable channel on November 25 at 8pm. The documentary film, which focuses on Ms. Howard's role as a secret intermediary in the effort toward dialogue, was based on an article -- "JFK and Castro: The Secret Quest for Accommodation" -- written by Archive Senior Analyst Peter Kornbluh in the magazine, Cigar Aficionado. Kornbluh served as consulting producer and provided key declassified documents that are highlighted in the film. "The documents show that JFK clearly wanted to change the framework of hostile U.S. relations with Cuba," according to Kornbluh. "His assassination, at the very moment this initiative was coming to fruition, leaves a major 'what if' in the ensuing history of the U.S. conflict with Cuba."

Among the key documents relevant to this history:

• Oval Office audio tape, November 5, 1963. The tape records a conversation between the President and McGeorge Bundy regarding Castro's invitation to William Attwood, a deputy to UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, to come to Cuba for secret talks. The President responds that Attwood should be taken off the U.S. payroll prior to such a meeting so that the White House can plausibly deny that any official talks have taken place if the meeting leaks to the press.
  
• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Mr. Donovan's Trip to Cuba," March 4, 1963. This document records President Kennedy's interest in negotiations with Castro and his instructions to his staff to "start thinking along more flexible lines" on conditions for a dialogue with Cuba.
  
• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Cuba -- Policy," April 11, 1963. A detailed options paper from Gordon Chase, the Latin America specialist on the National Security Council, to McGeorge Bundy recommending "looking seriously at the other side of the coin-quietly enticing Castro over to us."
  
• CIA briefing paper, Secret, "Interview of U.S. Newswoman with Fidel Castro Indicating Possible Interest in Rapprochement with the United States," May 1, 1963. A debriefing of Lisa Howard by CIA deputy director Richard Helms, regarding her ABC news interview with Castro and her opinion that he is "ready to discuss rapprochement." The document contains a notation, "Psaw," meaning President Kennedy read the report on Howard and Castro.
  
• U.S. UN Mission memorandum, Secret, Chronology of events leading up Castro invitation to receive a U.S. official for talks in Cuba, November 8, 22, 1963. This chronology was written by William Attwood and records the evolution of the initiative set in motion by Lisa Howard for a dialogue with Cuba. The document describes the party at Howard's Manhattan apartment on September 23, 1963, where Attwood met with Cuban UN Ambassador Carlos Lechuga to discuss the potential for formal talks to improve relations. In an addendum, Attwood adds information on communications, using the Howard home as a base, leading up to the day the President was shot in Dallas.
  
• White House memorandum, Secret, November 12, 1963. McGeorge Bundy reports to William Attwood on Kennedy's opinion of the viability of a secret meeting with Havana. The president prefers that the meeting take place in New York at the UN where it will be less likely to be leaked to the press.
  
• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Approach to Castro," November 19, 1963. A memo from Gordon Chase to McGeorge Bundy updating him on the status of arrangements for a secret meeting with the Cubans.
  White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Cuba -- Item of Presidential Interest," November 25, 1963. A strategy memo from Gordon Chase to McGeorge Bundy assessing the problems and potential for pursuing the secret talks with Castro in the aftermath of Kennedy's assassination.
  
• Message from Fidel Castro to Lyndon Johnson, "Verbal Message given to Miss Lisa Howard of ABC News on February 12, 1964, in Havana, Cuba." A private message carried by Howard to the White House in which Castro states that he would like the talks started with Kennedy to continue: "I seriously hope (and I cannot stress this too strongly) that Cuba and the United States can eventually sit down in an atmosphere of good will and of mutual respect and negotiate our differences."
  
• United Nations memorandum, Top Secret, from Adlai Stevenson to President Johnson, June 16, 1964. Stevenson sends the "verbal message" given to Lisa Howard to Johnson with a cover memo briefing him on the dialogue started under Kennedy and suggesting consideration of resumption of talks "on a low enough level to avoid any possible embarrassment."
  
• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Adlai Stevenson and Lisa Howard," July 7, 1964. Gordon Chase reports to Bundy on his concerns that Howard's role as an intermediary has now escalated through her contact with Stevenson at the United Nations and the fact that a message has been sent back through her to Castro from the White House. Chase recommends trying "to remove Lisa from direct participation in the business of passing messages," and using Cuban Ambassador to the UN, Carlos Lechuga, instead.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/index.htm

[L. Coyote]

63. Bay of Pigs. n/t

[joshcryer]

42. You have an extraoridinarily simplisitic view of the situation.

[Judi Lynn]

44. I have spent years researching as often as possible. Glad it has paid off! n/t

[joshcryer]

46. Yes, I've seen your "research." You are creating a black and white scenario.

Fortunately the topic of the thread is a complete lie and that wasn't what Bruno Rodriguez said.

[Judi Lynn]

47. Rather than sitting on your keister, critiqueing other people's efforts, why not share

some of your own resources, put your own neck out there, and wait for the peanut gallery to evaluate you.

[joshcryer]

53. Been to Cuba yet?

You know I have.

[EFerrari]

58. You may be sitting in Havana right now sucking a cigar and slurping rum

but it doesn't seem to have helped your analytical skills at all.

Maybe you need to go back and try it again.

[joshcryer]

60. Actually, I am reasoned when it comes to Cuba, I am not a biased and irrational "fan" of Cuba.

But hey I don't even respond to 90% of these articles because of the irrational hate I get for it.

[Mika]

48. Let's see your research then.

People can decide for themselves.. that is.. if the poster provides credible links (which Judi does, BTW).

[joshcryer]

54. Research on someones opinion that this alarmist language isn't helping bridge a gap?

Judi didn't even respond to my statement other than a strawman. "The US is so awful it's just fine for Cuba to use alarmist language and not give a shit about bridging a gap."

[Mika]

68. What the hell are you talking about?

Judi Lynn has been a vigorous advocate of US/Cuba normalization since I first read her opinions and research online in 1999. That is obvious to most all readers (except, it seems, you).

Many here agree with Judi's opinion that Cuba shouldn't have to bend over and take it up the yimyang to placate a stark minority of intransigent RWers in the US.

When it comes to the US's & Cuba's relationship, it is the US that continues to hold onto this contumacious position.

[EFerrari]

57. No, actually, you have the naive view, joshcryer.

Whatever American politician undoes this POS tamale that is our Cuba policy will face blowback from the Miami mafia. And God knows, they don't want that.

This has nothing to do with Cuba at all. It's all about Miami. But nice try, trying to invalidate Judi Lynn with your puerile bs.

[joshcryer]

61. I'm not the one thinking statements like this are politically justifable.

Statements like this are similarly (though not to the same level) as those spouted by Iran and North Korea.

[ohio2007]

49. Castro blasts Obama, says US wants Cuba as slave

HAVANA (AFP) — Fidel Castro blasted US President Barack Obama Friday in provocative May Day remarks, saying the United States only wanted Cuba to return "to the fold, like slaves."

.....


Obama has said the United States wants to see progress on human rights and political freedom from Cuba. That runs counter to Cuba's main interest in maintaining and projecting the Americas' only communist regime into the future

......

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gz_OQbL5EcQiTCISjicNG0WqzRtQ

He hates Barack it seems unless of course, those are actually the official words of the party. Fidel was a no show on May Day .

Anybody have pics of Fidel holding a May Day newspaper?

just wondering

[ronnie624]

52. The headline is a lie.

Cuban officials are quoted criticizing U.S. policy in general. Obama is mentioned only by the author of the article.

[joshcryer]

55. The quote is directly attributed to Castro.

If you're contesting that feel free to explain why.

[EFerrari]

56. No. The word "Castro" doesn't even occur in that article. n/t

[joshcryer]

59. OK. I must be reading a different article:

Fidel Castro blasted US President Barack Obama Friday in provocative May Day remarks, saying the United States only wanted Cuba to return "to the fold, like slaves."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gz_OQbL5EcQiTCISjicNG0WqzRtQ

[ronnie624]

64. I said nothing about Castro.

The headline says, "Castro blasts Obama", as does the first line in the article. No quote is attributed to Castro or any other Cuban official 'blasting' Obama. Every Cuban that is quoted, is criticizing the attitude and history of U.S foreign policy regarding Cuba, which has been a constant for 50 years, no matter who has occupied the White House, Democrat or Republican. It seems unreasonable to take it personally and expect them to stop now, just because your man is the president.

The author also takes liberties with editorializing by saying Cubans were "called out to march in the annual May Day parade", as if they had no choice, offering no evidence for his claim, which is a clear violation of the ethics that govern journalism.

[defendandprotect]

50. Right -- and the UN says we're "terrorists" . . .

IMO, both of them are correct --!!!