LoneStar Iconoclast: Activists Deliver Aid To Cuba Against U.S. Policy

[Robbien]

CRAWFORD — In the name of family values, an international humanitarian aid group tested perhaps the last artifact of the Cold War as they crossed the U.S./Mexican border from McAllen last Friday on their way to deliver medical supplies to Cuba without federal permission.
The members of the Pastors for Peace Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba say that their mission is to raise awareness on the U.S. sanctions on Cuba that have made it harder in the last year for Cuban-American families here to travel and send aid back to their loved ones in the communist island country.
. . .

For the last 14 years, the Pastors for Peace’s Friendshipment caravans have faced an assortment of problems challenging the 40-year-old trade blockade. In the Friendshipment’s first year, CNN television cameras filmed U.S. Treasury officers assaulting a Catholic priest carrying Bibles into Cuba. On at least two other occasions, PFP participants held hunger strikes when stopped from completing delivery of school buses and computers intended for medical applications.

“As people of faith and conscience, it is our duty to resist and condemn this cruel U.S. policy,” declared Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr. executive director and founder of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFC), a 36-year-old ecumenical agency. IFCO/Pastors for Peace rejects this licencing system as both immoral and illegal.

“It is immoral because it endangers the lives of millions of Cubans and inflicts suffering on innocent children, as well as adults. It is illegal under international law because it uses medicine and food as weapons of war to force another nation to change its government,” Rev. Walker continued.

more

http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/2005/21-30/30news01.htm

[acmavm]

1. It's time to drop the trade blockade with Cuba. We currently do

business with, and have in the past, regimes who are much worse than Cuba.

[ClintonTyree]

2. That's the bush administration's goal..........

to starve and withhold medical treatment for Cubans until they somehow overthrow Fidel. :eyes:

The Republican "culture of life" at work! :grr: That "culture of life" shit ends at the moment of birth. After that, they could give a shit if you live or die. If you live to serve THEM, well, OK. They'll throw you a few scraps and tell you you'll get your eternal reward in heaven, not on this earth. Just wait. Spend a lifetime of suffering on earth and then the cloud man will make everything alright later on. If you DON"T play ball with them, well, you're not only doomed to hell on earth but eternal damnation in the fiery pits of hell afterward.

What a great fucking system they've got worked out, wouldn't you say?

[Robbien]

3. OMG! Today's Miami Herald Opinion Piece: Cuba embargo has failed

WAYNE S. SMITH, senior fellow, Center for International Policy, Washington, D.C.

. . .

The story notes that many exiles support the embargo and other sanctions against the island ``as a legitimate foreign-policy tool to pressure the Cuban government into allowing changes that would bring democracy.''

My point was that the embargo has not had that effect in 45 years and will not have it now. Neither will restricting the travel of Cuban Americans and other Americans. That causes pain and suffering to Cuban families, but has no effect whatever on Fidel Castro. I've been in Cuba three times this year and can testify that tourism was booming. There are fewer Americans and Cuban Americans. But that was more than made up for by increased numbers of Canadians, Europeans and Latin Americans, especially Venezuelans.

The idea that the Castro government is in its last throes is delusional.

With a new economic relationship with both China and Venezuela and a new oil field off the north coast, its economy (though still with problems) is in absolutely no danger of collapse.

In short, our sanctions are not only ineffectual, they are counterproductive -- and they do make life more difficult for Cuban families. When a policy hasn't worked in 45 years, isn't it time to try something else?

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/12223464.htm

[Mika]

4. Wayne Smith is right on the money.

Cuba is poor but,

The minimum wage was doubled recently

The number of teachers was increased to a ratio of 12 pupils per teacher

The number of Drs and clinics has increased to the highest ratio of Drs per citizen in the world (universal access to all)



www.twnside.org.sg/title/learn.htm

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

[Robbien]

5. I'm just surprised the Miami Herald actually printed the article

Since it is the primary site for anti-Cuba propaganda put out by BushCo.

[Mika]

6. Robbien, I think you would like to read today's Jim DeFede op/ed

The Miamicubano anti Castro fanatics know no bounds..


-A U.S. creation or not, don't call Posada a soldier-
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/12221858.htm

snip

Soto {Posada's lawyer} then sought to change the subject and started praising Posada's patriotism.

''My client has been a soldier of the United States for 40 years, whether he is officially or unofficially today on the payroll,'' Soto said. ``My client absolutely loves the United States. My client is enamored of the principles of this country. My client put his life on the line on numerous occasions for the red, white and blue. A lot of the people out there perceive this or look at this as him being a simple terrorist, a bad guy and he should go to hell for it. Excuse the bad word. But the bottom line is my client is a product of this country. He was trained at Fort Benning in 1963. He has served in the Central Intelligence Agency. He was in El Salvador in the mid-'80s.''

I suggested it sounded as if Soto was admitting his client was responsible for the bombings.

''I won't get into whether he admits to it,'' Soto said, ``but I will say this to you: We have boys that have lost their lives in Iraq, to the tune of about 1,500 over the last 18 months, and some of those boys, before they died, also took the lives of other boys, someone else's sons. Whether or not you believe in what we are doing in Iraq, they are still U.S. soldiers. . . . ''

''Please don't tell me you are comparing Posada to U.S. soldiers in Iraq,'' I interrupted.

''You know what, I am, I am,'' Soto exclaimed. ``Luis Posada Carriles is a man who is at the vanguard of a point of view that many people in this country believe in.''

[Robbien]

7. Not sure how Posada

is any different than all the other covert agents we have working under NED in foreign countries.

Posada did a lot of nasty work, but there is a lot of nasty work being done in our name in Iraq and South/Central America. Today the right wingnuts call these covert agents patriots.