zenekar
05-07-2011, 03:12 PM
Fueling Hatred and Revenge: The Assassination of Osama Bin Laden
By FIDEL CASTRO COUNTER PUNCH May 6 -8, 2011
Those persons who deal with these issues know that on September 11 of 2001
our people expressed its solidarity to the US people and offered the modest
cooperation that in the area of health we could have offered to the victims
of the brutal attack against the Twin Towers in New York. We also
immediately opened our country’s airports to the American airplanes that
were unable to land anywhere, given the chaos that came about soon after the
strike. The traditional stand adopted by the Cuban Revolution, which was
always opposed to any action that could jeopardize the life of civilians, is
well known. Although we resolutely supported the armed struggle against
Batista’s tyranny, we were, on principle, opposed to any terrorist action
that could cause the death of innocent people. Such behavior, which has
been maintained for more than half a century, gives us the right to express
our views about such a sensitive matter.
On that day, at a public gathering that took place at Ciudad Deportiva, I
expressed my conviction that international terrorism could never be
erradicated through violence and war. By the way, Bin Laden was, for many
years, a friend of the US, a country that gave him military training; he was
also an adversary of the USSR and Socialism. But, whatever the actions
attributed to him, the assassination of an unarmed human being while
surrounded by his own relatives is something abhorrent. Apparently this is
what the government of the most powerful nation that has ever existed did.
In the carefully drafted speech announcing Bin Laden’s death Obama asserts
as follows: “…And yet we know that the worst images are those that were
unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were
forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would
never know the feeling of their child's embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken
from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.”
That paragraph expressed a dramatic truth, but can not prevent honest
persons from remembering the unjust wars unleashed by the United States in
Iraq and Afghanistan, the hundreds of thousands of children who were forced
to grow up without their mothers and fathers and the parents who would never
know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Millions of citizens were taken
from their villages in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba and
many other countries of the world. Still engraved in the minds of hundreds
of millions of persons are also the horrible images of human beings who, in
Guantánamo, a Cuban occupied territory, walk down in silence, being
submitted for months, and even for years, to unbearable and excruciating
tortures. Those are persons who were kidnapped and transferred to secret
prisons with the hypocritical connivance of supposedly civilized societies.
Obama has no way to conceal that Osama was executed in front of his children
and wives, who are now under the custody of the authorities of Pakistan, a
Muslim country of almost 200 million inhabitants, whose laws have been
violated, its national dignity offended and its religious traditions
desecrated. How could he now prevent the women and children of the person
who was executed out of the law and without any trial from explaining what
happened? How could he prevent those images from being broadcast to the
world? Having assassinated him and plunging his corpse into the bottom of
the sea are an expression of fear and insecurity which turn him into a far
more dangerous person. The US public opinion itself, after the initial
euphoria, will end up by criticizing the methods that, far from protecting
its citizen, will multiply the feelings of hatred and revenge against them.
By FIDEL CASTRO COUNTER PUNCH May 6 -8, 2011
Those persons who deal with these issues know that on September 11 of 2001
our people expressed its solidarity to the US people and offered the modest
cooperation that in the area of health we could have offered to the victims
of the brutal attack against the Twin Towers in New York. We also
immediately opened our country’s airports to the American airplanes that
were unable to land anywhere, given the chaos that came about soon after the
strike. The traditional stand adopted by the Cuban Revolution, which was
always opposed to any action that could jeopardize the life of civilians, is
well known. Although we resolutely supported the armed struggle against
Batista’s tyranny, we were, on principle, opposed to any terrorist action
that could cause the death of innocent people. Such behavior, which has
been maintained for more than half a century, gives us the right to express
our views about such a sensitive matter.
On that day, at a public gathering that took place at Ciudad Deportiva, I
expressed my conviction that international terrorism could never be
erradicated through violence and war. By the way, Bin Laden was, for many
years, a friend of the US, a country that gave him military training; he was
also an adversary of the USSR and Socialism. But, whatever the actions
attributed to him, the assassination of an unarmed human being while
surrounded by his own relatives is something abhorrent. Apparently this is
what the government of the most powerful nation that has ever existed did.
In the carefully drafted speech announcing Bin Laden’s death Obama asserts
as follows: “…And yet we know that the worst images are those that were
unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were
forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would
never know the feeling of their child's embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken
from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.”
That paragraph expressed a dramatic truth, but can not prevent honest
persons from remembering the unjust wars unleashed by the United States in
Iraq and Afghanistan, the hundreds of thousands of children who were forced
to grow up without their mothers and fathers and the parents who would never
know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Millions of citizens were taken
from their villages in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba and
many other countries of the world. Still engraved in the minds of hundreds
of millions of persons are also the horrible images of human beings who, in
Guantánamo, a Cuban occupied territory, walk down in silence, being
submitted for months, and even for years, to unbearable and excruciating
tortures. Those are persons who were kidnapped and transferred to secret
prisons with the hypocritical connivance of supposedly civilized societies.
Obama has no way to conceal that Osama was executed in front of his children
and wives, who are now under the custody of the authorities of Pakistan, a
Muslim country of almost 200 million inhabitants, whose laws have been
violated, its national dignity offended and its religious traditions
desecrated. How could he now prevent the women and children of the person
who was executed out of the law and without any trial from explaining what
happened? How could he prevent those images from being broadcast to the
world? Having assassinated him and plunging his corpse into the bottom of
the sea are an expression of fear and insecurity which turn him into a far
more dangerous person. The US public opinion itself, after the initial
euphoria, will end up by criticizing the methods that, far from protecting
its citizen, will multiply the feelings of hatred and revenge against them.