[News] Fidel Castro: July 26th Speech

[News at freedomarchives.org]

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 21:26:30 -0700
From: "Walter Lippmann" <walterlx at earthlink.net>


Fidel Castro has been giving public speeches for over fifty years, but this 
has to be one of his most distinctive and unusual. As announced ahead of 
time, this speech featured Fidel Castro's reply to George Bush's speech of 
July 16 during which he accused Cuba of child sexual trafficking and  Fidel 
quoted the Bush allegations as reported in the international
media at some length prior to dissecting Bush's claims in detail.

The Cuban leader, taking off from the works of a wide range of US scholars, 
discusses the state of George W. Bush's mental health, his alcoholism and 
the implications of these
for his ability to perform his job as Commander-in-Chief of the most 
powerful nation in the world. Fidel's principal source is the work of the 
psychiatrist Justin A. Frank, M.D., psychoanalyst and also professor of 
psychiatrist at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, 
D.C., whose study, BUSH ON THE COUCH, Inside The
Mind of the President (HarperCollins, June 2004) you can learn about here: 
www.harpercollins.com/catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0060736704

You can see from all this how carefully Cuba's Fidel Castro studies the 
vast literature developing about the Bush presidency, its close ties with 
the ultra-right wing of the Cuban
exile militants as well as Christian fundamentalists. He quotes more than 
one US writer and scholar, including former White House anti-terrorism 
chief Richard Clarke later Michael Moore's discussion of whether Bush is 
illiterate, in questioning the US president's ability to perform his 
functions. It will be most interesting to see how this is covered in the US
and foreign press, since they usually avoid any mention of his principal 
themes. Probably they'll say he attacked the US president "personally" and 
not that he analyzed Bush's
behavior based on the works of professionals who have studied his odd 
behavior carefully.

He even ended his remarks without the usual "Patria o muerte! Venceremos! 
(Homeland or death! and We Will Win!), replacing them with "Long Live The 
Truth! and "Long Live Human Dignity!" For your convenience, you may wish to 
print this one out.

Available on the Cuban government website here: 
www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2004/ing/f260704i.html

Also posted in the FILES section of Cuba News list under Fidel Castro 
Speeches: groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/files/

--Walter Lippmann, Moderator, Cuba News list
=================================================

Speech made by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz,
President of the Republic of Cuba, at the ceremony
for the 51st anniversary of the attack on the
Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes fortresses.

Ernesto Che Guevara Square
Santa Clara, July 26, 2004.

Dear fellow Cubans;
Distinguished guests:

On this 51st anniversary of the attack on the Moncada fortress on July 26, 
1953 I shall address a sinister character that keeps threatening, insulting 
and slandering us. This is not
a whim or an agreeable option; it is a necessity and a duty.

On June 21, at the Anti-imperialist Forum I read Epistle Number Two to the 
president of the United States, responding to an infamous State Department 
report on trafficking in human beings, one of those reports the government 
of that country usually issues, as if it were the supreme moral judge of 
the world. In that document Cuba is accused of being
one of the countries that promotes sexual tourism and child pornography.

Hardly two weeks went by, and instead of keeping a decent silence about 
their refutable truth contained in the Epistle, the wire services brought 
news of an election speech by
Bush in Tampa, Florida containing new, more perfidious accusations and 
insults, the clearly aimed at slandering Cuba and justifying the threats of 
aggression and the brutal
measures that they had just taken against our people.

The French press agency AFP reported the following from Tampa on July 16:

    * "President George Bush launched a harsh attack on Cuba when he 
defined it as 'a major destination for sex tourism' and said that the 
United States has a special duty to            lead a world struggle 
against human trafficking for forced labor or sexual purposes."
    * "Cuba is one of the 10 countries cited by the State Department in a 
report issued in June in which it lists the governments which tolerate 
human trafficking or fail to fight           this crime."
    * "The regime of Fidel Castro has turned Cuba into a major destination 
for sex tourism replacing Southeast Asia as a destination for pedophiles 
and sex tourists from the         United Sates and Canada," Bush claimed.
    * "At a conference in Tampa, Florida, the president pointed to Cuba as 
one of the worst offenders in this area." "Sex tourism is a vital source of 
hard currency to keep his      corrupt government afloat," he claimed.
    * "Bush said that putting an end to human trafficking will be an 
essential part of his foreign policy." "The traffic in human beings brings 
shame and suffering to our country       and we shall lead the fight 
against it," he promised. "You are in a fight against evil, and the 
American people are grateful for your dedication and service," he told 
those at          the conference.
    * "Human life is the gift of our Creator and it should never be for sale."

A dispatch from the Spanish press agency EFE indicated:

    * "We also face a problem only 90 miles off our shores,”  Bush said in 
Florida.
    * "He quoted a study which found that Cuba has "replaced Southeast Asia 
as a destination for pedophiles and sex tourists."
    * "As restrictions on travel to Cuba were eased during the 1990s, the 
study found an influx of American and Canadian tourists contributed to a 
sharp increase in child      prostitution in Cuba."
    * "My administration is working toward a comprehensive solution of this 
problem: the rapid, peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba."
    * "We have put a strategy in place to hasten the day when no Cuban 
child is exploited to finance a failed revolution and every Cuban citizen 
will live in freedom."
    * "Bush said that 'Human life is the gift of our Creator and it should 
never be for sale."
    * "It takes a special kind of depravity to exploit and hurt the most 
vulnerable members of society. Human traffickers rob children of their 
innocence; they expose them to             the worst of life before they 
have seen much of life. Traffickers tear families apart. They treat their 
victims as nothing more than goods and commodities for sale to 
the        highest bidder."

And to top off this odd news, the same press dispatch added some words 
spoken by John Ashcroft in his speech introducing Bush to the National 
Training            Conference on Human Trafficking:

    * "In the 19th Century President Abraham Lincoln held firm to a vision 
of freedom for all and was rightly called the great emancipator."
    * "In the 21st Century we have a great leader who has made us see that 
liberty is not a gift from the United States to the world but a gift to 
humanity from the Almighty."

Another wire report from the English news agency Reuters read:

    * "Friday, the US president accused the Cuban president of having 
turned his Caribbean island into a sex tourism destination and of 
contributing to the world problem of          human trafficking".

The Italian press agency ANSA reported:

    * "The regime in Havana is adding to its crimes: it welcomes sex 
tourism", said Bush who even repeated a supposed quote by Castro, 'Cuba has 
the cleanest and most           educated prostitutes in the world.'"

Later, wire services have reported that the quotation of something I 
supposedly said on this subject, which the US President used in the Tampa 
speech I just mentioned to
back up his serious accusations, was taken from a paper on Cuba written by 
Charles Turnbull a law student from Vanderbilt University in the United 
States who has
emphatically stated that Bush's speech misconstrued the real meaning of a 
sentence included in his work, and clarified this and other matters in the 
following way:

    * "Prostitution boomed in the Caribbean nation after the collapse of 
the Soviet Union... Castro, who had outlawed prostitution when he took 
power in 1959, initially had few resources to combat it. But beginning in 
1996, Cuban authorities began to crack down on the practice. Although it 
still exists, it is far less visible and it would be 
inaccurate           to say the government promotes it."

On Monday, July 19, Bush administration officials admitted they had no 
other source for the quote except the paper written by the aforementioned 
student.

Given the fact that it was shown that the US President had launched an 
extremely grave accusation based on a sentence found in a paper written by 
an American student, who        himself refuted the deliberate way Bush 
misconstrued it, it's hard to imagine a more bizarre response than that 
given by a Whitehouse spokesperson when told about this
refutation.

According to the news agency report, the spokesperson simply, "...defended 
the inclusion [of the sentence] arguing that it expressed an essential 
truth about Cuba", in other     words, for the White House "the essential 
truth about Cuba" is anything that the president conjures up in his mind 
whether it has anything to do with reality or not.

This is exactly the kind of fundamentalist approach that the President 
constantly resorts to when there are more than enough data, arguments, 
truth, reasons, and facts on a
particular subject but the only determining factor is the idea he has in 
his mind or the idea that suits him: anything becomes the absolute and 
irrefutable truth simply because
Mr. Bush imagines it to be so.

Many people in the world who know very little about the Cuban Revolution 
might fall victim to the lies and tricks the US government spreads through 
the huge media available
to it.

But there are many others, especially in poor countries who are aware of 
what the Cuban revolution is about, of its marked dedication, from the very 
beginning, to provide
education and healthcare services to all its children and the whole 
population; its spirit of solidarity that has led it to cooperate 
selflessly with dozens of Third World countries;
its strict adherence to the highest moral values, its ethical principles, 
its lofty concept of the dignity and honor of its homeland and its people 
for which Cuban revolutionaries
have always been willing to give up their lives. There is no doubt that 
these many friends, all over the world, will be wondering how it is 
possible that such unspeakable, foul
slander is hurled against Cuba.

This obliges me to give a most serious and honest explanation of the 
causes, which in my view, give rise to these inconceivable, irresponsible 
statements by the President of the
most powerful nation on the planet, the same who is threatening to wipe the 
Cuban revolution from the face of the Earth.

I shall do this as objectively as possible, making no arbitrary statements 
or shamelessly misconstruing other people's words, sentences and concepts. 
I shall avoid any petty
sentiment of vengeance or personal dislike.

A theme that has been widely documented in several books by outstanding 
American scientific authors and other personalities is the current US 
President's alcoholism which
lasted two decades when he was between 20 and 40 years old. This feature 
has been rigorously and impressively dealt with, from a psychiatric point 
of view and using scientific criteria, by Dr. Justin A. Frank in a now 
famous book called "Bush on the Couch".

Dr. Frank begins by saying that it is important to scientifically define 
whether Bush was an alcoholic, or if he still is one. He has literally said:

    * "... the more pressing question involves the influence his years of 
heavy drinking and subsequent abstinence still have on him and those around 
him". (p39)

He goes on to explain and I quote verbatim:

    * "Alcoholism is a potentially fatal, lifelong disease that is 
notoriously difficult to arrest permanently" (p40)

Later, referring to the man who is now President of the United States, he says:

    * "Bush has said publicly that he quit drinking without the help of AA 
(an organization dedicated to helping alcoholics) or any substance abuse 
program, claiming that he        stopped forever with the assistance of 
such spiritual tools as bible study and conversations with the evangelist 
Billy Graham".

On page 40 of the book he recounts that, according to ex-presidential 
speech writer David Frum, when Bush took over the Oval office he summoned a 
group of religious leaders,
asked for their prayers and told them:

    * "There is only one reason that I am in the Oval Office and not a 
bar... I found faith, I found God. I am here because of the power of prayer".

Dr. Frank thinks that this statement might be true and goes on to say the 
following:

    * "...surely all Americans would like to believe that the president no 
longer drinks, even if we have no way of knowing for certain. If so, he 
fits the profile of a former drinker     whose alcoholism has been arrested 
but not treated".

He then adds:

    * " Former drinkers who abstain without the benefit of the AA program 
are often referred to as "dry drunks", a label that has been bandied about 
on the Internet and        elsewhere in reference to Bush. "Dry drunk" 
isn't a medical term, and not one I use in a clinical setting. But even 
without labeling Bush as such, it's hard to ignore the many troubling 
elements of his character among the traits that the recovery literature 
associates with the condition, including grandiosity, judgmental - ism, 
intolerance, detachment, denial of responsibility, a tendency toward 
over-reaction and an aversion to introspection." (p41)

Dr. Frank insists that he personally has treated alcoholics who held their 
addiction in check without proper treatment but that they are generally not 
very successful in learning
to control the anxiety that they once tried to suppress by drinking and he 
explains that:

    * "Their rigid attempts to manage anxiety make any psychological 
insight hard-won. Some can't even face the anxiety of admitting their 
alcoholism.”

Dr. Frank then goes on to say:

    * "Without that admission, I have found, even former drinkers cannot 
truly change, or learn from their own experience".

And then referring to Bush specifically he argues the following:

    * "The pattern of blame and denial, which recovering alcoholics work so 
hard to break, seems to be ingrained in the alcoholic personality; it's 
rarely limited to his or her     drinking. The habit of placing blame and 
denying responsibility is so prevalent in George W. Bush's personal history 
that it is apparently triggered by even the mildest          threat"
    * "... The rigidity of Bush's behavior is perhaps most readily apparent 
in his well-documented reliance on his daily routines -the famously short 
meetings, sacrosanct               exercise schedule, daily Bible readings, 
and limited office hours. A healthy person is able to alter his routine; a 
rigid one cannot". (p43)
    * "Of course" -the eminent US doctor goes on, and I quote- "we all need 
rest and relaxation, time to regroup, but Bush appears to need it more than 
most. And this is hardly           a surprise -among other reasons, because 
the anxiety of being president might pose a real risk of leading him back 
to drinking." (p43)
    * "Along with rigid routines go rigid thought processes - another 
hallmark of the Bush presidency. We see it in the stubborn, almost 
obsessive way in which he holds on to           ideas and plans after they 
have been discredited, from his image of himself as a "uniter, not a 
divider" to his conviction that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction (or, 
in absence of such weapons, that somehow "America did the right thing in 
Iraq" nevertheless). Such rigidity of thought is not motivated by simple 
stubbornness; the untreated alcoholic, consumed with the task of managing 
the anxieties that might make him reach for a drink, simply can't tolerate 
any threat to his status quo".

And Dr. Frank adds that such intolerance generally leads to responses that 
are out of proportion to the magnitude of the actual threat.

    * "This may help to explain the dramatic contrast between George W's 
response to Saddam Hussein and that of his father, who carefully built a 
coalition, took action only             after Kuwait had been invaded, and 
then proceeded with prudence and caution once the fighting was underway - 
the behavior of a seasoned leader who knew he was       responsible for 
countless others' lives, not an alcoholic accustomed to taking dramatic 
measures to protect his own."

Continuing his analysis, Dr. Frank indicates:

    * "Two questions that the press seems particularly determined to ignore 
have hung silently in the air since before Bush took office: Is he still 
drinking? And if not, is he           impaired      by all the years he did 
spend drinking? Both questions need to be addressed in any serious 
assessment of his psychological state". (p48)

With regard to the first question, he points out the possibility that Bush 
is managing his anxiety with medication to keep him off alcohol and he 
makes special reference to his
strange behavior at press conferences. On this point he says:

    * "In writing about Bush's halting appearance in a press conference 
just before the start of the Iraq War, Washington Post media critic Tom 
Shales speculated that "the         president may have been ever so 
slightly medicated".
    * "More troubling though, are the appearances that arouse suspicion not 
because of how he talks but what he says. He has repeatedly engaged in 
confabulation, filling in             gaps in his memory with what he 
believes are facts - most notably on July 14, 2003, when he stood next to 
Kofi Annan and made up the idea that America had given Saddam         "a 
chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in". (As the 
Washington Post noted, "Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and 
Bush had opposed         extending their work because he did not believe 
them effective". Confabulation is a common phenomenon among drinkers, as is 
perseveration, which is evident in Bush's  tendency to repeat key words and 
phrases, as if the repetition helps him remain calm and stay on track." (p49)

And Dr. Frank concludes his analysis of these two questions with the 
following words:

    * "Even if we assume, moreover, that George W. Bush's drinking days are 
behind him, the question remains how much lasting damage may have been done 
before he             stopped - beyond the considerable impact on his 
personality that we can trace to his untreated abstinence. Any 
comprehensive psychological or psychoanalytical study                    of 
President Bush would have to explore how much the brain and its functions 
are changed by more than twenty years of heavy drinking. In a recent study 
out of the          University of California/San Francisco Medical Centre, 
researchers found that heavy drinkers who do not call themselves alcoholics 
reveal that "their level of drinking constitutes a problem that warrants 
treatment". The study found that the heavy drinkers in its sample were 
"significantly impaired" on measures of working memory,      processing 
speed, attention, executive function and balance. Serious research about 
long-term recovery from alcohol abuse is still underway. Science has 
established that       alcohol itself is toxic to the brain, both to its 
anatomy (as the brain gets smaller and fissures between and around the 
hemisphere get larger) and to its neurophysiology.                But 
recovery does occur with continued sobriety, extending over a five-year 
period for many alcoholics.
    * Bush claims to have been sober for more that fifteen years, and very 
well may have improved to pre-alcohol levels. However, even chronic 
alcoholics who recover their compromised mental functions often suffer 
lingering damage to their ability to process new information. Important 
neuropsychological functions are impaired: The new information is 
essentially put into a file that is lost in the brain.
    * "Former heavy drinkers often have trouble distinguishing between 
relevant and inconsequential information. They also may lose some of their 
ability to maintain         concentration. All one has to do to observe 
Bush's inattention is watch him listening to a speech given by someone 
else, watch his behavior at times on the campaign                trail, or 
consider the obviously desperate effort he makes to retain focus in every 
speech he gives." (p50)

Finally, Dr. Frank points out that Bush would reduce the fear of many 
Americans by submitting himself to psychological tests that could 
scientifically measure the effects of alcoholism on his brain function and 
warns:

    * "Otherwise, we are left to suspect -with reason- that our president 
may be impaired in his ability to make sense of complex ideas and 
briefings" (p51)

And he ends up by saying:

    * "We all may be a little afraid to find out: after all, he has already 
held office for three years and has led our nation into war. But if we fail 
to do so, the consequences                     may indict every one of us". 
(p51)

Another aspect discussed in depth and in detail by Dr. Justin A. Frank in 
this book, "Bush on the Couch", is that of President Bush's religious 
fundamentalism.

Dr. Frank explains how, in trying to find relief from the internal chaos 
that drink sometimes appeased but eventually intensified, Bush may have 
found in religion a source of
peace, not totally different from that given by alcohol, as well as a set 
of rules which help him to manage both the external world and his inner 
spiritual world.

He suggests that an analysis of the role of fundamentalism in Bush's life 
would show that one of the many ways that Bush employs religion as a 
defense mechanism is by using
it as a substitute for illegal substances and says that Bush uses religion 
to simplify and even replace thought so that, to a certain extent, he does 
not even need to think. He adds
that Bush, by putting himself on the side of good - on God's side - places 
himself above mundane discussion and debate. Religion serves as a shield to 
protect him from challenges, including those that he himself would 
otherwise create.

Dr. Frank wonders how Bush reached this point and then explains that, the 
Bush family tradition has long been fuelled by faith, by the belief in a 
God linked closely to moral
rectitude but he makes this distinction:

    * "Yet President Bush's religious orientation represents an important 
departure from his family. Though certain aspects of the family tradition 
have been maintained                           - notably the formality of 
religious participation - his mid-life conversion to a more fundamentalist 
approach stands in dramatic contrast to the spiritual life of 
his                   father..." (p56)
    * "And a review of the events leading up to Bush's conscious embrace of 
fundamentalism shows that it clearly occurred at a moment when he was 
reaching for solutions,                  in a time  of almost desperate need."

Dr Frank goes on to explain that fundamentalist religions narrow the 
universe of opportunities and divide the world into good and bad, in 
absolute terms that leave no space for questioning and on this point he argues:

    * "The view of the self is similarly simplified. Just as fundamentalist 
creationist teachings deny history, the fundamentalist notion of conversion 
or rebirth encourages the             believer  to see himself as 
disconnected from history. George W. Bush's evasive, self-serving defense 
of his life before he was born again displays just this tendency. 
"It          doesn't do any good to inventory the mistakes I made when I 
was young", he has insisted. "I think the way ... to answer questions about 
specific behavior is to remind             people that when I was young and 
irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible. I changed..." To the 
believer, the power of spiritual absolution not only erases the 
sins                 of the past, but divorces the current self from the 
historical sinner". (p60)

Dr. Frank makes it clear that there is nothing inherently unnatural in the 
fact that Bush seeks protection from his faith and that, even when this 
makes him stronger, the rigidity
of his thought and speech patterns and of his agenda point to a 
considerable fragility. He explains that Bush's fear of everything -from 
disagreement to terrorist attacks- are
sometimes painfully visible, even (or especially) through his denials and 
that he is a man desperately seeking protection. Dr. Frank wonders: "But 
what is George W. Bush so
eager to protect himself against?" and he answers the question with the 
following analysis:

    * "His tightly held belief system shields him from challenges to his 
ideas - from critics and opponents, but, more important, from himself. Just 
beneath the surface, it's hard             not to believe that he suffers 
from an innate fear of falling apart, a fear too terrifying for him to 
confront." (p.64)
    * "For someone so desperate not to lose his way, clinging to a belief 
(or even a few key phrases), and sticking to them, is yet another way to 
protect against falling apart.        President Bush's press conferences 
have offered disturbing evidence of this ongoing anxiety -evidence so 
unmistakable that it's little wonder that the White House 
has             proven so hesitant to schedule such events at all. After 
one particularly disastrous performance in July2003, the Slate political 
columnist Timothy Noah noted that: "Bush        seemed jangled"; in a 
damning editorial the following day, the New York Times noted that the 
president's answers were "vague and sometimes nearly incoherent" 
-          suggesting, perceptively, that Bush was "bedazzled by his 
administration's own mythmaking"

He gives some examples of phrases Bush used repeatedly during that press 
conference:

    * "And so we're making progress. It's slowly but surely making progress 
of bringing the - those who terrorize their fellow citizens to justice, and 
making progress about convincing the Iraqi people that freedom is real. And 
as they become more convinced that freedom is real, they'll begin to assume 
more responsibilities that are required                 in a free society...
    * "And the threat is a real threat. It's a threat that where - we 
obviously don't have specific data, we don't know when, where, what. But we 
do know a couple of things...       obviously, we're talking to foreign 
governments and foreign airlines to indicate to them the reality of the 
threat...
    * "I don't know how close we are to getting Saddam Hussein. You know - 
it's closer that we were yesterday, I guess. All I know is we're on the 
hunt. It's like if you had                 asked           me right before 
we got his sons how close we were to get his sons, I'd say, I don't know, 
but we're on the hunt.
    * "Well first of all, the war on terror goes on, as I continually 
remind people... The threat that you asked about, Steve, reminds us that we 
need to be on the hunt, because                 the war  on terror goes on...
    * "I just described to you that there is a threat to the United States. 
There is no doubt in my mind, Campbell, that Saddam Hussein was a threat to 
the United States' security,           and a threat to peace in the region...
    * "Saddam Hussein was a threat. The United Nations viewed him as a 
threat. That's why they passed twelve resolutions. Predecessors of mine 
viewed him as a threat.                    We gathered a lot of 
intelligence. That intelligence was good, sound intelligence on which I 
made a decision... (pp. 65-66)

And Dr. Frank goes on to say:

    * "So powerful are his fears that he can't even face them. His infamous 
early advice to Americans less than two weeks after 9/11 -when he told 
Americans to continue to                 shop and travel as before, in 
apparent denial of the radical measures he was at the same time taking in 
response to the nation's newfound vulnerability- suggests 
just                   how simplistically he viewed the situation, closing 
himself off to worry and anxiety. Compare his response to that of New 
York's mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, who faced                      his fears, 
rolled up his sleeves and got to work -making people feel far safer than 
Bush's stilted denial ever did.
    * "Bush has continued to cite divine instruction to explain his actions 
since assuming office. As reported in Israel's Haaretz News, Bush said, 
"God told me to strike at                      al Qaida and I struck them, 
and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did".

Finally, Dr. Frank offers these thoughts:

    * "The Biblical struggle of good and evil has resonated throughout his 
discourse since 9/11, from his repeated use of the term "crusade" to his 
characterization of the              terrorists as "evildoers" and grouping 
of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the "Axis of Evil". At the same time, he 
presents the United States as nothing more that a                    nation 
of wholly innocent victims.
    * "In externalizing evil in this way, while absolving America of 
responsibility, Bush has transformed his un-integrated infantile worldview 
into a starkly combative (and         primitive) foreign policy.
    * "Bush's rhetoric" - Dr. Frank concludes - "highlights how he 
identifies the concepts of himself as president with both God and America: 
for him these three appear to                  have become somewhat 
interchangeable. Unable to mourn the dead of 9/11 enough to allow for a 
full investigation of how it happened - and what responsibility we 
might           have had - he blindly attacks the "enemy" he perceives to 
be everywhere, a terrorist suddenly hiding under rock".

In his book "Stupid White Men," Michael Moore points out that Bush exhibits 
obvious symptoms of not being able to read at an adult level and writes the 
following as part
of an open letter to Bush:

    * "1. George, are you able to read and write on an adult level? "It 
appears to me and many others that, sadly, you may be a functional 
illiterate. This is nothing to be                 ashamed of... Millions of 
Americans cannot read and write above a fourth grade level.
    * "But let me ask you this: if you have trouble comprehending the 
complex position papers you are handed as the Leader of the Mostly-Free 
World, how can we entrust something like our nuclear secrets to you?
    * "All the signs of illiteracy area there -and apparently no one has 
challenged you about them. The first clue was what you named as your 
favorite childhood book,                      "The Very Hungry 
Caterpillar", you said. "Unfortunately, that book wasn't even published 
until a year after you graduated from college."
    * "One thing is clear to everyone -you can't speak the English language 
in sentences we can comprehend.
    * "If you are going to be Commander-in-Chief, you have to be able to 
communicate your orders. What if these little slip-ups keep happening?  Do 
you know how easy it          would be to turn a little faux pas into a 
national-security nightmare?
    * "Your aides say that you don't (can't?) read the briefing papers they 
give you, and that you ask them to read them for you or to you."
    * "Please , don't take any of this personally. Perhaps it's a learning 
disability. Some sixty million Americans have learning disabilities".

In his book "Against All Enemies," Richard Clarke writes that when Bush got 
to the White House, "Early on we were told that the president is not a big 
reader".

Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War" tells that, in a National Security 
Council meeting during the Afghanistan war, Bush said: "I don't read the 
editorial pages. I don't -- the hyperventilation that tends to take place 
around those cables, every expert and every former colonel and all that, is 
just background noise".

Thus far I have given a very brief summary of what has been said on some 
points by outstanding Americans, things which help to explain the strange 
behavior and aggressiveness          of the US President.

I do not want to elaborate now on more sensitive issues like those whose 
exposure cost his life to J.H. Hatfield, author of the book "Fortunate 
Son," and others of great
interest analyzed by truly brilliant, brave, eminent authors.

Mr. Bush's lies and slanders and those of his closest advisors were 
fabricated in a hurry to justify the atrocious measures taken against 
Cuban-born people living in the United
States who have close family ties in Cuba.

This outrage, as we warned on June 21, might have adverse political 
consequences in Florida which could play a decisive role in this year's 
elections. The idea of a punishment
vote is gaining ground among thousands of Cuban-Americans, many of whom 
would normally have voted for Bush.

Hatred and blindness have lead this administration to take a stupid, 
immoral action under pressure from the terrorist mob which gave Bush a 
fraudulent victory when he had
a million votes less than his rival nationwide, and a narrow majority of 
537 votes in Florida where thousands of black Americans were prevented from 
exercising their right to
vote whereas many dead people 'exercised' theirs. Fifteen or twenty 
thousand voters could sink his hopes of re-election. These brutal measures 
have also been criticized all
over the country.

The overwhelming majority of those who are members of or run that terrorist 
mob - which decided no less a thing than the election of the President of 
the United States - are
former Batista supporters and their descendents; or they are groups who for 
years have been involved in the terrorist actions, pirate attacks, 
assassination plots against Cuban revolutionary leaders and all kinds of 
armed aggressions against our country; or they were big  landowners and 
relatives of the upper middle classes who were affected by
revolutionary laws and who previously had all kinds of privileges and many 
of whom have amassed huge fortunes and have gained influence in important 
power circles
in the US governments.

Over 90 percent of those who have emigrated from Cuba since the triumph of 
the revolution have done so through normal channels and for economic 
reasons, their leaving
authorized by the Revolution that placed no obstacles. But Cuban immigrants 
were forced to go under the Caudine  Forks of that powerful mafia whose 
influence they could
not easily ignore.

Unlike many millions of Latin Americans, including Haitians and other 
Caribbeans, that emigrate legally and illegally to the United States and 
are called immigrants, Cubans,
with no exception whatsoever, are called exiles.

On the other hand, the absurd Cuban Adjustment Act has caused the loss of 
countless Cuban lives by rewarding and encouraging illegal emigration and 
giving Cubans extraordinary privileges that are not granted to citizens of 
any other country in the world.

Nevertheless, years ago, even before the collapse of the Soviet Union and 
the special period that ensued, and despite the risk of espionage and 
terrorist plans originating in
the United States which the measures entailed, Cuba gave permits to émigrés 
so they could visit their relatives and their country of origin, whereas 
the Bush administration is
abruptly closing the doors because of its fanatical obsession of bringing 
Cuba to its knees through economic suffocation.

And, to that same end of depriving our country of any income whatsoever, he 
labels the tourist industry in Cuba sex tourism and calls those who visit 
our country coming from
the United States "pedophiles" and "pleasure seekers".

Mr. Bush does not hesitate either in tarring Canadian tourists with the 
same brush when everybody knows that the overwhelming majority of them are 
pensioners and senior
citizens who, in the company of their relatives, come to enjoy the 
exceptional safety and calm, the politeness, culture and hospitality that 
they find in our country.

What would Mr. Bush call the tens of millions of tourists who visit the 
United States every year where casinos, gambling dens, areas of male and 
female prostitution and many
other activities related to pornography and sex abound, none of which exist 
in Cuba and all of which are alien to the revolutionary culture of our people?

What would he call the tens of millions of Europeans who visit Spain every 
year where many pages in the papers are used to advertising the names, 
addresses, the physical,
cultural and intellectual characteristics and the specialties and 
individual gifts to suit all tastes of those who exercise the age-old 
profession of prostitution? Would he call the
US and Spanish tourist industries sex tourism?

None of the aforementioned activities take place in Cuba. However, in the 
fevered and fundamentalist mind of the all-powerful gentleman in the White 
House and in those of
his most intimate advisors, Cuba must now be "saved" not only from 
"tyranny", Cuban children must now be "saved from sexual exploitation and 
trafficking in persons" "the
world must be freed from this dreadful problem which takes place 90 miles 
away from the United States".

Has no one told him that in Cuba before the triumph of the revolution in 
1959 about 100,000 women were directly or indirectly involved in 
prostitution for reasons of poverty, discrimination and lack of work and 
that the Revolution educated these women and found them jobs, and outlawed 
the so-called "tolerance zones" which existed in the
pseudo-republic and the neo-colony installed by the United States?

Has no one told him that the Cuban children, whose physical, mental and 
moral health is the number one priority of the Revolution, are protected by 
more severe laws than
those of the United States and that they all attend school, including more 
than 50,000 who suffer from mental or physical disabilities and that, 
without exceptions, receive
specialized care in special education centers?

Has no one told him that infant mortality is lower in Cuba than it is in 
the United States and that it continues to decrease?

Has no one dared to whisper in his ear that Cuba occupies an outstanding 
and internationally recognized place in education; that health and 
education services are free and extend
to the whole population; that today programs are underway in education, 
health and culture that will place Cuba far above all the other countries 
in the world?

The historic session of the National Assembly of People's Power held on 
July1 and 2, exposed them and showed how ridiculous is the grotesque over 
400-page-long-report which
gives an ample account and full details of the neo-colonial and 
annexationist programs the fascist group which begot this disgusting 
project propose to implement to the detriment
of the Cuban people and their sovereignty. This report has done nothing if 
not unite our people even more and give a boost to their fighting spirit.

They must be absolutely mad to talk of such things as implementing literacy 
and vaccination programs in Cuba where illiteracy was eradicated a long 
time ago, where minimum
school attendance is up to grade nine and where children are vaccinated 
against 13 diseases. Actually, such programs should be applied to tens of 
millions of Americans who are
left out, who do not enjoy the benefits of social security and who have not 
been to school or are completely illiterate or functionally illiterate.

The US administration has not even dared to say a single word about the 
generous offer that our country made of saving, in a short 5 year period, a 
life for every life lost in the
Twin Towers, by providing free health care to 3000 US citizens who have no 
access to healthcare services that are indispensable for preserving life. 
Neither have they replied to
the question of whether or not those who may decide to come to Cuba to take 
advantage of this opportunity would be punished.

It is really revealing that on the very same day that Mr. Bush spouted such 
outrageous slanders and threats, a prestigious American scientific 
institution from California signed
an agreement with the Cuban Molecular Immunology Centre for transferring 
technology developed in our country for the clinical trials and later 
manufacture of three promising vaccines in the battle against cancer, 
which, as you know, kills more than half a million Americans every year.

It is only fair to acknowledge that in this case the US authorities did not 
set any obstacle.

This fact shows how the fruits of everything I have talked about before are 
beginning to sprout all over our country, despite 45 years of a harsh 
blockade and of aggressions by
US governments.

And these are not biological weapons, nor chemical weapons, nor nuclear 
weapons; these are scientific discoveries which could help all humanity.

Let's hope that, in Cuba's case, God does not 'instruct' Mr. Bush to attack 
our country but that he rather inspires him to avoid this colossal mistake! 
He had better check on
any divine belligerent order by consulting the Pope and other prestigious 
dignitaries and theologians from the Christian churches, asking them for 
their opinion

Excuse me, Mr. President of the United States of America, for not writing a 
third epistle to you this time but it would have been difficult to analyze 
this subject in that way.
It might have been taken for a personal insult and I rather adhere to 
common courtesy.

Hail, Caesar! I say, but this time I add: Those who are willing to die have 
no fear of your enormous power, of your unbridled rage, nor of your 
dangerous and cowardly threats
against Cuba!

Long live the truth!
Long live human dignity!

July 26, 2004

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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