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Playing Doctors
Investor's Business Daily ^ | 09-09-05 | Editorial

Posted on 09/09/2005 11:27:19 AM PDT by Kitten Festival

Disaster Relief: Ninety-five nations have pledged $1 billion in aid in the wake of Katrina, and while the U.S. can manage, it's heartening. But one government that wishes us ill has jumped in and it should be rebuked.

We're talking about our antagonist of the last half-century, Fidel Castro. Cuba's dictator headed straight for the TV cameras to make the most of an offer of 1,600 doctors.

Given how his munificence pales in comparison, say, to Kuwait's quietly pledged $500 million, it's amazing how much publicity he's reaped.

But Castro's offer of medical help, supposedly waiting at the Havana airport, is about his need to meddle; it has nothing to do with delivering aid. What he's been up to recently tells the real story.

Castro has forged a fresh career offering physicians throughout the hemisphere in a bid to drive a political wedge in other states. And it's often at our expense.

As The Wall Street Journal's Mary Anastasia O'Grady has noted, the U.S. often gets stuck urging fiscal discipline and drug eradication to poor states such as Honduras to ensure their foundation for long-term growth.

It's at these times when Castro offers "free" doctors to confuse the poor and encourage anti-Americanism. But that's not all. Paraguay recently threw out 700 of these doctors, citing their interference in domestic politics.

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...


TOPICS: Cuba; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; US: Louisiana
KEYWORDS: castro; doctors; expel; havoc; honduras; meddling; medicine; paraguay; politics; propaganda; spies; thugs; trouble; venezuela
Castro's doctors wreak political havoc wherever they go. They aren't there out of the goodness of their hearts.

Here is an alternative link to the same story:

http://www.babalublog.com/archives/002206.html

1 posted on 09/09/2005 11:27:23 AM PDT by Kitten Festival
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To: Kitten Festival
Cuba's dictator headed straight for the TV cameras to make the most of an offer of 1,600 doctors.

Wonder how many would immediately claim political asylum and want a green card?
2 posted on 09/09/2005 11:30:18 AM PDT by Kozak (Anti Shahada: " There is no God named Allah, and Muhammed is his False Prophet")
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To: Kitten Festival
. . . drive a political wedge in other states.

It may seem pickey to some, but "state" is UNspeak for nation or country. The term has been being forced into the mainstream for some years now. The term "state" implies some higher political power governing it.

3 posted on 09/09/2005 11:35:28 AM PDT by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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To: Kitten Festival

Good point, kitten, and I agree. Though the wicked gremlin in me says most of them would defect and Castro's plan would fail.


4 posted on 09/09/2005 11:41:59 AM PDT by the Real fifi
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To: the Real fifi

That's what I think, Feef!


5 posted on 09/09/2005 11:53:49 AM PDT by Kitten Festival (The Thug of Caracas has got to go.)
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To: Kozak
Wonder how many would immediately claim political asylum and want a green card?

Only those who do not care about their families being held back as hostages in Cuba.

Recall that when Elian's grandmothers were in the U.S., their husbands were being paraded on TV back in Cuba.

When Elian's father was in the U.S., his wife and son were kept under the watch of Cuban agents even while on U.S. soil. When Republican Congressmen requested to be able to see the entire family together without agents, they were refused.

The negotiations prior to the Elian raid had agreed to having the Miami relatives and the father and his family hash things out at a neutral site away from the Cuban agents. Janet Reno signed off on that deal but Craig, the Clinton impeachment attorney then working for Castro shot the deal down and the raid followed.

Keeping family hostages is Communist S.O.P.

When "el Duque" Gonzalez's little brother defected, "el Duque's" Cuban baseball career came to a sudden stop and he was left destitute. That's what happens to you if you are internationally famous. If you are a "little guy" unknown to the world media, God help you if your relative defects leaving egg on Castro's face.

6 posted on 09/09/2005 11:54:18 AM PDT by Polybius
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To: Kozak

None will, if they want to see their loved ones not shoved by Castro into one of his gulags.


7 posted on 09/09/2005 11:55:42 AM PDT by The Red Zone (Florida, the sun-shame state, and Illinois the chicken injun.)
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To: Kitten Festival

As best as I can read it here, Castro's reported gambit with the doctors is to undermine a country's health care system by undercutting them with free services. Well fair enough, if you're talking about little or sparsely populated countries.

But, that is NOT going to happen to the USA anymore than a goldfish can drink the contents of an aquarium.


8 posted on 09/09/2005 11:59:16 AM PDT by The Red Zone (Florida, the sun-shame state, and Illinois the chicken injun.)
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To: Kitten Festival

No surprise, honey.


9 posted on 09/09/2005 12:02:23 PM PDT by the Real fifi
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To: William Terrell
It may seem pickey to some, but "state" is UNspeak for nation or country.

As in "States Rights"?

10 posted on 09/09/2005 12:04:42 PM PDT by elbucko
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To: The Red Zone

That was in one instance, Venezuela's. It's unique, because Hugo Chavez has invited them in and allowed them to run the country.

As for Paraguay and Honduras, the problems there are that they are trying to overthrow the governments extracurricularly, handing cash to insurgents (in our case, it would be Rev. Al and Jesse Jackson, artificially empowering them, as well as any corrupt congressman and Louisiana is loaded with them) and using other means to buy power and influence. Paraguay and Honduras know all about this.


11 posted on 09/09/2005 12:06:03 PM PDT by Kitten Festival (The Thug of Caracas has got to go.)
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To: Kitten Festival

Bush would put the hurt on them on the double if they were discovered doing so. Oh wait, he's doing that already with the illegal Mexican immigrants /sarc


12 posted on 09/09/2005 12:30:00 PM PDT by The Red Zone (Florida, the sun-shame state, and Illinois the chicken injun.)
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To: elbucko
No. The proper term for political divisions at the international level is "nation" or "country". A state, when the term is used to for a area of land occupied by a people, is a political subdivision. Meaning it has a higher authority over it.

America is also called a "state". What higher political authority is over us?

13 posted on 09/09/2005 1:09:17 PM PDT by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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