Posted on 05/13/2002 6:59:59 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Former President Jimmy Carter goes back in time today. In Cuba he will see more than vintage American cars, circa 1950s, smoking up the streets with their patchwork "remodeled" diesel engines. He'll do more than choke on the fumes from the oil refinery near Havana's harbor, the sulfuric acid stinging his eyes whenever the wind turns toward the city.
He will be shown all of the Cuban revolution's socialist "triumphs" amid the ruins of communism. He will surely be pained by the contradictions. He'll visit an agricultural cooperative and tour a medical school and the Los Cocos AIDS sanatorium, where Cubans with AIDS are "quarantined" for life. Talk about progressive health care.
Carter even plans a tour of Cuba's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, a high-tech facility that produces vaccines for other countries. The Bush administration created a stir last week by accusing Cuba of sharing its dual-use biotech capability with "rouge" states that are looking to create plagues for biological warfare.
That charge should put into perspective Castro's own warning to the United States during his swing through the Middle East last May. "Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees," Castro said at the University of Tehran. "The U.S. regime is very weak and we are witnessing this weakness from close-up."
Predictable inflammatory rhetoric from Fidel and nothing more?
Consider the information that Jose de la Fuente, the former head of Cuba's biotech center who oversaw 350 scientists there during the 1990s, made public last fall. De la Fuente, a defector who now teaches in the United States, says Cuba sold Iran dual-use recombinant technology for hepatitis and other vaccines, technology that could be used to make biological weapons.
De la Fuente's statements, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, came on the heels of the U.S. government's public admission that it had a Cuba spy in its midst. Ana Belen Montes, who pled guilty to espionage in March, played a leading role in the 1998 Defense Department study that concluded Cuba no longer posed a threat to U.S. security. It took the U.S. government 16 years to figure out that Montes, the Pentagon's top Cuba analyst, spied for Castro's government all of that time.
Her arrest was triggered by the Sept. 11 attacks on America. Federal investigators, who had been trailing her activities for months, feared she would leak sensitive information about the attacks to Cuba. And Cuba, in turn, would share the intelligence with its allies in the terrorist camp -- Iraq, Iran and Libya, all nations on the State Department's terrorism hit list.
Enter Carter, passionate about human rights and hostile against the embargo. All eyes are on Carter to pry open U.S. policy toward Cuba. But what we should be asking is: What are Castro's intentions?
Carter, whose speech at the University of Havana Tuesday will be televised for all Cubans to see, should put that question to the island nation. He should ask Cubans what they think Castro meant in Tehran about bringing America to its knees. He should ask why the Cuban people still lack medicines when their government has poured billions of dollars into a first-rate biotechnology center. What are the Cuba regime's true intentions -- to help the Cuban people or bring America to its knees? Myriam Marquez can be reached at mmarquez@orlandosentinel.com
De la Fuente fears that's exactly what Iran intends to do. ``No one,'' he wrote in the journal article, ``believes that Iran is interested in these technologies for the purpose of protecting all the children in the Middle East from hepatitis, or treating their people with cheap streptokinase when they suffer sudden cardiac arrest . . .
``The sale to Iran of the production technology for three of the CIGB's most significant accomplishments . . . is profoundly disturbing to many of us who gave so much time and effort to the development of an economically viable but essentially altruistic biotechnology in our country.''***
Capitalism's on the sly in Cuba ***By way of explanation for his illicit trade, he holds up his right hand and says, "Look at this." His thumb and two adjacent fingers are missing. Six years ago, Miguel caught his wrist in the bakery mixer, badly mangling it. A month later, his fingers were amputated because he could not afford the three pills needed daily to induce circulation. They cost $1 apiece, and, at the time, he was paid in bread -- six loaves a day. ***
Really now? I could give a rat's a$$ what Jimmy Carter does or says. Our two former Democrat presidents are making complete fools of themselves and of us. They need to just GO AWAY!
Guess that's be why a trulah grateful Amurrican Public done voted his ass outa offis after wun turrum.
Hey, you'uns : give Ol' Jimmah a chaince: might be he could help that thar Fidel feller the wye he done helped us !
Every liberal is a thug.
So Castrate and the socialist peanut pimp want to change the name of the nation to Amonica?
In the TV news, keep your eyes on the background. (I notice they are real stingy with their background shots. It’s probably on purpose.) Notice how few people there are on the streets. Those little bright yellow three-wheel motorcycles with a round hood dashing about in the background are the Coco Taxis. It holds two tourist passengers (too expensive for the populace). Hopefully they will catch on film a Camello (camel) bus, a death trap made of two refrigerator containers welded together that holds 300 passengers and is pulled by a huge truck cab.
Need to dash to the supermarket. Will catch up later.
BUT, you are right.
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