Just ideas - or
disaster - will triumph
If today it is possible to prolong life, health
and the productive time of persons, if it is
perfectly possible to plan the development of the
population in accordance with growing productivity,
culture and development of human values, what are
they waiting for to do so?
Global society has known no peace in recent years,
particularly since the European Economic Community,
under the absolute, inflexible direction of the
United States, decided that the time had come to
settle accounts with what remained of two great
nations which, inspired by the ideas of Marx, had
achieved the great feat of ending the imperialist
colonial order imposed on the world by Europe and
the United States.
In former Russia, a revolution erupted which
moved the world.
It was expected that the first great socialist
revolution would take place in the most
industrialized countries of Europe, such as England,
France, Germany or the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This
revolution, however, took place in Russia, whose
territory extended into Asia, from northern Europe
to southern Alaska - which had been Czarist
territory, sold for a few dollars to the country
which would later be the most interested in
attacking and destroying the revolution and the
country where it occurred.
The greatest accomplishment of the new state was
the creation of a union capable of bringing together
its resources and sharing its technology with a
large number of weak, less developed nations,
unwilling victims of colonial exploitation. Would a
true society of nations be convenient or not, in the
current world, one in which respect is shown for
rights, beliefs, culture, technologies and resources
in accessible places around the world, which so many
human beings would like to visit and know? And
wouldn’t the world be much more just today, - when
in fractions of a second anyone can communicate with
the other side of the planet - if people saw in
others a friend or brother, and not an enemy
disposed to kill, with weapons which human knowledge
has been capable of creating?
Believing that human beings could be capable of
having such objectives, I think that absolutely no
one has the right to destroy cities; murder children;
pulverize homes; sow terror, hunger and death
anywhere. In what corner of the world can such acts
be justified? If it is remembered that, when the
last global conflict’s killing ended, the world
placed its hopes in the creation of the United
Nations, it is because a large part of humanity
imagined it with such a perspective, although its
objectives were not fully defined. A colossal fraud
is what is seen today, as problems emerge which
suggest the possible eruption of a war, with the use
of weapons which could mean the end of human
existence.
There are unscrupulous actors, apparently more
than a few, which consider meritorious their
willingness to die, but above all to kill in defense
of their indecent privileges.
Many are surprised to hear the statements made by
some European NATO spokespeople, expressed in the
style and look of the Nazi SS. On occasion, they
even wear dark suits, in the middle of summer.
We have a powerful enough adversary, our closest
neighbor: the United States. We warned them that we
would withstand the blockade, although this would
imply a very high cost for our country. There is no
greater price than capitulating to an enemy, which
for no reason, or right, attacks you. This was the
sentiment of a small, isolated people. The rest of
the hemisphere’s governments, with a few exceptions,
went along with the powerful, influential empire.
This was not a personal attitude on our part, but
rather the sentiment of a small nation which had
been not only the political, but also the economic
property of the U.S. since the beginning of the
century. Spain had ceded us to this country, after
we had suffered almost five centuries of
colonialism, and innumerable deaths and material
losses in our struggle for independence.
The empire reserved the right to intervene
militarily in Cuba, on the basis of a constitutional
amendment imposed on an impotent Congress, incapable
of resisting. Besides being owners of almost all of
Cuba, vast land holdings, the largest sugar mills,
mines, and banks - with even the prerogative of
printing our currency – they did not allow us to
produce enough grain to feed the population.
When the USSR collapsed, and the socialist camp
disappeared as well, we continued resisting.
Together, the revolutionary state and people
continued our independent march.
I do not wish, nevertheless, to dramatize our
modest history. I prefer rather to emphasize that
the empire’s policy is so dramatically ludicrous
that its relegation to the dustbin of history will
not long be delayed. Adolph Hitler’s empire,
inspired by greed, went down in history with no more
glory than that of the encouragement given to
aggressive bourgeois governments of NATO, which
became the laughing stock of Europe and the world,
with their euro, which along with the dollar, will
soon become wet paper, and they will be required to
depend on the yen, and rubles as well, given the
emerging Chinese economy, closely linked to Russia’s
enormous economic and technical potential.
Cynicism is something which has become symbolic
of imperial policy.
As is known, John McCain was the Republican
candidate in the 2008 elections. This individual
came into the public light as a pilot who was shot
down while his plane bombed the populous city of
Hanoi. A Vietnamese missile hit the aircraft in
action, and the plane and pilot fell into a lake
located close to capital, on the city’s outskirts.
Upon seeing the airplane crash and a wounded
pilot attempting to save himself, a retired
Vietnamese soldier who was making his living in the
area came to his aid. As the old soldier offered his
help, a group of Hanoi residents who had suffered
the aerial attacks, came running to settle accounts
with the murderer. The soldier himself persuaded his
neighbors not to do so, since the man was taken
prisoner and his life must be respected. Yankee
authorities themselves communicated with the
government, begging that no action be taken against
the pilot.
In addition to the Vietnamese government’s policy
of respecting prisoners, the pilot was the son a
U.S. Navy Admiral who had played an outstanding role
in WWII, and was still holding an important
position.
The Vietnamese had captured a big fish in that
bombing, and, of course, thinking about the eventual
peace talks which would put an end to the unjust war
unleashed on them, they developed a friendship with
McCain, who was very happy to take advantage of the
opportunity provided by that adventure. No
Vietnamese, of course, recounted any of this to me,
nor would I have ever asked anyone to do so. I have
read about it, and it coincides completely with a
few details I learned later. I also read one day
that Mr. McCain had written that when he was a
prisoner in Vietnam, while he was tortured, he heard
voices in Spanish advising the torturers as to what
they should do and how. They were Cuban voices,
according to McCain. Cuba never had advisors in
Vietnam. The military there knew very well how to
conduct their war.
General Giap was one of the most brilliant
military strategists of our era, who in Dien Bien
Phu was able to place missile launchers in remote,
mountainous jungles, something the yankee and
European military officers considered impossible.
With these launchers, they fired from such a close
point that it was impossible to neutralize them,
without affecting the invaders as well. Other
pertinent measures, all difficult and complex, were
utilized to impose a shameful surrender on the
surrounded European forces.
The fox McCain took as much advantage as possible
of the yankee and European invaders’ military
defeats. Nixon could not persuade his National
Security Council advisor Henry Kissinger to accept
the idea suggested by the President himself, who in
a relaxed moment said: Why don’t we drop one of
those little bombs, Henry? The true little bomb
dropped when the President’s men attempted to spy on
their adversaries in the opposing party. This surely
couldn’t be tolerated!
Despite this, Mr. McCain’s most cynical behavior
has been in the Near East. Senator McCain is
Israel’s most unconditional ally in Mossad’s
machinations, something that even his worst
adversaries would have been able to imagine. McCain
participated alongside this secret service in the
creation of the Islamic State which has appropriated
a considerable part of Iraq, as well as a third of
Syria, according to its affirmations. This state
already has a multi-million dollar income, and
threatens Saudi Arabia and other nat9ons in this
complex region which supplies the greatest part of
the world’s oil.
Would it not be preferable to struggle to produce
food and industrial products; build hospitals and
schools for billions of human beings who desperately
need them; promote art and culture; struggle against
epidemics which lead to the death of half of the
sick, health workers and technicians, as can be seen;
or finally eliminate illnesses like cancer, Ebola,
malaria, dengue, chikungunya, diabetes and others
which affect the vital systems of human beings?
If today it is possible to prolong life, health
and the productive time of persons, if it is
perfectly possible to plan the development of the
population in accordance with growing productivity,
culture and development of human values, what are
they waiting for to do so?
Just ideas will triumph, or disaster will triumph.

Fidel Castro Ruz
August 31, 2014
10:25 p.m.