Bush's Mein Kampf

BY RICARDO ALARCÓN DE QUESADA (President of the Cuban National Assembly)

"For nothing is hidden unless it is to be disclosed, and nothing put undercover unless it is to come into the open." (Mark, 4:22)

TOM Crumpacker (*) was not exaggerating one iota when he compared the Bush annexation Plan with Hitler’s Mein Kampf. They are, effectively, the only available examples of publicly announced plans to subjugate a nation.

They are also similar in their genocidal and racist nature. In my previous article on this subject, I recalled that the Bush Plan, if it were carried out, would liquidate Cuba, the nation, but also enslave Cubans to extermination. That was the experience suffered by millions of individuals in the European countries occupied by Hitlerian hordes.

The blockade against Cuba is, without a doubt, a crime of genocide. It has been so since the first day and is so today. This definition perfectly corresponds to a policy that proposes to "cause hunger and desperation," as stated in recently declassified official documents from 1959 and 1960. The 2004 Plan and the additional measures approved by Bush this past Monday (July 10) intends to intensify the suffering of all Cubans. But it aspires to go beyond that. The disciple of Hitler, like his master, does not recognize borders.

The blockade, initially conceived and applied for nearly a half century in order to severely affect Cuba and all of its citizens, now wants to extend itself to fall, like a whip, over any other country and over any other Third World people.

Included in the new document are measures that seek to damage Cuban medical cooperation with other countries. Bush specifically wants to impede the services offered to thousands of patients who have been cured of cataracts or other visual disorders and have recovered their sight in Cuba, or those who have received these benefits in their own countries; they intend to thwart the education of thousands and young people who are studying Medicine and other disciplines in Cuba; and equally they are seeking to sabotage the missions that our doctors, technicians, and nurses are undertaking abroad. Bush imagines himself capable of doing away with Operation Miracle, with the Henry Reeve International Brigade, and with ELAM (Latin American School of Medicine).

Of course "actions speak louder than words." Or to use another popular refrain adapted to the occasion: "Bush thinks one thing and the shopkeeper another," But regardless of whether he can achieve that or not, it is among the measures that he has just approved and the rubbish that is yet to be announced.

It is proclaimed on pages 31 and 32 of the document approved July 10: "deny all exports" of medical related equipment that could be used in "large-scale medical programs for foreign patients" or in "institutions of foreign assistance."

Such a proposal implies, ironically, the recognition of a reality that is increasingly difficult to hide: the beautiful display of internationalism and human solidarity to which there are millions of witnesses from Pakistan to Indonesia, crossing Africa and the Caribbean to the Andes and Central America.

Neither the arrogant empire, nor any of its servants in other capitalist countries, can boast of anything even remotely similar to this genuine international cooperation, this real struggle for life and the most elemental rights of millions of human beings. None of them are capable of doing what this little island, assaulted and harassed, has done.

It is an outrage that there are still thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in need of aid. Many were displaced and are living as refugees in their own country. Many have died without the protection or assistance that Bush prevented being given by that same Henry Reeve Brigade that he now wants to destroy. Parents are still looking for thousands of lost children. New Orleans and Katrina will always be symbols of the intrinsic inhumanity of capitalism. Bush’s "Pray and Go Away" summarizes his bungling insensitivity, which will pursue him to hell.

It is already known that Bush, like Hitler, scorns the poor and African Americans in the United States and couldn’t care less if they die abandoned. But now we also know, because he has just openly admitted it, that his hatred extends to all the poor, all the indigenous, all the Blacks and mixed race peoples of the world. It is urgent to stop him and defeat him.

Crumpacker recalled that when Mein Kampf was published in 1924, many Europeans simply ignored it. Fifteen years later, the worst tragedy befell them.

History must not be repeated.

The situation now is worse. Bush has weapons that his maestro never knew. When he drew up his infamous pamphlet, Hitler was in prison. His pupil is walking free. There is no time to lose.