One Man's Opinion

On certain issues, Obama has been a disappointment to his people and people around the world who really thought that he would make things right. Unfortunately, in the foreign affairs field he has continued policies that needed that much-promised change he campaigned on. His recent comment on the drone aircraft, minimizing the death and destruction it continues to cause is extremely insensitive and offensive, not taking into account the needless suffering of innocent people on the ground. Shame on him for taking such a cavalier attitude towards such a cowardly way of killing defenseless people, including women, children and old and sick people!

As it turns out, Fidel was right, after all. A few days ago, he stated that the recently-deceased prisoner many claimed was a "dissident" was, in fact, a common criminal, jailed for domestic violence. Now, the guy's widow has admitted precisely that. Of course, she has downplayed the incident that gave rise to her husband's incarceration, but the basic facts are the same. The man was no dissident; he chose to label himself as such and go on a hunger strike, to manipulate public opinion in his favor, but he had no record of being in the opposition to the regime. He just wanted to get out of jail, and thought that strategy would work. So, now, those that rushed to hail him as a martyr are left with egg on their faces, and in the uncomfortable position of having to defend an opportunistic wife-beater, just to continue to demonize Fidel and the Cuban government.

Iraq continues to be a source of embarrassment, to say the least, to the U.S. Through the years that the Americans were there full-time, there were reports of mismanagement of funds allocated for the reconstruction of the country and charges that a lot of projects were never completed. In short, Iraq had become a "black hole" of American taxpayers' money going into the pockets of a handful of private contractors. A recent audit reveals just how big that hole is. There are $2 billion unaccounted for, and nobody seems to know what happened. So, now that the Iraqi government has been left to fend for itself, it has no idea of how, in what and where all that money was spent, as well as what it should do with those incomplete projects. Should we be surprised at this turn of events? Not really. These American interventions are a scam to make money out of the U.S. Treasury. First, there is the destruction; then comes the reconstruction by a select group of private companies,...

Part of the mess the Americans have left in Iraq is the fact that those who collaborated with them are being hunted down systematically, regarded as traitors. This was to be expected: no matter the reasons for it, people who help those who invade a country will be seen as helping the enemy. The truth is that, aside from those who may have acted for "patriotic" reasons, those so-called "Sons of Iraq" were on the U.S. payroll, something that cheapens their standing as freedom fighters. Now that the U.S. has left the country, these Iraqis are at the mercy of those they fought against. Understandably, the Iraqi government -- such as it is -- has no use for them, and neither has the means nor the will to protect them. At bottom, I suppose that Iraqis don't trust those guys who were willing to accept U.S. dollars to take arms against their countrymen. So, they'll continue to die because, this time, the "U.S. Cavalry" is not coming.

Having an elegant ball by the far right, most of whom espouse Nazi ideas, on the same day and very near an act of remembrance of Auschwitz victims in Vienna is, to say the least, an outrageous provocation. Lest we forget, Hitler was Austrian, and Austrians, by and large, were willing collaborators with the Nazi regime. All this happens at the same time that a publisher works on a reprinting of Mein Kampf  in Germany. Not to panic, but there is a need to watch these things very closely, so that they don't get out of hand. The mistake made in the 1930s was assuming that Hitler was a crackpot that no one would listen to, let alone follow. Malcontents and anti-Semites are never in short supply, and are ready to join any movement to make things happen. It happened once before. It can happen again.

Things haven't really turned out as expected in the Arab world after getting rid of the much-hated dictators in Egypt or Libya. Doctors Without Borders has just announced that they are withdrawing from Libya because the present regime has the gall of bringing detainees or prisoners for treatment after torturing them, and then taking them away to torture them some more. Amnesty International has validated that position taken by the humanitarian group. Meanwhile, the British government has expressed some concern about this. The Americans, who were the principal instigators of the Libyan revolt, have yet to acknowledge the problem. They got what they wanted, so, who cares if Libya is just as bad or even worse off than before? Not the U.S.

Say what you will about Fidel, the man has a way with words. I think a lot of people in the U.S. and around the world will agree with his assessment of the Republican presidential campaign, calling it a competition of "idiocy and ignorance." Too bad the Democrats won't dare use it as a campaign slogan against the Republicans. It's perfect. The truth is that Fidel knows more about American politics than most Americans. He has outlived and outfoxed 11 U.S. Presidents and counting. If only the U.S. had listened to a lot of what he has said over these past 53 years, it would have saved itself and the rest of the world a lot of grief. But, Americans were so busy demonizing him, that they failed to recognize the truth in much of what he was saying. I always thought that he was right on a lot of issues. I think he's damn right on this one.