Fidel Castro says US plans NATO invasion of Libya

[Bacchus39]

Source: AP

HAVANA – Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro says it's too early to criticize Libya's government — but just the moment to denounce something says is planned: A U.S.-led invasion of the North African nation.

Castro uses a column published in Cuban media on Tuesday to accuse the United States of planning a NATO invasion of Libya to control its oil. He says that might happen "in a question of hours or very short days."

He says the plan "has to be denounced."

The Communist revolutionary is more cautious about reports by Arab and Western news media that troops loyal to his Libyan ally Moammar Gadhafi have slaughtered civilian protesters. Castro says, "We have to wait the necessary time to know with rigor how much is fact or lie."




Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110222/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_castro_libya

[CJvR]

1. Listening to...

...the rantings from Gadaffi they alreaddy have.

[itsrobert]

2. Castro getting worried

He may be the next dictator to fall.

[elias49]

24. Oh come on. Cuba and Libya are worlds apart. nt

[Ter]

32. How so?

n/t

[Throd]

28. An autocrat from 1959 talking about an autocrat from 1969

[David__77]

3. I hope progressives will oppose intervention against Libya.

It is as if the lessons of Iraq are so soon forgotten.

[CJvR]

5. Libya...

...will be decided one way or the other long before an invasion force can be assembled.

[WatsonT]

6. Just because Castro declared it so

doesn't mean it's reality.

[Ken_Fish]

33. The man needs a clot buster..

he appears to have stroked out and lost touch with reality. The US is not invading Libya.

[rosesaylavee]

4. Libya is napalming its own people

I think its time for NATO to step in.

[Dash87]

14. That would make it 100X worse.

[global1]

7. I Hope Khadafi Doesn't Get So Irrational That He Destroys The Oil Fields Of Libya........

I really feel for President Obama now. He doesn't have enough to deal with right here in this country with the economic crisis and the threat of the Repugs to shut down the government. Now he has to deal with irrational dictators on the other side of the world that can further aggravate the financial crisis in this country.

I believe it's time to say a little prayer in support of President Obama so that he can make the right decisions.

[SkyDaddy7]

8. Fidel Castro says it's too early to criticize Libya's government

One Dictator defending another! SWEET!

[FLPanhandle]

9. "Fidel Castro says it's too early to criticize Libya's government" Really!?!

After all these years and the current round of mass killings...it's too early to "criticize"?

But it's not to early to raise the ol' US bogeyman threat, I see.

[Imajika]

10. Castro is a buffoon...

NATO is not going to invade Libya in a matter of hours, days or anything else.

Dictators and authoritarian regimes around the world are getting worried. Fidel and his brother have ruled Cuba for 50 years and he is just scared these protests might spread to his own backyard.

Castro and Gadhafi have been friends for a long time. If he isn't already, my guess is Chavez will end up supporting Gadhafi as well.

[valerief]

11. Oh, my. We need a new war. We're not pissing away enough borrowed money on the old wars.

Social Security? That's just petty cash for the Koch brothers.

[dipsydoodle]

12. Suggest you provide the translation

from Granma, the official Cuban newspaper , to confirm the wording. I'll leave you to find that.

[Bacchus39]

15. here is the original Spanish from Granma

Lo que para mí es absolutamente evidente es que al Gobierno de Estados Unidos no le preocupa en absoluto la paz en Libia, y no vacilará en dar a la OTAN la orden de invadir ese rico país, tal vez en cuestión de horas o muy breves días.

Una persona honesta estará siempre contra cualquier injusticia que se cometa con cualquier pueblo del mundo, y la peor de ellas, en este instante, sería guardar silencio ante el crimen que la OTAN se prepara a cometer contra el pueblo libio.

(....before the crime NATO is preparing to commit against the Libyan people!!!!!)

Habrá que esperar el tiempo necesario para conocer con rigor cuánto hay de verdad o mentira, o una mezcla de hechos de todo tipo que, en medio del caos, se produjeron en Libia.

We will have to wait to know with rigor about what is fact or fiction, or a mix of acts, in the middle of caos produced in Libya.

He also quotes Ven foreign minister Maduro: "...recibieron hoy una digna respuesta del Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, cuando expresó textualmente que hacía "votos porque el pueblo libio encuentre, en ejercicio de su soberanía, una solución pacífica a sus dificultades, que preserve la integridad del pueblo y la nación libia, sin la injerencia del imperialismo¼ "

Today a dignified response from Maduro when he exrpessed that towards "votes??? because the Libyan people find themselves, in exercising their sovereignty, a peaceful solution to their difficultiies that preserves the integrity of the people and nation of Libya without the interjection of imperialism"

hahahaha


http://www.granma.cu/espanol/reflexiones/22febrero-reflexiones.html

[joshcryer]

27. Complete embarrassment.

[Dash87]

13. If he really said that, that's stupid.

No wait, he also said that civilians being killed might also not be true. What a goofball. :eyes:

[RZM]

16. Oh please

No doubt military planners have contingency plans to invade Libya, just like the have them for many other places on earth. When no invasion occurs, I wonder if Castro will issue a statement saying: 'I was totally wrong . . . sorry about misleading you like that.'

[nalnn]

17. LOL

hahah no, Castro probably will not offer a correction. Also, the likelihood of the U.S. involving itself in air/sea/or land ops in Libya during this crisis are nil. There is no one in the U.S. govt. that I know of who's even mentioned something like that in passing. I could be wrong about that specifically, but there's NO way the votes are there for it.

Now, I would not put it past the president to authorize some kind of very small Special Forces operations or even a CIA action there. What's more likely than the U.S. or NATO as a group going in there is that the E.U. (particularly Italy) might try something. What? I don't have the foggiest, but they are the closest party that could feel any sort of threat to their 'National Interests' in that region.

[RZM]

18. I pretty much agree

The chances of a 'real' intervention are close to zero and for clandestine ops not a whole lot higher. I don't know about Italy - they do have a colonial history in Libya and also won't want the headache of refugees showing up at their doorstep, but definitive intervention on their part seems just as doubtful. The protesters have Western moral support, but they might not get a whole lot more than that.

[EFerrari]

29. Seriously, where would Castro get the idea that the United States

would ever exploit political turmoil to furtheir its agenda in the Middle East.

What is he thinking.

lol

[jakeXT]

19. That's so 80's like blowing up disco's and training the bombing of Lybia 1 year before

In March 1986, the United States, asserting the 12-nautical-mile (22 km; 14 mi) limit to territorial waters recognized by the international community, sent a carrier task force to the region. Libya responded with aggressive counter-maneuvers on March 24 that led to the Gulf of Sidra incident. Less than two weeks later on April 5, a bomb exploded in a West Berlin disco, La Belle, killing two American servicemen and a Turkish woman and wounding 200 others. The United States claimed to have obtained cable transcripts from Libyan agents in East Germany involved in the attack.

The actual attack mission against Libya, had been preceded in October 1985 by an exercise in which the 20th TFW stationed at Upper Heyford airbase in the UK, which was equipped with F-111Es, received a top secret order to on October 18 launch a simulated attack mission, with ten F-111s armed with eight 500 lb practice bombs, against a simulated airfield located in Newfoundland, Canada south of CFB Goose Bay. The mission was designated Operation Ghost Rider. The mission was basically a full rehearsal for a long range strike against Libya.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Libya

Iraq was a success, I believe you could pay off the military to overthrow him on the model of Iraq.

Smart Bribes
Centcom's real secret weapon.
By Fred KaplanPosted Tuesday, May 20, 2003, at 5:49 PM ET

A fascinating piece in the May 19 Defense News quotes Gen. Tommy Franks, chief of U.S. Central Command, confirming what had until now been mere rumors picked up by dubious Arab media outlets—that, before Gulf War II began, U.S. special forces had gone in and bribed Iraqi generals not to fight.

http://www.slate.com/id/2083271/

I'm also reminded of the Chavez operation were you had sharpshooters firing into the crowd to get things going and blaming it on Chavez on TV by manipulating the pictures. As seen in the documentary "The revolution will not be televised".

Sharpshooters fired into the pro- Chávez crowd, killing two people outright. Police loyal to the anti-Chávez mayor of Caracas, Alfredo Pena, also opened fire into the pro-Chávez demonstration.
http://www.iacenter.org/Venezuela/venez_uprising.htm

[Jennicut]

20. The guy is old. I will give him a break that dementia has set in.

[fittosurvive]

21. Fidel should consider taking up cigar smoking again. That crack pipe is causing him to hallucinate.

[robcon]

22. Castro's getting old: he was always stupid.

He would never pass any chance to 'blame' the Libyan revolution, or any attempt at freedom, on America.

[pampango]

23. The UN has a "Responsibility to Protect" civilians from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and

crimes against humanity. The UN General Assembly passed it in 2005 to value people over sovereignty.

http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=a/res/60/1

[robcon]

25. What has the UN responsibility got to do with this thread?

The UN cannot takes sides: whether pro- or anti- the Egyptian government, or pro- or anti- the Libyan government.

Castro says NATO is going to invade.... he's hallucinating, or more likely, playing the last card in a self-pitying attempt to save Khaddafi's sorry ass.

[boppers]

26. The UN cannot take political sides, but it can take a humanitarian side.

There are some lines that cannot be crossed, regardless of politics.

Theoretically, anyways.

[nalnn]

39. It's sad sad sad

There really is NOTHING anybody can do. We won't 'invade'. We cant send shipments of aid as that will just be confiscated and called interfering, or worse.

We can't even air-drop supplies out in the deep Sahara. There would be chaos as those who need the aid would flock to get it; only to be strafed by the Libyan air force.

[pampango]

31. The UN can take the side of civilians. That's the point of "Responsibility to Protect".

That's not to say that R2P is any more than nice words on a piece of paper, but the UN General Assembly did adopt it precisely to be anti-"any government", e.g. Rwanda, that perpetrates genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity on its own civilians.

[dipsydoodle]

30. The full english transcript of Fidel Castro's Reflection/Essay

NATO’s plan is to occupy Libya.

OIL became the principal wealth in the hands of the large yankee transnationals; with that source of energy, they had at their disposal an instrument that considerably increased their political power in the world. It was their principal weapon when they decided to simply liquidate the Cuban Revolution as soon as the first, just and sovereign laws were enacted in our homeland: by depriving it of oil.

Current civilization was developed on the basis of this source of energy. Of the nations in this hemisphere it was Venezuela which paid the highest price. The United States made itself the owner of the vast oilfields which nature endowed upon that sister nation.

At the end of the last World War it began to extract large volumes from oilfields in Iran, as well as those of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Arab countries located around them. These came to be the principal suppliers. World consumption rose progressively to the fabulous figure of approximately 80 million barrels per day, including those pumped in U.S. territory, to which gas, hydraulic and nuclear energy were subsequently added. Up until the beginning of the 20th century coal was the fundamental source of energy that made possible industrial development, before billions of automobiles and engines consuming combustible liquid were produced.

The squandering of oil and gas is associated with one of the greatest tragedies, totally unresolved, being endured by humanity: climate change.

When our Revolution arose, Algeria, Libya and Egypt were not as yet oil producers and a large part of the substantial reserves of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and the United Arab Emirates were still to be discovered.

In December of 1951, Libya became the first African country to attain its independence after World War II, during which its territory was the scene of significant battles between German and British troops, bringing fame to Generals Erwin Rommel and Bernard. L. Montgomery.

Total desert covers 95% of its territory. Technology made it possible to find significant fields of excellent quality light oil, currently providing 800 billion barrels per day, and abundant natural gas deposits. Such wealth allowed it to achieve a life expectancy rate of close to 75 years and the highest per capita income in Africa. Its harsh desert is located above an enormous lake of fossil water, equivalent to more than three times the land surface of Cuba, which has made it possible to construct a broad network of fresh water pipes which extends throughout the country.

Libya, which had one million inhabitants upon attaining its independence, now has a population of more than six million.

The Libyan Revolution took place in September 1969. Its principal leader was Muammar al-Gaddafi, a soldier of Bedouin origin who was inspired in his early youth by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Without any doubt, many of his decisions are associated with the changes that came about when, as in Egypt, a weak and corrupt monarchy was overthrown in Libya.

The inhabitants of that country have age-old warrior traditions. It is said that the ancient Libyans formed part of Hannibal’s army when he was at the point of liquidating Ancient Rome with the force that crossed the Alps.

One can be in agreement with Gaddafi or not. The world has been invaded with all kind of news, especially through the mass media. We shall have to wait the time needed to discover precisely how much is truth or lies, or a mix of the events, of all kinds, which, in the midst of chaos, have been taking place in Libya. What is absolutely evident to me is that the government of the United States is totally unconcerned about peace in Libya and will not hesitate to give NATO the order to invade that rich country, possibly in a matter of hours or a few days.

Those who, with perfidious intentions, invented the lie that Gaddafi was headed for Venezuela, as they did yesterday afternoon Sunday, February 20, today received a worthy response from Nicolás Maduro, Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs, when he stated textually that he was "voting for the Libyan people, in the exercise of their sovereignty, to find a peaceful solution to their difficulties which will preserve the integrity of the Libyan people and nation, without the interference of imperialism…"

For my part, I cannot imagine the Libyan leader abandoning the country, eluding the responsibilities attributed to him, whether or not this news is partly or totally false.

An honest person will always be against any injustice committed against any nation of the world, and the worst injustice, at this moment, would be to remain silent in the face of the crime that NATO is preparing to commit against the Libyan people.

The chief of that military organization is being urged to do so. This must be condemned!

Fidel Castro Ruz
February 21, 2011
10:14 p.m.

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/reflections-i/21february-reflections.html

General reminder : there is open permission to republish Fidel Castro's Reflections/Essay in their full entirety complete and unamended.

[rabs]

34. Thanks for the English version

makes poster of the remarks taken out of context in Post #15 look downright silly (to not say totally misleading.)

I have one quibble: When Maduro of Ven. speaks of "hacer votos," the meaning is to express a wish (desire) for a favorable outcome of something.

It has nothing to do with the traditional meaning of votes, voters, voting etc.

In religion, it can mean to pray for something.

-----------------

hacer votos.

1. loc. verb. Expresar un deseo favorable a algo.

[dipsydoodle]

37. I think it was you

from whom I learned it was ok to republish the Reflections/Essays, unamended in their entirety ,for which I am grateful.

:hi:

[Bacchus39]

38. he is worried that NATO is going to commit a crime against the Libyan people haha

and thanks for the English translation. just shows what an old fool he is.

[joshcryer]

35. But it is illegal to give support to the dictatorship!

Just kidding, we gots free speech here.

[rayofreason]

36. Castro is not a total idiot...

In this case he has a rational reason to fear what is happening in Libya. If this dictator-dumping fad continues to spread, he and Raul are in trouble. Mugabe is another one who is really looking over his shoulder. 46 people were arrested for attending a lecture about Egypt and Tunisia. Hopefully he will go int the garbage heap soon.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/zimbabwe-police-arrest-46-at-egypt-lecture/story-e6frfku0-1226009704281

This keeps up, poor old Hugo will have lost some of his best chums, though it looks like Ahmadinejad is holding on strong.