In this reflection I will go by news received from different sources, including international cable services, –without specifically recognizing any of them as the information source, but strictly abiding by the text of the news- books, documents, the Internet, and even questions asked to well-informed sources.
There is a big hustle and bustle everywhere, as if we lived in a madhouse. Our very well-known characters continue on their hectic tour.
After visiting Brazil and Chile, Condoleezza flew to Moscow to sound out the new President. She wants to know his mind. She traveled with the chief of the Pentagon. With a dislocated arm after a fall in February, he said: “With a broken arm, I won’t be nearly as difficult a negotiator.” A typically Yankee joke. You may figure out the effect this had on the proud ears of a Russian, whose people suffered the loss of so many millions of lives in their struggle against the Nazi hordes that were claiming vital space –what today would be called cheap oil, raw materials and guaranteed markets for surplus goods.
We have known of the adventures of McCain and Cheney in Baghdad; one of them hopes to become head of government, and the other, being already deputy head of government, issues more orders than his boss. They met them with the most unexpected and violent predictions. They devoted no more than two days to that, but enough time to flood the world with sinister forecasts.
Bush was delivering speeches in Washington while the prices of gold and oil were sky-rocketing.
Cheney didn’t stop. He took off for the Sultanate of Oman -774,000 oil barrels per day in 2005 and 780,000 in 2004. Last year Oman revealed its plans to invest $10 billion during the next five years to increase its oil production to 900,000 barrels per day and reach the figure of 70 to 80 million cubic meters of gas per day. This is what the Sultanate authorities reported on January 15, 2007.
Cheney, accompanied by his family, went sailing on of the Sultan’s yacht “Kingfish I” to fish in the limits of the maritime boundaries between Oman and Iran. What temerity! Nobel prizes should also be given to those super-brave persons who run the risk of death or mutilation after a sumptuous private lunch with a fishbone stuck in their throat. The absence of the owner of the luxurious yacht spoiled the hero’s party.
McCain isn’t stopping either. He jumped into a helicopter to tour the territory where the Israeli soldiers, while chasing Palestinian leaders, continue to kill women, children, adolescents and youth in the West Bank with their sophisticated technical means. The Republican candidate is an expert on that.
He traveled to Jerusalem and there promised to be the first to recognize that whole city as the capital of Israel, which the United States and Europe has converted into a sophisticated nuclear power, whose satellite-guided missiles could fall in Moscow, more than 5,000 kilometers away, in a matter of minutes.
There will be no oil- or gas-producing state left unvisited by Cheney before he returns to attest to the happiness of the world before the President of his country.
Bush, for one, speaks on the 17th for one reason, on the 18th for another, and on the 19th to mark the beginning of his fantastic war. Cuba, as may be expected, continues to be a target of his insults.
In the midst of the chaos created by the empire, wars become inseparable partners. The one in Iraq has now lasted for five years. Profound thinkers estimate that millions of people have been affected, and that its total cost is in the trillions. Four thousand regular soldiers have died, and for every one killed, 30 are injured in this type of war. White phosphorous and cluster bombs are the war’s daily bread. Anything goes, except for living.
Cheney and McCain are competing with one another, one as the creature’s father, and the other as its stepfather. They both meet with heads of State and make demands: oil and gas production should be increased; Yankee technology, Yankee supplies, and Yankee weapons from the Yankee military-industrial complex should be used; Yankee military bases should be authorized.
From Jerusalem, McCain hops over to London to talk with Gordon Brown. Before that, while speaking in Jordan, he makes a mistake and asserts that Iran, a Shiite country, is training Al Qaeda, a Sunni organization. It’s all the same to him; he doesn’t even apologize for his mistake.
Cheney hops over to Afghanistan. The war waged by NATO and the Yankees has turned the country into the world’s largest opium exporter. The USSR wore itself out and collapsed in a similar war. Bush launched his first military blow there, along with NATO.
They are doing all that needs to be done to convene two parallel meetings: one to discuss the fight on terrorism and a NATO meeting.
One thing is certain: Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO’s top official, will meet with Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan on April 1, 2 and 3 in Bucharest to participate in the Trans-Atlantic Forum. At the same time, a conference convened by the GMF (German Marshall Fund, of the United States), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania, and Chatham House will bring together a large number of strategists and politicians to address matters of vital interest for NATO. According to the GMF Chairman, the conference will be attended by nine Heads of State, 24 prime ministers and other ministers, and 40 presidents of research institutions from Europe and the Americas, comprising the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which dissolved Tito’s Yugoslavia and carried out the war in Kosovo. Anyone can understand that any similarity between its interests and those of Yankee imperialism is purely coincidental. The situation in the Balkans, the anti-missile defense system, the energy supply and weapons control are unavoidable issues.
Given that Bush needs to perform his role as the main character, he has already drafted his own schedule: he will be in the city of Neptun, on the Black Sea, to attend a meeting with Traian Basescu, President of Romania, on the eve of the conference. The fate of humankind which contributes surplus value and blood, are in those hands.
(To be continued tomorrow, in Part II)
Fidel Castro Ruz
March 22, 2008