A superb speech:
HTTP://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,908218,00.html

Richard Ali

By who's standards?

Certainly it is a prime example of communist propaganda.

Some exerps and my comments.

Mr Castro said

That same day, he proclaimed the doctrine of the pre-emptive strike,
something no one had ever done in the political history of the world

I say

Now it is my turn to fall off my chair.  Pre-emptive strikes are
nothing new.  Maybe it is a new thing for democracies to do, but
I don't think so.

Mr Castro said

That statement was not made by the government of a small and weak nation,
but by the leader of the richest and mightiest military power that has ever
existed, which possesses thousands of nuclear weapons, enough to obliterate
the world's population several times over - and other terrifying
conventional military systems and weapons of mass destruction

I say

Questionable.  He is stating as fact that which is a matter of opinion.
Nuclear Weapons are powerful, but whether they could obliterate the
worlds population is unproven.  I am not suggesting this should be tested
by experiment, but that is the only way to be sure.

Mr Castro said

The world is being driven into a dead end. Within hardly 150 years, the oil
and gas it took the planet 300 million years to accumulate will have been
depleted.

I say

Unproven.  Before I left for Saudi Arabia about 10 years ago one deposit
was found there which could sustain the worlds oil consumption at their
current levels for 200 years.  ONE deposit.

Mr Castro said

After the last global carnage in the 1940s, we were promised a world of
peace, a reduction of the gap between the rich and poor and the assistance
of the highly developed to the less developed countries. It was all a huge
lie. We had imposed on us an unsustainable and unbearable world order.

I say

He needs to look at his own country for an example of what is unbearable.
People have died trying to get out of Cuba.

Mr Castro said

Poverty continues to grow while old and new diseases threaten whole nations
with annihilation

I say

No. Poverty has diminished.  There may be greater numbers of poor people,
but that is because there are more people.  Percentagewise, there is fewer.
He needs to look at his own country to see examples of poverty.  Poverty
there has gotten worse there, compared to the rest of the world.

In 1970 the disease rate in the third world had gotten about to what it
was in the USA in 1915, and the situation had improved since then.  As
far as new diseases are concerned, the biggest threat comes from Iraq.

.......

There is more stuff there which would be laughable if it did not come
from a despot who's opinions cannot be challenged by anyone in his own
country.

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