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It's impossible to say this early on.

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Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
As one who remembers the entire career of Castro, from the overthrow of Batista, the failure to have the promised elections, and onward through years of brutal oppression (ask the millions of Cuban exiles if he was a good or bad man, DevilDreamt--why do you think they left?), it is my view that he was something like Saddam Hussein, one of the world's notorious bullies.

It has also long been my perception that it was the personality of Fidel Castro alone which has held the government together. Certainly not communist ideology, which has been so widely discredited.

The government may be attempting to give the impression that Fidel is still around. But even Raul is not Fidel, and the distinction between Fidel being "resigned" (whatever that actually means) and being dead, probably is not that great.

I predict that the present government of Cuba will gradually unravel. It may not collapse tomorrow, but it will begin to unravel, and the unraveling will soon go faster and faster. I give it a year or less (maybe much less) before there is complete chaos in Cuba. Indeed it could become an issue in the U.S. presidential election.

G.W. Bush could be the president who oversees the endgame. If Cuba dissolves into chaos soon, U.S. Marines can be sent in to restore order, just like they did in Haiti. The U.S. still has the Guatanamo military base in Cuba. All they have to do is walk across the fence. And then, at some point, the U.S. can provide a massive boat exodus to allow as many Cuban exiles who want to, to return. This could all happen before the next president is sworn in.

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Originally Posted by: Ron Lambert
And why did you quote my whole post--only two posts down from my original post? If you want to quote a specific passage you want to respond to, that's one thing. But quoting the whole post is kind of a waste of space.

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Given the gibberish and insulting things you've been posting most recently Ron, I think you're the last person that gets to tell Blayne anything he says is a waste of space.

Blayne -

What happened in Somalia actually wasn't that big a mistake really. A lot of the soldiers still made it out, and this despite the fact that Mogadishu had been transformed into a citywide booby trap. The mistake was in pulling out of Somalia, it wasn't in what happened in Mogadishu. So if anything you're 180 degrees on the wrong side of that one, it was a case of us failing by leaving, not by being there in the first place. For some people America can never get anything right. When we intervene in chaotic nations, we're accused of meddling, but when we stay out of chaotic nations, we're accused of shirking our responsibilities. In the end we can only answer to ourselves.
 

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Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
 
What about Fidel's brother Dennis?

(/stupid Seinfeld reference)
 

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Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
 
It was funny--both Leno and Letterman introduced someone on their shows last night they called their "brother Raul." I think they record their shows about the same time during the day, so this probably was not a case of plagiarism. Just a spontaneous manifestation of events in two separate studios being affected by a "stupidity attractor," in the language of quantum mechanics.

I think it was Leno who got in the best line, something to this effect: "Things could actually get worse in Cuba, when Castro finally passes the torch on to his idiot son, Fidel W. Castro."
 

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Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
DevilDreamt, my objection wasn't to your stance on the embargo, but to the idea that the US should stop caring what goes on in Cuba. The US created the Castro regime through its constant interference during the first half of the twentieth century. Castro was a brutal totalitarian dictator with one of the worst human rights records documented by such groups as Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, and Human Rights Watch. (Not merely "some human rights issues.") We can disagree about what he most effective way to deal with him may be, but I have a real problem with glamorizing him, or minimizing the reasons the US should be upset with him. It goes beyond seizing US property.

-o-

Lyrhawn, I too have long heard that Raul is more brutal than Fidel. The only upside is that he may be, while brutal, less ideologically "pure." He may want trade with the US enough to bend a bit. But he's as big an asshole, and not as intelligent of one.

-o-

The idea of a sizable number of Cuban Americans wanting to emigrate to Cuba after three generations have passed is ludicrous. And where would they live? On their previously stolen property? What of the people who live there now? There are some old Cubans with that pipe dream, but the number is vanishingly small.
 

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Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 

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What happened in Somalia actually wasn't that big a mistake really.

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One of my family members served on the ground in Somalia as a intelligence expert. He disagrees strongly with that assessment.
 

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Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
Here in Trinidad I heard several people yesterday comment on the hypocrisy of Pres. Bush when he called for Cuba to release their political prisoners while the US continues to hold 10 times as many people prisoner without trial in Cuba (Gitmo).

It just goes to show how far respect for the US has fallen in the world. Until we as a US citizens are willing to clean our own house we shouldn't expect anyone in the world to listen to our calls for others to respect human rights.

[ February 20, 2008, 01:30 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
 

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Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
*nod*

It really is important for us to be better, if we want to wear the white hats. I can't believe we seriously debate the merits of preemptive warfare and torture and extraordinary rendition and warrantless surveillance on our own citizens, just because they're expedient. "Winning" is worthless if we have to become more like what we oppose. It just becomes a question of team loyalties then.
 

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Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
That being said, there are, as of August 9, 2007, 355 detainees in Gitmo, while there are 326 known political prisoners in Cuba--and these political prisoners are Cuban citizens, not enemy combatants. Your Trinidadian conversation partners are engaging in pretty wild hyperbole.
 

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Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
According to Amnesty international, Cuba is detaining 58 people they (AI) classify as political prisoners. Where did you get the number 326?

In late 2006, the number of prisoners in Guantanamo was ~500, I hadn't realized that so many had been released during the past 18 months.

The factor of 10 was my paraphrasing of a sentiment expressed by my Trini colleagues, I don't think any of them actually used the number.
 

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Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
I counted the prisoners on this list:

http://www.directorio.org/presos/prisoners_list.php
 

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Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 

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Lyrhawn, I too have long heard that Raul is more brutal than Fidel. The only upside is that he may be, while brutal, less ideologically "pure." He may want trade with the US enough to bend a bit. But he's as big an asshole, and not as intelligent of one.

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One of my family members served on the ground in Somalia as a intelligence expert. He disagrees strongly with that assessment.

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The number in the title (638) is derived from a list compiled by a couple of former members of Castro’s security team (they are among the interviewees). They even go so far as to crunch the numbers by U.S. presidential administration. In case you’re curious, here’s the breakdown (aren’t you glad I take notes?): Eisenhower-38 attempts. Kennedy-42. Johnson-72. Nixon-184. Carter-64. Reagan-197 (Ding Ding! We have a winner!). Bush (the 1st)-16. Clinton-21. (We assume they haven’t had a chance to tally the latest Bush’s numbers, although Cannell slyly bookends his film with footage of Junior’s embarrassingly smug and condescending “Cuba libre!” proclamation.)

The film begins its timeline in 1959, the year that the CIA received the first official go-ahead to take Castro out. The initial schemes sound like they were hatched by Wile E. Coyote and his Acme Intelligence Agency. The plans ranged from relatively benign subversion (making his beard fall out, spraying a TV station with LSD while Castro was on air, a contingency to accuse Cuba of zapping John Glenn’s space capsule with “magnetic rays,” had Glenn not made it back to Earth) to more ominous (a poisoned diving suit, booby trapping shellfish in Castro’s favorite scuba diving spot with dynamite, and most famously, planting poisoned and/or exploding cigars into his humidor).

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While in the Marines, Oswald was trained in the use of the M1 Garand rifle. Following that training, he was tested in December of 1956, and obtained a score of 212, which was 2 points above the minimum for qualifications as a sharpshooter.

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B) there was a massive Oak tree blocking the way.

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Originally posted by Xavier:

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While in the Marines, Oswald was trained in the use of the M1 Garand rifle. Following that training, he was tested in December of 1956, and obtained a score of 212, which was 2 points above the minimum for qualifications as a sharpshooter.

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-Wikipedia

It also took him three shots. The history channel did a simulation of the shot, and their shooter got him in one.

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B) there was a massive Oak tree blocking the way.

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Oak tree in the way? OMG! No one has thought of that before! Somehow the thousands of investigators missed the giant tree in the way! Alert the media!

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I also would like to ask how a bullet is capable of a U turn in mid air.

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A Discovery Channel special "Unsolved History: JFK — Beyond the Magic Bullet", attempted to replicate, as well as possible, the conditions of that day. The participants set up blocks of ballistics gel with a substance similar to human bone inside. These studies showed that largely undeformed bullets were possible to produce, if they were slowed by a passage though a tissue-like substance before striking bone. Next, two mannequin figures made of ballistic anatomical substances (animal skin, gelatin, and interior bone-like cast) were set up in the exact relative position of JFK and Connally. A marksman, from a distance equal to that of the sixth floor of the Book Depository building, fired the same rifle model found in the Book Depository, using a round from the same batch of "Western Case Cartridge Company" 6.5x52 mm ammunition purchased with the surplus Carcano weapon in early 1963. The path of their single bullet (followed by high speed photography) duplicated, almost exactly, the wounds suffered by the victims that day, the only difference being that the bullet did not quite have enough energy to penetrate the "thigh" substance in front of the Connally figure, because it struck an extra bone in the "rib" model (i.e., it fractured 2 ribs in the model vs. one rib in Connally). It was also slightly more deformed than CE 399, possibly for the same reason. However, this bullet came close enough to duplicating all wounds in both men with a single shot, with a bullet having little deformation. Thus the theory was proven to be much more plausible than previously thought.

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In 1993 a computer animator named Dale Myers embarked on a 10-year project to completely render the events of November 22 in 3D computer animation. His results were shown as part of ABC's documentary The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy in 2003, and won an Emmy award.

To render his animation, Myers took photographs, home footage, blueprints and plans, and used them to create arguably the most accurate computer re-creation of events to that time. His work was assessed by Z-Axis who have been involved in producing computer generated animations of events, processes and concepts for major litigations in the United States and Europe.

Their assessment concluded that Myers' animation allowed the assassination sequence to be viewed "from any point of view with absolute geometric integrity" and that they "believe that the thoroughness and detail incorporated into his work is well beyond that required to present a fair and accurate depiction." [31]

Myers' animation found that the bullet wounds were consistent with JFK's and Governor Connally's positions at the time of shooting, and that by following the bullet's trajectory backwards could be found to have originated from a narrow cone including only a few windows of the sixth floor of the School Book Depository, one of which was the sniper's nest of boxes from which the rifle barrel had been seen protruding by witnesses.

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I also would like to ask how a bullet is capable of a U turn in mid air.

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