Snakes on a Base! In the wake of today's announcement that Raul Castro will be 'temporarily' taking power in Cuba while Big Brother (did I say that?) has an operation for some GI bleeding, The Smoking Gun has published some declassified Spec Ops planning cover sheets from the 60s and 70, listing plans to destabilize Cuba. Operation Bingo, on page 3, is especially amusing.
posted by baylink
on Aug 1, 2006 -
15 comments
The U.S. Supreme Court has just ruled
President Bush overstepped his authority in creating military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees. The 5-3 vote (Roberts recused himself) found the "military commissions" illegal under both military justice law and the Geneva Convention. More from
SCOTUSblog.
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Jun 29, 2006 -
191 comments
The Road to Guantanamo , the latest film by prolific UK director Michael Winterbottom, details the experiences of the
Tipton Three (previously discussed
here), a trio of British Muslims who stumbled into US custody in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 and ended up spending two years in Gitmo. The film tells a powerful if
somewhat one-sided story of naivety, incompetence and rank injustice.
Last night the film was shown on Britain's Channel 4 to an
estimated 1.6 million viewers, and it was the talk of the Berlin Film Festival a couple of weeks ago. In a bizarre twist, on their return from attending the premiere of the film in Berlin, the Tipton Three and the actors who played them were
arrested and interrogated about terrorism links. Luckily for them, this time their captivity was measured in hours, not years.
posted by LondonYank
on Mar 10, 2006 -
23 comments
Weathering the Storm: Lessons in Hurricane Risk Reduction from Cuba [pdf] Oxfam America report described Cuba's community-based response system in April 2004, five months before category 5 hurricane Ivan tore across the island but resulted in zero deaths. From
Medicc Review: "Of those evacuated, fully 78%...were sheltered in the homes of family, friends or neighbors. 8,026 tourists were transferred to safe areas. 359,644 boarding school students were transferred to their homes. 898,160 farm animals in vulnerable areas were moved to safer ground." The International Red Cross had
similar praise for Cuba's planning after Hurricane Michelle in 2001: " The contrast between events in Cuba and earlier disasters, such as Hurricanes Mitch and Georges in 1998 and the floods in Venezuela in 1999, is enormous."
posted by mediareport
on Sep 6, 2005 -
34 comments
Ibrahim Ferrer has passed. The 78 year old vaulted from relative obscurity - outside of Cuba, at least - to the forefront of the badly and over-generally named "International" or "World Music" scenes when he came out of retirement to perform with a number of past colleagues (including
Compay Segundo and
Ruben Gonzales) as Buena Vista Social Club. A
film, directed by Wim Wenders, and an album made with the help of guitarist
Ry Cooder cemented his position as one of the sweetest voices in
Cuba's rich musical history in the west and elsewhere. He was generally considered one of the greatest masters of the traditional
son and
bolero styles.
posted by luriete
on Aug 7, 2005 -
36 comments
Che Guevara: The Killing Machine
Che's lust for power had other ways of expressing itself besides murder. The contradiction between his passion for travel--a protest of sorts against the of the nation-state--and his impulse to become himself an enslaving state over others is poignant. In writing about Pedro Valdivia, the conquistador of Chile, Guevara reflected: "He belonged to that special class of men the species produces every so often, in whom a craving for limitless power is so extreme that any suffering to achieve it seems natural." He might have been describing himself.
posted by highsignal
on Jul 12, 2005 -
82 comments
Torture and Truth and
The Logic of Torture--Mark Danner writes about
Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade (The Taguba Report) and
Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest, Internment and Interrogation in the former and concludes thusly in the latter:
Behind the exotic brutality so painstakingly recorded in Abu Ghraib, and the multiple tangled plotlines that will be teased out in the coming weeks and months about responsibility, knowledge, and culpability, lies a simple truth, well known but not yet publicly admitted in Washington: that since the attacks of September 11, 2001, officials of the United States, at various locations around the world, from Bagram in Afghanistan to Guantanamo in Cuba to Abu Ghraib in Iraq, have been torturing prisoners. (More Within)
posted by y2karl
on Jun 4, 2004 -
16 comments
Coast Guard pulls over floating, propeller equipped '59 Buick driving to Miami - manned by Cuban refugees. "For four of the 11 people on board, it was not the first thwarted attempt to leave the communist island in a bizarrely converted vintage vehicle." (from
ABC news) Last year, they tried to do the same thing in a converted '51 Chevy Truck:
"The crew members of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter could not believe their eyes...Chugging along at a steady 13 kilometres per hour in the Straits of Florida was a bright-green 1951 Chevrolet truck...." (link to story, as reprinted in Free Republic, alas ) Sadly, the Coast Guard sunk the Buick - which looked a bit like a WW2 amphibious landing craft.
Here's a picture, on the blog of a Christian Evangelical (scroll down for story) who argues that the refugees are worthy of a special exception to US immigration laws, for their pluck and innovative brilliance.
posted by troutfishing
on Feb 7, 2004 -
25 comments
The Internet is now basically banned and controlled for all but the elite in Cuba.
In Iran, an unelected body has eliminated hundreds of reformist candidates from the general elections. That's what stiffling of dissent looks like. Stare it in the face, and ask your politicians and NGOs and friends to raise their voices against it as loud as they did against the war in Iraq. Promote freedom for people just like you around the world in a nonviolent way. (And I'm not talking about writing Bush to ask for Regime Change)
posted by swerdloff
on Jan 11, 2004 -
19 comments
A View From The Bridge: Or
Death Of A Salesman, perhaps? Hey, even
The Crucible, at a stretch!
Arthur Miller on Cuba, Castro and the U.S. embargo. Honesty and clarity refreshingly transcend the usual socialist/liberal/conservative divide. Or, at the very least, a damn good read from one of our (i.e. the world's) greatest dramatists. [
Via Arts & Letters Daily. Click here for the text-only version. ]
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Jan 5, 2004 -
25 comments
Copyright to the Revolution (translation): "On Wednesday, 9 July 2003, the superior court of Paris banned a poster campaign launched by the group
Reporters Without Borders to protest the totalitarian policies of Cuba. This campaign, designed by the agency
Rampazzo & Associates, was built around an iconic image of Ernesto Che Guevara, inspired by the original image by the Cuban photographer [Alberto]
Korda.
The decision came in
a suit brought by Diane Diaz Lopez, the late photographer's daughter, accusing the organization of misappropriating the original image taken by her father."
The poster reads: "
Welcome to Cuba, the world's largest prison for journalists." Korda had sued in 2000 to prevent use of the image in an
Absolut vodka campaign. An article at
Uzine (French) shows how the image in question was composited.
posted by hairyeyeball
on Jul 16, 2003 -
25 comments
Further Iranian Oppression. The "government" of Iran has evidently teamed up with Cuba in efforts to further suppress the growing democratic movement in Iran by jamming pro-democracy satellite broadcasts. Two un-elected governments combining forces to make sure that
their will is enforced, not that of their citizens.
posted by jsonic
on Jul 12, 2003 -
62 comments
Cuba is best known for its
legendary cigars and
bearded dictators, but it's also home to some of the healthiest ecosystems in the Caribbean.
Pygmy owls,
bee hummingbirds, and
solenodons share the islands of Cuba with
tiny tiny tree frogs,
trogons, and
one of the largest groups of snails in the world. There are problems, though. Many species such as the
giant cursorial owl, the
ivory-billed woodpecker and the
smallest of the giant sloths have been wiped out over the last 5,000 years, and
other species are threatened.
posted by bshort
on May 23, 2003 -
8 comments
HBO has decided to "shelf" Oliver Stone's
documentary on Fidel Castro on the basis that the documentary
depicts Castro without judgement. Should documentary filmmaking be a "true journalistic endeavor" as the article suggests?
posted by ericrolph
on Apr 17, 2003 -
26 comments
Is Cuba Next? As long as you're cleaning up for Poppy, why not clean up for the Democrat's martyred Sun King at the same time?
posted by alms
on Apr 11, 2003 -
29 comments
An American Tragedy: No
habanos; no
Havana Club; not even a
dram of that lovely new rummy
Glenfiddich malt whisky! Although the embargo is still popular with the Jesse Helms crowd and certain
Cuban immigrés,
resistence is
higher than
ever. Why does it go on? From the outside, it just looks like obstinate stupidity. What is it with the Democrats, especially? Are they still covering up for JFK's mistakes? He, at least, had a
good stock of Cuban cigars [
well, Petit Uppmanns...] with which to sit the
crisis out... What gives? What could possibly justify Americans
missing out on such a massive scale? If for the pleasure of a decent smoke or even proper
mojito or
daiquiri alone?
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Mar 9, 2003 -
22 comments
Betting on Mini-Cows "ROCKWELL, Iowa -- Dustin Pillard is betting his farm on compact cows...Pillard has 50 tiny cows on his northern Iowa farm" MEANWHILE..."In a May dispatch from Cuba, the Wall Street Journal reported that Fidel Castro proposed in 1987 to alleviate a chronic milk shortage by trying to get his scientists to clone the most productive cows, shrunk to the size of dogs so that each family could keep one inside it's apartment. The cows would feed on grass grown inside under fluorescent lights."
Now I'd like a mini-polar bear, please, and a mini-elephant, while you're at it...
posted by troutfishing
on Dec 28, 2002 -
18 comments
Leniency for Terrorists
CIA memorandums strongly suggest, according to Bardach's book, that Bosch was one of the conspirators, and quotes the then secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, as writing that the "US government had been planning to suggest Bosch's deportation before Cubana airlines crash took place for his suspected involvement in other terrorist acts and violation of his parole".
Bosch's release, often referred to in the US media as a pardon, was the result of pressure brought by hardline Cubans in Miami, with Jeb Bush serving as their point man. Bosch now lives in Miami and remains unrepentant about his militant activities, according to Bardach.
Is there a double standard at work regarding terrorists?
posted by nofundy
on Dec 2, 2002 -
26 comments
"All it takes is a snowball," he said, "to start an avalanche." Vaclav Havel
speaks to Cuban exiles.
posted by swell
on Sep 29, 2002 -
10 comments
Jimmy Carter made history today being the first U.S. President [in or out of office] to visit Cuba since
1959. At the initial press conference Mr. Carter switched from English to Spanish, in reverence to his
host [his Spanish was actually pretty good]. What can Mr. Carter
hope to achieve this week and how does his action [albeit as a private citizen] affect the current administration?
posted by plemeljr
on May 12, 2002 -
11 comments
Beyond the Axis of Evil - The United States has added Cuba, Libya and Syria to its "axis of evil" - nations it claims are deliberately seeking to obtain chemical or biological weapons. The Under Secretary of State also warned that the US would take action.
posted by Stuart_R
on May 6, 2002 -
53 comments
Canadian faces jail in U.S. for trade with Cuba. James Sabzali faces trial on 77 accounts of of conspiracy and of trading with the enemy, nearly half of which relate to buisness conducted when Sabzali was working in Canada. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Poluka concedes that while living in Hamilton the defendant was "technically not subject to jurisdiction.", but maintains that "foreign nationals cannot aid and abet violations of U.S. law." Does this mean the United States has an open licence to prosecute foreigners for acts committed against American laws on foriegn soil?
posted by astirling
on Apr 2, 2002 -
15 comments
Send Them Packing! That's right -- the uninformed opinions of well-known Hollywood actors have grated on you for years. They seem to love Cuba more than America. Well, with the click of a mouse, you can buy them a ticket! [more inside]
posted by dhartung
on Mar 20, 2002 -
46 comments
They just wont let it lie. What posses these people to keep fighting against overwhelming odds.I can see what they are against but for the life of me I cannot see what they are for.Couple of points near the bottom of the piece are interesting.IHave I been asleep or has the killing of innocents on 23 January been underreported.Does the fact that small raids have led to arrest interrogation and subsequent
release answer my own question?
I am perplexed,are there any good guys?
posted by Fat Buddha
on Mar 2, 2002 -
10 comments
A sunken megalithic city, perhaps 6,000 years old, has been sonar-photographed with an underwater sub, off the coast of Cuba, 2100 feet down. Well, at least they didn't describe it as 'cyclopean'. Nor is there any word on whether its architectural angles are
non-Euclidean. [More inside]
posted by Slithy_Tove
on Dec 9, 2001 -
23 comments
How to survive extreme natural events. International
project promoting understanding disasters from the "roots" up, and preventing disasters from the "bottom up" as well as the "top down". Whatever you think of his politics, this project should be encouraged.
posted by asok
on Nov 21, 2001 -
5 comments
