Viva Fidel, Viva Che, Viva Gonzalo!!!

Someone Should Give Lil' Caesar a Drink
The Pathology of George Bush

By FIDEL CASTRO

On this 51st anniversary of the attack on the Moncada
fortress on July 26, 1953 I shall address a sinister
character that keeps threatening, insulting and
slandering us. This is not a whim or an agreeable
option; it is a necessity and a duty.

On June 21, at the Anti-imperialist Forum I read
Epistle Number Two to the president of the United
States, responding to an infamous State Department
report on trafficking in human beings, one of those
reports the government of that country usually issues,
as if it were the supreme moral judge of the world. In
that document Cuba is accused of being one of the
countries that promotes sexual tourism and child
pornography.

Hardly two weeks went by, and instead of keeping a
decent silence about the irrefutable truth contained
in the Epistle, the wire services brought news of an
election speech by Bush in Tampa, Florida containing
new, more perfidious accusations and insults, the
clearly aimed at slandering Cuba and justifying the
threats of aggression and the brutal measures that
they had just taken against our people.

The French press agency AFP reported the following
from Tampa on July 16:

"President George Bush launched a harsh attack on
Cuba when he defined it as 'a major destination for
sex tourism' and said that the United States has a
special duty to lead a world struggle against human
trafficking for forced labour or sexual purposes."

"Cuba is one of the 10 countries cited by the
State Department in a report issued in June in which
it lists the governments which tolerate human
trafficking or fail to fight this crime."

"The regime of Fidel Castro has turned Cuba into a
major destination for sex tourism replacing Southeast
Asia as a destination for pedophiles and sex tourists
from the United Sates and Canada," Bush claimed.

"At a conference in Tampa, Florida, the president
pointed to Cuba as one of the worst offenders in this
area."

"Sex tourism is a vital source of hard currency to
keep his corrupt government afloat," he claimed.

"Bush said that putting an end to human
trafficking will be an essential part of his foreign
policy."

"The traffic in human beings brings shame and
suffering to our country and we shall lead the fight
against it," he promised.

"You are in a fight against evil, and the American
people are grateful for your dedication and service,"
he told those at the conference.

"Human life is the gift of our Creator and it
should never be for sale."

A dispatch from the Spanish press agency EFE
indicated:

"We also face a problem only 90 miles off our
shores, Bush said in Florida."

"He quoted a study which found that Cuba has
"replaced Southeast Asia as a destination for
pedophiles and sex tourists."

"As restrictions on travel to Cuba were eased
during the 1990s, the study found an influx of
American and Canadian tourists contributed to a sharp
increase in child prostitution in Cuba."

"My administration is working toward a
comprehensive solution of this problem: The rapid,
peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba."

"We have put a strategy in place to hasten the day
when no Cuban child is exploited to finance a failed
revolution and every Cuban citizen will live in
freedom."

"Bush said that 'Human life is the gift of our
Creator and it should never be for sale."

"It takes a special kind of depravity to exploit
and hurt the most vulnerable members of society. Human
traffickers rob children of their innocence; they
expose them to the worst of life before they have seen
much of life. Traffickers tear families apart. They
treat their victims as nothing more than goods and
commodities for sale to the highest bidder."

And to top off this odd news, the same press
dispatch added some words spoken by John Ashcroft in
his speech introducing Bush to the National Training
Conference on Human Trafficking:

"In the 19th Century President Abraham Lincoln
held firm to a vision of freedom for all and was
rightly called the great emancipator."

"In the 21st Century we have a great leader who
has made us see that liberty is not a gift from the
United States to the world but a gift to humanity from
the Almighty."

Another wire report from the English news agency
Reuters read:

"Friday, the US president accused the Cuban
president of having turned his Caribbean island into a
sex tourism destination and of contributing to the
world problem of human trafficking".

The Italian press agency ANSA reported:

"The regime in Havana is adding to its crimes: it
welcomes sex tourism", said Bush who even repeated a
supposed quote by Castro, 'Cuba has the cleanest and
most educated prostitutes in the world.'"

Later, wire services have reported that the quotation
of something I supposedly said on this subject, which
the US President used in the Tampa speech I just
mentioned to back up his serious accusations, was
taken from a paper on Cuba written by Charles Turnbull
a law student from Vanderbilt University in the United
States who has emphatically stated that Bush's speech
misconstrued the real meaning of a sentence included
in his work, and clarified this and other matters in
the following way:

"Prostitution boomed in the Caribbean nation after
the collapse of the Soviet Union..."

"Castro, who had outlawed prostitution when he
took power in 1959, initially had few resources to
combat it. But beginning in 1996, Cuban authorities
began to crack down on the practice."

"Although it still exists, it is far less visible
and it would be inaccurate to say the government
promotes it".

On Monday, July 19, Bush administration officials
admitted they had no other source for the quote except
the paper written by the aforementioned student.

Given the fact that it was shown that the US President
had launched an extremely grave accusation based on a
sentence found in a paper written by an American
student, who himself refuted the deliberate way Bush
misconstrued it, it's hard to imagine a more bizarre
response than that given by a Whitehouse spokesperson
when told about this refutation.

According to the news agency report, the spokesperson
simply, "...defended the inclusion [of the sentence]
arguing that it expressed an essential truth about
Cuba", in other words, for the White House "the
essential truth about Cuba" is anything that the
president conjures up in his mind whether it has
anything to do with reality or not.

This is exactly the kind of fundamentalist approach
that the President constantly resorts to when there
are more than enough data, arguments, truth, reasons,
and facts on a particular subject but the only
determining factor is the idea he has in his mind or
the idea that suits him: anything becomes the absolute
and irrefutable truth simply because Mr. Bush imagines
it to be so.

Many people in the world who know very little about
the Cuban Revolution might fall victim to the lies and
tricks the US government spreads through the huge
media available to it.

But there are many others, especially in poor
countries who are aware of what the Cuban revolution
is about, of its marked dedication, from the very
beginning, to provide education and healthcare
services to all its children and the whole population;
its spirit of solidarity that has led it to cooperate
selflessly with dozens of Third World countries; its
strict adherence to the highest moral values, its
ethical principles, its lofty concept of the dignity
and honour of its homeland and its people for which
Cuban revolutionaries have always been willing to give
up their lives. There is no doubt that these many
friends, all over the world, will be wondering how it
is possible that such unspeakable, foul slander is
hurled against Cuba.

This obliges me to give a most serious and honest
explanation of the causes, which in my view, give rise
to these inconceivable, irresponsible statements by
the President of the most powerful nation on the
planet, the same who is threatening to wipe the Cuban
revolution from the face of the Earth.

I shall do this as objectively as possible, making no
arbitrary statements or shamelessly misconstruing
other people's words, sentences and concepts. I shall
avoid any petty sentiment of vengeance or personal
dislike.

A theme that has been widely documented in several
books by outstanding American scientific authors and
other personalities is the current US President's
alcoholism which lasted two decades when he was
between 20 and 40 years old. This feature has been
rigorously and impressively dealt with, from a
psychiatric point of view and using scientific
criteria, by Dr. Justin A. Frank in a now famous book
called "Bush on the Couch".

Dr. Frank begins by saying that it is important to
scientifically define whether Bush was an alcoholic,
or if he still is one. He has literally said:

"... the more pressing question involves the
influence his years of heavy drinking and subsequent
abstinence still have on him and those around him".
(p.39)

He goes on to explain and I quote verbatim:

"Alcoholism is a potentially fatal, lifelong
disease that is notoriously difficult to arrest
permanently" (p. 40)

Later, referring to the man who is now President of
the United States, he says:

"Bush has said publicly that he quit drinking
without the help of AA (an organization dedicated to
helping alcoholics) or any substance abuse programme,
claiming that he stopped forever with the assistance
of such spiritual tools as bible study and
conversations with the evangelist Billy Graham".

On page 40 of the book he recounts that, according to
ex-presidential speech writer David Frum, when Bush
took over the Oval office he summoned a group of
religious leaders, asked for their prayers and told
them:

"There is only one reason that I am in the Oval
Office and not a bar... I found faith, I found God. I
am here because of the power of prayer".

Dr. Frank thinks that this statement might be true and
goes on to say the following:

"...surely all Americans would like to believe
that the president no longer drinks, even if we have
no way of knowing for certain. If so, he fits the
profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been
arrested but not treated".

He then adds:

" Former drinkers who abstain without the benefit
of the AA program are often referred to as "dry
drunks", a label that has been bandied about on the
Internet and elsewhere in reference to Bush. "Dry
drunk" isn't a medical term, and not one I use in a
clinical setting. But even without labelling Bush as
such, it's hard to ignore the many troubling elements
of his character among the traits that the recovery
literature associates with the condition, including
grandiosity, judgmentalism, intolerance, detachment,
denial of responsibility, a tendency toward
over-reaction and an aversion to introspection." (p.
41)

Dr. Frank insists that he personally has treated
alcoholics who held their addiction in check without
proper treatment but that they are generally not very
successful in learning to control the anxiety that
they once tried to suppress by drinking and he
explains that:

"Their rigid attempts to manage anxiety make any
psychological insight hard-won. Some can't even face
the anxiety of admitting their alcoholism.

Dr. Frank then goes on to say:

"Without that admission, I have found, even former
drinkers cannot truly change, or learn from their own
experience".

And then referring to Bush specifically he argues the
following:

"The pattern of blame and denial, which recovering
alcoholics work so hard to break, seems to be
ingrained in the alcoholic personality; it's rarely
limited to his or her drinking. The habit of placing
blame and denying responsibility is so prevalent in
George W. Bush's personal history that it is
apparently triggered by even the mildest threat"

"... The rigidity of Bush's behaviour is perhaps
most readily apparent in his well-documented reliance
on his daily routines--the famously short meetings,
sacrosanct exercise schedule, daily Bible readings,
and limited office hours. A healthy person is able to
alter his routine; a rigid one cannot". (p.43)

"Of course"--the eminent US doctor goes on, and I
quote--"we all need rest and relaxation, time to
regroup, but Bush appears to need it more than most.
And this is hardly a surprise--among other reasons,
because the anxiety of being president might pose a
real risk of leading him back to drinking." (p. 43)

"Along with rigid routines go rigid thought
processes--another hallmark of the Bush presidency. We
see it in the stubborn, almost obsessive way in which
he holds on to ideas and plans after they have been
discredited, from his image of himself as a "uniter,
not a divider" to his conviction that Iraq held
weapons of mass destruction (or, in absence of such
weapons, that somehow "America did the right thing in
Iraq" nevertheless). Such rigidity of thought is not
motivated by simple stubbornness; the untreated
alcoholic, consumed with the task of managing the
anxieties that might make him reach for a drink,
simply can't tolerate any threat to his status quo".

And Dr. Frank adds that such intolerance generally
leads to responses that are out of proportion to the
magnitude of the actual threat.

"This may help to explain the dramatic contrast
between George W's response to Saddam Hussein and that
of his father, who carefully built a coalition, took
action only after Kuwait had been invaded, and then
proceeded with prudence and caution once the fighting
was underway-- the behaviour of a seasoned leader who
knew he was responsible for countless others' lives,
not an alcoholic accustomed to taking dramatic
measures to protect his own."

Continuing his analysis, Dr. Frank indicates:

"Two questions that the press seems particularly
determined to ignore have hung silently in the air
since before Bush took office: Is he still drinking?
And if not, is he impaired by all the years he did
spend drinking? Both questions need to be addressed in
any serious assessment of his psychological state".
(p.48)

With regard to the first question, he points out the
possibility that Bush is managing his anxiety with
medication to keep him off alcohol and he makes
special reference to his strange behaviour at press
conferences. On this point he says:

"In writing about Bush's halting appearance in a
press conference just before the start of the Iraq
War, Washington Post media critic Tom Shales
speculated that "the president may have been ever so
slightly medicated".

"More troubling though, are the appearances that
arouse suspicion not because of how he talks but what
he says. He has repeatedly engaged in confabulation,
filling in gaps in his memory with what he believes
are facts--most notably on July 14, 2003, when he
stood next to Kofi Annan and made up the idea that
America had given Saddam "a chance to allow the
inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in". (As the
Washington Post noted, "Hussein had, in fact, admitted
the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their
work because he did not believe them effective".
Confabulation is a common phenomenon among drinkers,
as is perseveration, which is evident in Bush's
tendency to repeat key words and phrases, as if the
repetition helps him remain calm and stay on track."
(p. 49)

And Dr. Frank concludes his analysis of these two
questions with the following words:

"Even if we assume, moreover, that George W.
Bush's drinking days are behind him, the question
remains how much lasting damage may have been done
before he stopped--beyond the considerable impact on
his personality that we can trace to his untreated
abstinence. Any comprehensive psychological or
psychoanalytical study of President Bush would have to
explore how much the brain and its functions are
changed by more than twenty years of heavy drinking.
In a recent study out of the University of
California/San Francisco Medical Centre, researchers
found that heavy drinkers who do not call themselves
alcoholics reveal that "their level of drinking
constitutes a problem that warrants treatment". The
study found that the heavy drinkers in its sample were
"significantly impaired" on measures of working
memory, processing speed, attention, executive
function and balance. Serious research about long-term
recovery from alcohol abuse is still underway. Science
has established that alcohol itself is toxic to the
brain, both to its anatomy (as the brain gets smaller
and fissures between and around the hemisphere get
larger) and to its neurophysiology. But recovery does
occur with continued sobriety, extending over a
five-year period for many alcoholics. Bush claims to
have been sober for more that fifteen years, and very
well may have improved to pre-alcohol levels. However,
even chronic alcoholics who recover their compromised
mental functions often suffer lingering damage to
their ability to process new information. Important
neuropsychological functions are impaired: The new
information is essentially put into a file that is
lost in the brain.

"Former heavy drinkers often have trouble
distinguishing between relevant and inconsequential
information. They also may lose some of their ability
to maintain concentration. All one has to do to
observe Bush's inattention is watch him listening to a
speech given by someone else, watch his behaviour at
times on the campaign trail, or consider the obviously
desperate effort he makes to retain focus in every
speech he gives." (p.50)

Finally, Dr. Frank points out that Bush would reduce
the fear of many Americans by submitting himself to
psychological tests that could scientifically measure
the effects of alcoholism on his brain function and
warns:

"Otherwise, we are left to suspect--with
reason--that our president may be impaired in his
ability to make sense of complex ideas and briefings"
(p. 51)

And he ends up by saying:

"We all may be a little afraid to find out: after
all, he has already held office for three years and
has led our nation into war. But if we fail to do so,
the consequences may indict every one of us". (p. 51)

Another aspect discussed in depth and in detail by Dr.
Justin A. Frank in this book, "Bush on the Couch", is
that of President Bush's religious fundamentalism.

Dr. Frank explains how, in trying to find relief from
the internal chaos that drink sometimes appeased but
eventually intensified, Bush may have found in
religion a source of peace, not totally different from
that given by alcohol, as well as a set of rules which
help him to manage both the external world and his
inner spiritual world.

He suggests that an analysis of the role of
fundamentalism in Bush's life would show that one of
the many ways that Bush employs religion as a defence
mechanism is by using it as a substitute for illegal
substances and says that Bush uses religion to
simplify and even replace thought so that, to a
certain extent, he does not even need to think. He
adds that Bush, by putting himself on the side of
good--on God's side--places himself above mundane
discussion and debate. Religion serves as a shield to
protect him from challenges, including those that he
himself would otherwise create.

Dr. Frank wonders how Bush reached this point and then
explains that, the Bush family tradition has long been
fuelled by faith, by the belief in a God linked
closely to moral rectitude but he makes this
distinction:

"Yet President Bush's religious orientation
represents an important departure from his family.
Though certain aspects of the family tradition have
been maintained--notably the formality of religious
participation--his mid-life conversion to a more
fundamentalist approach stands in dramatic contrast to
the spiritual life of his father..." (p.56)

"And a review of the events leading up to Bush's
conscious embrace of fundamentalism shows that it
clearly occurred at a moment when he was reaching for
solutions, in a time of almost desperate need."

Dr Frank goes on to explain that fundamentalist
religions narrow the universe of opportunities and
divide the world into good and bad, in absolute terms
that leave no space for questioning and on this point
he argues:

"The view of the self is similarly simplified.
Just as fundamentalist creationist teachings deny
history, the fundamentalist notion of conversion or
rebirth encourages the believer to see himself as
disconnected from history. George W. Bush's evasive,
self-serving defence of his life before he was born
again displays just this tendency. "It doesn't do any
good to inventory the mistakes I made when I was
young", he has insisted. "I think the way ... to
answer questions about specific behaviour is to remind
people that when I was young and irresponsible, I was
young and irresponsible. I changed..." To the
believer, the power of spiritual absolution not only
erases the sins of the past, but divorces the current
self from the historical sinner". (p.60)

Dr. Frank makes it clear that there is nothing
inherently unnatural in the fact that Bush seeks
protection from his faith and that, even when this
makes him stronger, the rigidity of his thought and
speech patterns and of his agenda point to a
considerable fragility. He explains that Bush's fear
of everything--from disagreement to terrorist
attacks--are sometimes painfully visible, even (or
especially) through his denials and that he is a man
desperately seeking protection. Dr. Frank wonders:
"But what is George W. Bush so eager to protect
himself against?" and he answers the question with the
following analysis:

"His tightly held belief system shields him from
challenges to his ideas--from critics and opponents,
but, more important, from himself. Just beneath the
surface, it's hard not to believe that he suffers from
an innate fear of falling apart, a fear too terrifying
for him to confront." (p.64)

"For someone so desperate not to lose his way,
clinging to a belief (or even a few key phrases), and
sticking to them, is yet another way to protect
against falling apart. President Bush's press
conferences have offered disturbing evidence of this
ongoing anxiety--evidence so unmistakable that it's
little wonder that the White House has proven so
hesitant to schedule such events at all. After one
particularly disastrous performance in July 2003, the
Slate political columnist Timothy Noah noted that:
"Bush seemed jangled"; in a damning editorial the
following day, the New York Times noted that the
president's answers were "vague and sometimes nearly
incoherent"--suggesting, perceptively, that Bush was
"bedazzled by his administration's own mythmaking"

He gives some examples of phrases Bush used repeatedly
during that press conference:

"And so we're making progress. It's slowly but
surely making progress of bringing the--those who
terrorize their fellow citizens to justice, and making
progress about convincing the Iraqi people that
freedom is real. And as they become more convinced
that freedom is real, they'll begin to assume more
responsibilities that are required in a free
society...

"And the threat is a real threat. It's a threat
that where--we obviously don't have specific data, we
don't know when, where, what. But we do know a couple
of things...obviously, we're talking to foreign
governments and foreign airlines to indicate to them
the reality of the threat...

"I don't know how close we are to getting Saddam
Hussein. You know--it's closer that we were yesterday,
I guess. All I know is we're on the hunt. It's like if
you had asked me right before we got his sons how
close we were to get his sons, I'd say, I don't know,
but we're on the hunt.

"Well first of all, the war on terror goes on, as
I continually remind people... The threat that you
asked about, Steve, reminds us that we need to be on
the hunt, because the war on terror goes on...

"I just described to you that there is a threat to
the United States. There is no doubt in my mind,
Campbell, that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the
United States' security, and a threat to peace in the
region...

"Saddam Hussein was a threat. The United Nations
viewed him as a threat. That's why they passed twelve
resolutions. Predecessors of mine viewed him as a
threat. We gathered a lot of intelligence. That
intelligence was good, sound intelligence on which I
made a decision... (pp. 65-66)

And Dr. Frank goes on to say:

"So powerful are his fears that he can't even face
them. His infamous early advice to Americans less than
two weeks after 9/11--when he told Americans to
continue to shop and travel as before, in apparent
denial of the radical measures he was at the same time
taking in response to the nation's newfound
vulnerability--suggests just how simplistically he
viewed the situation, closing himself off to worry and
anxiety. Compare his response to that of New York's
mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, who faced his fears, rolled
up his sleeves and got to work--making people feel far
safer than Bush's stilted denial ever did.

"Bush has continued to cite divine instruction to
explain his actions since assuming office. As reported
in Israel's Haaretz News, Bush said, "God told me to
strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he
instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did".

Finally, Dr. Frank offers these thoughts:

"The Biblical struggle of good and evil has
resonated throughout his discourse since 9/11, from
his repeated use of the term "crusade" to his
characterisation of the terrorists as "evildoers" and
grouping of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the "Axis of
Evil". At the same time, he presents the United States
as nothing more that a nation of wholly innocent
victims.

"In externalizing evil in this way, while
absolving America of responsibility, Bush has
transformed his unintegrated infantile worldview into
a starkly combative (and primitive) foreign policy.

"Bush's rhetoric"--Dr. Frank
concludes--"highlights how he identifies the concepts
of himself as president with both God and America: for
him these three appear to have become somewhat
interchangeable. Unable to mourn the dead of 9/11
enough to allow for a full investigation of how it
happened--and what responsibility we might have
had--he blindly attacks the "enemy" he perceives to be
everywhere, a terrorist suddenly hiding under rock".

In his book "Stupid White Men", Michael Moore points
out that Bush exhibits obvious symptoms of not being
able to read at an adult level and writes the
following as part of an open letter to Bush:

"1. George, are you able to read and write on an
adult level?

"It appears to me and many others that, sadly, you
may be a functional illiterate. This is nothing to be
ashamed of... Millions of Americans cannot read and
write above a fourth grade level.

"But let me ask you this: if you have trouble
comprehending the complex position papers you are
handed as the Leader of the Mostly-Free World, how can
we entrust something like our nuclear secrets to you?

"All the signs of illiteracy area there--and
apparently no one has challenged you about them. The
first clue was what you named as your favourite
childhood book, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", you
said.

"Unfortunately, that book wasn't even published
until a year after you graduated from college."

"One thing is clear to everyone--you can't speak
the English language in sentences we can comprehend.

"If you are going to be Commander-in-Chief, you
have to be able to communicate your orders. What if
these little slip-ups keep happening? Do you know how
easy it would be to turn a little faux pas into a
national-security nightmare?

"Your aides say that you don't (can't?) read the
briefing papers they give you, and that you ask them
to read them for you or to you."

"Please , don't take any of this personally.
Perhaps it's a learning disability. Some sixty million
Americans have learning disabilities".

In his book "Against All Enemies", Richard Clarke
writes that when Bush got to the White House, "Early
on we were told that the president is not a big
reader".

Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War" tells that, in a
National Security Council meeting during the
Afghanistan war, Bush said: "I don't read the
editorial pages. I don't --the hyperventilation that
tends to take place around those cables, every expert
and every former colonel and all that, is just
background noise".

Thus far I have given a very brief summary of what has
been said on some points by outstanding Americans,
things which help to explain the strange behaviour and
aggressiveness of the US President.

I do not want to elaborate now on more sensitive
issues like those whose exposure cost his life to J.H.
Hatfield, author of the book "Fortunate Son", and
others of great interest analyzed by truly brilliant,
brave, eminent authors.

Mr. Bush's lies and slanders and those of his closest
advisors were fabricated in a hurry to justify the
atrocious measures taken against Cuban-born people
living in the United States who have close family ties
in Cuba.

This outrage, as we warned on June 21, might have
adverse political consequences in Florida which could
play a decisive role in this year's elections. The
idea of a punishment vote is gaining ground among
thousands of Cuban-Americans, many of whom would
normally have voted for Bush.

Hatred and blindness have lead this administration to
take a stupid, immoral action under pressure from the
terrorist mob which gave Bush a fraudulent victory
when he had a million votes less than his rival
nationwide, and a narrow majority of 537 votes in
Florida where thousands of black Americans were
prevented from exercising their right to vote whereas
many dead people 'exercised' theirs. Fifteen or twenty
thousand voters could sink his hopes of re-election.
These brutal measures have also been criticized all
over the country.

The overwhelming majority of those who are members of
or run that terrorist mob--which decided no less a
thing than the election of the President of the United
States--are former Batista supporters and their
descendents; or they are groups who for years have
been involved in the terrorist actions, pirate
attacks, assassination plots against Cuban
revolutionary leaders and all kinds of armed
aggressions against our country; or they were big
landowners and relatives of the upper middle classes
who were affected by revolutionary laws and who
previously had all kinds of privileges and many of
whom have amassed huge fortunes and have gained
influence in important power circles in the US
governments.

Over 90 percent of those who have emigrated from Cuba
since the triumph of the revolution have done so
through normal channels and for economic reasons,
their leaving authorized by the Revolution that placed
no obstacles. But Cuban immigrants were forced to go
under the Caudine Forks of that powerful mafia whose
influence they could not easily ignore.

Unlike many millions of Latin Americans, including
Haitians and other Caribbeans, that emigrate legally
and illegally to the United States and are called
immigrants, Cubans, with no exception whatsoever, are
called exiles.

On the other hand, the absurd Cuban Adjustment Act has
caused the loss of countless Cuban lives by rewarding
and encouraging illegal emigration and giving Cubans
extraordinary privileges that are not granted to
citizens of any other country in the world.

Nevertheless, years ago, even before the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the special period that ensued,
and despite the risk of espionage and terrorist plans
originating in the United States which the measures
entailed, Cuba gave permits to emigres so they could
visit their relatives and their country of origin,
whereas the Bush administration is abruptly closing
the doors because of its fanatical obsession of
bringing Cuba to its knees through economic
suffocation.

And, to that same end of depriving our country of any
income whatsoever, he labels the tourist industry in
Cuba sex tourism and calls those who visit our country
coming from the United States "paedophiles" and
"pleasure seekers".

Mr Bush does not hesitate either in tarring Canadian
tourists with the same brush when everybody knows that
the overwhelming majority of them are pensioners and
senior citizens who, in the company of their
relatives, come to enjoy the exceptional safety and
calm, the politeness, culture and hospitality that
they find in our country.

What would Mr. Bush call the tens of millions of
tourists who visit the United States every year where
casinos, gambling dens, areas of male and female
prostitution and many other activities related to
pornography and sex abound, none of which exist in
Cuba and all of which are alien to the revolutionary
culture of our people?

What would he call the tens of millions of Europeans
who visit Spain every year where many pages in the
papers are used to advertising the names, addresses,
the physical, cultural and intellectual
characteristics and the specialities and individual
gifts to suit all tastes of those who exercise the
age-old profession of prostitution? Would he call the
US and Spanish tourist industries sex tourism?

None of the aforementioned activities take place in
Cuba. However, in the fevered and fundamentalist mind
of the all-powerful gentleman in the White House and
in those of his most intimate advisors, Cuba must now
be "saved" not only from "tyranny", Cuban children
must now be "saved from sexual exploitation and
trafficking in persons" "the world must be freed from
this dreadful problem which takes place 90 miles away
from the United States".

Has no one told him that in Cuba before the triumph of
the revolution in 1959 about 100,000 women were
directly or indirectly involved in prostitution for
reasons of poverty, discrimination and lack of work
and that the Revolution educated these women and found
them jobs, and outlawed the so-called "tolerance
zones" which existed in the pseudo-republic and the
neo-colony installed by the United States?

Has no one told him that the Cuban children, whose
physical, mental and moral health is the number one
priority of the Revolution, are protected by more
severe laws than those of the United States and that
they all attend school, including more than 50,000 who
suffer from mental or physical disabilities and that,
without exceptions, receive specialized care in
special education centres?

Has no one told him that infant mortality is lower in
Cuba than it is in the United States and that it
continues to decrease?

Has no one dared to whisper in his ear that Cuba
occupies an outstanding and internationally recognized
place in education; that health and education services
are free and extend to the whole population; that
today programs are underway in education, health and
culture that will place Cuba far above all the other
countries in the world?

The historic session of the National Assembly of
People's Power held on July 1 and 2, exposed them and
showed how ridiculous is the grotesque over
400-page-long-report which gives an ample account and
full details of the neo-colonial and annexationist
programs the fascist group which begot this disgusting
project propose to implement to the detriment of the
Cuban people and their sovereignty. This report has
done nothing if not unite our people even more and
give a boost to their fighting spirit.

They must be absolutely mad to talk of such things as
implementing literacy and vaccination programs in Cuba
where illiteracy was eradicated a long time ago, where
minimum school attendance is up to grade nine and
where children are vaccinated against 13 diseases.
Actually, such programs should be applied to tens of
millions of Americans who are left out, who do not
enjoy the benefits of social security and who have not
been to school or are completely illiterate or
functionally illiterate.

The US administration has not even dared to say a
single word about the generous offer that our country
made of saving, in a short 5 year period, a life for
every life lost in the Twin Towers, by providing free
health care to 3000 US citizens who have no access to
healthcare services that are indispensable for
preserving life. Neither have they replied to the
question of whether or not those who may decide to
come to Cuba to take advantage of this opportunity
would be punished.

It is really revealing that on the very same day that
Mr. Bush spouted such outrageous slanders and threats,
a prestigious American scientific institution from
California signed an agreement with the Cuban
Molecular Immunology Centre for transferring
technology developed in our country for the clinical
trials and later manufacture of three promising
vaccines in the battle against cancer, which, as you
know, kills more than half a million Americans every
year.

It is only fair to acknowledge that in this case the
US authorities did not set any obstacle.

This fact shows how the fruits of everything I have
talked about before are beginning to sprout all over
our country, despite 45 years of a harsh blockade and
of aggressions by US governments.

And these are not biological weapons, nor chemical
weapons, nor nuclear weapons; these are scientific
discoveries which could help all humanity.

Let's hope that, in Cuba's case, God does not
'instruct' Mr. Bush to attack our country but that he
rather inspires him to avoid this colossal mistake! He
had better check on any divine belligerent order by
consulting the Pope and other prestigious dignitaries
and theologians from the Christian churches, asking
them for their opinion

Excuse me, Mr. President of the United States of
America, for not writing a third epistle to you this
time but it would have been difficult to analyze this
subject in that way. It might have been taken for a
personal insult and I rather adhere to common
courtesy.

Hail, Caesar! I say, but this time I add: Those who
are willing to die have no fear of your enormous
power, of your unbridled rage, nor of your dangerous
and cowardly threats against Cuba!

Long live the truth!

Long live human dignity!

Speech made by Fidel Castro, President of the Republic
of Cuba, at the ceremony for the 51st anniversary of
the attack on the Moncada and Carlos
Manuel de Cespedes fortresses. Ernesto Che Guevara
Square, Santa Clara, July 26, 2004.