• Home
  • About
    • Straight Up
    • Jan Herman
    • Contact
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

CASTRO ON THE WAR IN IRAQ

May 4, 2004 by cmackie

None of the accounts we’ve read of Fidel Castro’s two-hour May Day speech in Havana’s
Revolution Square — variously reported in The Kansas City Star, which had the most interesting
account, the Financial
Times
, and Channel News Asia — mentioned the Cuban
president’s personal remarks about the war in Iraq.


Courtesy of the public relations office at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations in New
York, which transmitted the written text of the speech, here’s what Castro had to say about
that:



The Iraq war brings to many people memories of the Vietnam War. To me, it
brings back memories of the Algerian war of liberation, when French military might shattered
against the resistance of a people with a very different culture, language and religion, in a country
which in places is just as desert-like as many regions of Iraq, a people that managed to defeat the
French troops and all their technology, which was fairly advanced for its time. The French had
previously sustained defeat in Dien Bien Phu, where Bush’s predecessors were on the point of
using nuclear weapons.


In this type of war the entire arsenal of a hegemonic superpower is superfluous. This
superpower can conquer a country with its enormous power but it is impossible to administer and
govern that country if its population battles resolutely against the
occupiers.



Castro also underscored the violations of human rights by U.S. military authorities who
are holding prisoners indefinitely at the Guantanamo naval base on the eastern tip of
Cuba. Such violations are a matter of real concern for Americans and others. But
Castro’s sentiments are rather suspect coming from someone with his record on
human rights.

Share on email
Email
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on reddit
Reddit

Filed Under: main

Jan Herman

When not listening to Bach or Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, or dancing to salsa, I like to play jazz piano -- but only in the privacy of my own mind.
Another strange fact... Read More…

About

My Books

Several books of poems have been published in recent years by Moloko Print, Statdlichter Presse, Phantom Outlaw Editions, and Cold Turkey … [Read More...]

Straight Up

The agenda is just what it says: news of arts, media & culture delivered with attitude. Or as Rock Hudson once said in a movie: "Man is the only … [Read More...]

Contact me

We're cutting down on spam. Please fill in this form. … [Read More...]

Archives

Blogroll

Abstract City
AC Institute
ACKER AWARDS New York
All Things Allen Ginsberg
Antiwar.com
arkivmusic.com
Artbook&
Arts & Letters Daily

Befunky
Bellaart
Blogcritics
Booknotes
Bright Lights Film Journal

C-SPAN
Noam Chomsky
Consortium News
Cost of War
Council on Foreign Relations
Crooks and Liars
Cultural Daily

The Daily Howler
Dark Roasted Blend
DCReport
Deep L
Democracy Now!

Tim Ellis: Comedy
Eschaton

Film Threat
Robert Fisk
Flixnosh (David Elliott’s movie menu)
Fluxlist Europe

Good Reads
The Guardian
GUERNICA: A Magazine of Art & Politics

Herman (Literary) Archive, Northwestern Univ. Library
The Huffington Post

Inter Press Service News Agency
The Intercept
Internet Archive (WayBackMachine)
Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
Doug Ireland
IT: International Times, The Magazine of Resistance

Jacketmagazine
Clive James

Kanopy (stream free movies, via participating library or university)
Henry Kisor
Paul Krugman

Lannan Foundation
Los Angeles Times

Metacritic
Mimeo Mimeo
Moloko Print
Movie Geeks United (MGU)
MGU: The Kubrick Series

National Security Archive
The New York Times
NO!art

Osborne & Conant
The Overgrown Path

Poets House
Political Irony
Poynter

Quanta Magazine

Rain Taxi
The Raw Story
RealityStudio.org
Bill Reed
Rhizome
Rwanda Project

Salon
Senses of Cinema
Seven Stories Press
Slate
Stadtlichter Presse
Studs Terkel
The Synergic Theater

Talking Points Memo (TPM)
TalkLeft
The 3rd Page
Third Mind Books
Times Square Cam
The Tin Man
t r u t h o u t

Ubu Web

Vox

The Wall Street Journal
Wikigate
Wikipedia
The Washington Post
The Wayback Machine (Internet Archive)
World Catalogue
World Newspapers, Magazines & News Sites

The XD Agency

Share on email
Email
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on reddit
Reddit
This blog published under a Creative Commons license

an ArtsJournal blog

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in