REFLECTIONS
BY THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF
THE
ENGLISH SUBMARINE
The press dispatches bring the news; it
belongs to the Astute Class, the first of its kind to be constructed in
“A nuclear reactor will allow it to
navigate without refuelling during its 25 year of service. Since it makes its own oxigen and drinking water,
it can circumnavigate the globe without needing to surface,” was the statement
to the BBC by Nigel Ward, head of the shipyards.
“It’s a mean looking beast”, says another.
“Looming above us is a construction shed
12 storeys high. Within it are 3
nuclear-powered submarines at different stages of construction,” assures yet
another.
Someone says that “it can observe the
movements of cruisers in
El
Mercurio, the Chilean newspaper, emphatically spreads the news.
The UK Royal Navy declares that it will be
one of the most advanced in the world.
The first of them will be launched on June 8 and will go into service in
January of 2009.
It can transport up to 38 Tomahawk cruise
missiles and Spearfish torpedoes, capable of destroying a large warship. It will possess a permanent crew of 98
sailors who will even be able to watch movies on giant plasma screens.
The new Astute will carry the latest
generation of Block 4 Tomahawk torpedoes which can be reprogrammed in
flight. It will be the first one not
having a system of conventional periscopes and, instead, will be using fibre
optics, infrared waves and thermal imaging.
“BAE Systems, the armaments manufacturer,
will build two other submarines of the same class,” AP reported. The total cost of the three submarines,
according to calculations that will certainly be below the mark, is 7.5 billion
dollars.
What a feat for the British! The intelligent and tenacious people of that
nation will surely not feel any sense of pride.
What is most amazing is that with such an amount of money, 75 thousand
doctors could be trained to care for 150 million people, assuming that the cost
of training a doctor would be one-third of what it costs in the
In any remote African village, a Cuban
doctor can impart medical knowledge to any youth from the village or from the
surrounding municipality who has the equivalent of a grade twelve education,
using videos and computers energized by a small solar panel; the youth does not
even have to leave his hometown, nor does he need to be contaminated with the
consumer habits of a large city.
The
important thing is the patients who are suffering from malaria or any other of
the typical and unmistakable diseases that the student will be seeing together
the doctor.
The method has been tested with surprising
results. The knowledge and practical
experience accumulated for years have no possible comparison.
The non-lucrative practice of medicine is
capable of winning over all noble hearts.
Since the beginning of the Revolution,
We must bow our heads in awe after reading
the news about the English submarine. It
teaches us, among other things, about the sophisticated weapons that are needed
to maintain the untenable order developed by the
We cannot forget that for centuries, and
until recently,
Churchill said: Sink the
For that purpose, or for the holocaust of
the species, is what his “marvellous submarine” will be good for.
Fidel Castro Ruz