IF FAIR IDEAS DO NOT TRIUMPH, DISASTER WILL.

World society knows no truce in recent years, particularly since the European Economic Community under the resolute and unyielding leadership of the United States thought that the time had come to settle the score with what remained of two great nations that, inspired by the ideas of Marx, had carried out the deed to put an end to the colonial and imperialist order imposed upon the world by Europe and the United States.

A revolution that shook the world broke out in ancient Russia.

It was expected that the first great socialist revolution would occur in the most industrialized countries of Europe, such as England, France, Germany and the Austro- Hungarian Empire. However, it happened in Russia whose territory extended through Asia, from the north of Europe to the south of Alaska which had also been czarist territory, sold for a few dollars to the country that would subsequently be the one most interested in attacking and destroying the revolution and the country that made it.

The greatest deed of the new State was to create a Union capable of gathering its resources and sharing its technology with a great number of weaker and less developed nations, inevitable victims of colonial exploitation. Wouldn’t it be convenient in today’s world to have a true society of nations that would respect the rights, beliefs, culture, technologies and resources of accessible parts of the planet that so many human beings like to visit and know? And wouldn’t it be ever so much fairer for everybody who today communicates in fractions of a second from one end of the planet to the other see in other people friends or brothers and sisters and not an enemy ready to exterminate them with the means that human knowledge has been able to create?

Believing that human beings could be capable of harboring such aims, I think that there is no right to destroy cities, to kill children, to pulverize homes, to sow the seeds of terror, hunger and death everywhere. Where in the world could such actions possibly be justified? If we remember that at the end of the massacre of the last world war the world placed its hopes on the creation of the United Nations, it was because, though its objectives had not yet been clearly defined, a great part of humankind imagined its prospects would be to unite. What we see today is a colossal deception as problems arise pointing to a possible outbreak of a war using weapons that could put an end to human existence.

There are unscrupulous individuals --seemingly not few-- who consider that being ready to die and, moreover, to kill in defense of shameful privileges, is a merit.

Many are surprised when they hear the declarations of some of NATO’s European spokespersons expressing themselves in the style and with the aspect of the Nazi SS, even wearing, at times, dark suits in the middle of summer.

We have rather a powerful adversary: our closest neighbor the United States. We warned them that we would resist the blockade even though it would mean a very high cost for our country. There is no greater price to pay than that of capitulating to an enemy who is attacking you without right or reason. This was the feeling of a small and isolated people. The rest of this hemisphere’s governments, with rare exceptions, had tagged along with the powerful and influential empire. For us it was not a personal matter; it was the belief of a small nation that since the beginning of the century was both the political and economic property of the United States. After having suffered almost five centuries of colonialism and an incalculable number of deaths and material losses in the struggle for Independence, we were ceded to that country by Spain.

The Empire reserved the right to militarily intervene in Cuba by virtue of the perfidious constitutional amendment imposed upon a helpless Congress that was unable to resist. Besides being the owners of almost all of Cuba: abundant land, the largest sugar mills, the mines, banks and even the prerogative to print our money, it prevented us from producing enough food grains to feed the people.

When the USSR disintegrated and the Socialist Bloc also disappeared, we kept on resisting and the revolutionary people and State, together, continued our independent march.

I do not wish, however, to dramatize this modest history. I’d rather stress that the policies of the Empire are so dramatically ridiculous that it won’t be long before they end up in history’s garbage dump. Adolf Hitler’s empire, inspired by greed, passed into history with no more glory than its encouragement to NATO’s bourgeois and aggressive governments, that make them the laughing stock of Europe and the world, with their Euro, which like the dollar will not take long to turn into damp pieces of paper, depending upon the Yuan and also the ruble, in light of the booming Chinese economy together with the enormous economic and technical potential of Russia.

Cynicism has become a symbol of imperial policy.

As we know, John McCain was the Republican presidential candidate in the 2008 elections. He came into the public spotlight when as a pilot his plane was shot down when bombing the highly populated city of Hanoi. A Vietnamese rocket hit him in mid-mission and both the plane and its pilot crashed into a lake close to the capital, on the outskirts of the city.

When a retired Vietnamese soldier who earned his living working nearby saw the plane fall, he ran to the assistance of the wounded pilot who was trying to save himself. While the old soldier was helping, a group of Hanoi citizens who were victims of the bombing raids ran up to settle the score with the murderer. It was the soldier who persuaded the citizens not to do anything because the man was now prisoner and his life had to be respected. The Yankee authorities themselves communicated to the Government beseeching that nothing be done to that pilot.

Besides the regulations of the Vietnamese Government regarding respect for prisoners, the pilot was the son of a US Navy Admiral who had had a distinguished service record in World War II and was still occupying an important position.

The Vietnamese had landed a big fish in that bombing raid and logically, thinking of the inevitable peace talks that should end the unfair war imposed on them, they became friends with the pilot who was more than happy to profit as much as he could from that adventure. Of course, I did not learn this from the Vietnamese nor would I have ever asked them about this story. I read about it and it fit exactly with certain details I learned later on. I also read once that Mister McCain had wrote that being a prisoner in Vietnam and while being tortured, he heard voices speaking in Spanish, advising the torturers what they should do and how they should do it. According to McCain they were Cubans. Cuba never sent advisors to Vietnam. The Vietnamese military knew overly well how to wage their war.

General Giap was one of the most brilliant leaders of our times. In Dien Bien Phu he was able to place the cannon through thick and steep jungle, something the Yankees and European military thought was impossible. He used these cannon to fire from such close range that it was impossible to neutralize them without the nuclear bombs affecting the invaders as well. Other corresponding steps were taken, all of them difficult and complicated, to force the encircled European forces into an embarrassing surrender.

That sly fox McCain milked all he could from the military defeats of the Yankee and European invaders. Nixon was unable to persuade his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger to accept the idea suggested by the President himself when, at ease, he would say: Why don’t we just drop one of those little bombs, Henry? The real little bomb blew up when the President’s men tried to spy on his foes in the opposing party. Now that was something that couldn’t be tolerated!

Despite this, Mr. McCain’s most cynical performance was in the Middle East. Senator McCain is the most unconditional ally of Israel in the Mossad entanglements, something that not even his worst adversaries would have imagined. McCain participated along with that service in the creation of the Islamic State that took over a considerable and vital part of Iraq and, reportedly, one third of Syrian territory. That State already enjoys a multimillion dollar income and is threatening Saudi Arabia and other States in that complex region supplying most of world fuel.

Would it not be preferable to fight to produce more food and more industrial products, to build hospitals and schools for the billions of human beings who desperately need them, to promote the arts and culture, to fight against widely spread diseases that result in the death of more than half of the diseased, health workers or technicians who could finally eradicate diseases such as cancer, Ebola fever, malaria, dengue, Chikungunya, diabetes and others that adversely affect the lives of human beings?

If today we are able to prolong the life, health and useful time of people, if it is perfectly possible to plan the development of the population by virtue of growing productivity, culture and the development of human values, what are they waiting for?

If fair ideas do not triumph, disaster will.

Fidel Castro Ruz

August 31, 2014

10:25 p.m.