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Torture is cowardly, shameful, Fidel reminds Cheney

Torture is cowardly, shameful, Fidel reminds Cheney
Written by Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Thursday, June 04, 2009 11:26:38 PM

FORMER Cuban president Fidel Castro has reminded former US vice-president Dick Cheney that torture is a cowardly and shameful act that can never be justified.
Commenting on Cheney's defence of the George W Bush regime's administering of the so-called 'enhanced interrogation programme' on Guantanamo Bay terror-inmates to extract incriminating evidence, Fidel said regardless the pain caused by the terror actions against the US on September 11, 2001 torture could never be justified.

He observed that Cheney's attacks on US President Barack Obama, following the decision to make public torture memos, were really tough.

"But I don't want to voice any opinion on that subject. Nevertheless, it is my duty to remember that terrorism didn't just come out of the blue. It was the method thought up by the United States to combat the Cuban Revolution," Fidel stated in Cubadebate essay posted onWednesday evening. "General Dwight Eisenhower himself, the [then] president of the United States, was the first one to use terrorism against our homeland and this wasn't just a group of bloody actions against our people but dozens of events right from 1959 escalating later to hundreds of terrorist actions each year using flammable substances, high power explosives, precision infrared-ray sophisticated weapons, poisons such as cyanide, fungus, hermorrhage dengue, swine fever, anthrax, viruses and bacteria that attacked crops, plants, animals and human beings."

He recalled those actions were not just aimed at the Cuban economy and the people but also directed to eliminate the leaders of the revolution.

"Thousands of people were affected and the economy whose objective is to maintain food supplies, healthcare and the most basic peoples' services has been submitted to a relentless blockade that is being applied in extraterritorial terms," Fidel stated. "I do not invent these facts. They are on the record in the declassified US government documents. In our country despite the very serious dangers that have threatened us for decades, we have never tortured anyone to obtain information. Regardless of the pain caused by the actions against the people of the United States on September 11, 2001, actions that everyone strongly condemned, torture is a cowardly and shameful act that can never be justified."

In his national security address at the American Enterprise Institute last Saturday, Cheney said the September 11 attacks made necessary a shift of policy aimed at a clear strategic threat of the United States.

He said the al-qaeda was seeking nuclear technology adding that the US had an anthrax attack whose source was unknown.

Cheney recalled on the fateful day, he was in his office when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour.

He said that was Flight 77 that ended up hitting the Pentagon.

"With the plane still inbound, Secret Service agents came into my office and said we had to leave, now," said Cheney. "A few moments later I found myself in a fortified White House command post in the White House basement."

But Fidel mocked Cheney on this score.

"Cheney's narrative makes it clear that nobody had foreseen that situation and he pays lip service to US pride in assuming that someone buried in a cave some 15 or 20,000 kilometres away could force the president of the United States to take up his command post in the White House basement," noted Fidel.

Cheney said since wars were not won on the defensive, the Bush administration moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and sanctuaries.

"In the years after 9/11, our government also understood that the safety of our country required collecting information that could be gained only through tough interrogations," said Cheney. "I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation programme. The interrogations were used after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do."

Labels: DICK CHENEY, FIDEL CASTRO, TORTURE

posted by MrK @ 10:30 PM