[NYTr] AP: Castro Says Bush Uses Fear of Terror to Justify War
 
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 22:56:46 -0500 (CDT)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
AP via The Houston Chronicle - Jul 15, 2007
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4969331.html

Castro suggests U.S. deliberately fails to stop terror

Ailing Cuban leader's essay accuses Bush of using the tactic to justify
the war on terrorism

By WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press

HAVANA, Cuba b Fidel Castro suggested on [Sunday] that Washington has
deliberately failed to stop terrorist attacks against Americans because
it needed "to deliver a bang" that would justify its war on terror.

In the latest in a series of essays that Cuba's 80-year-old leader has
begun writing every few days, Castro seized on Homeland Security
Secretary Michael Chertoff's comments last week expressing a "gut
feeling" that the United States faces an increased risk of attack this
summer.

"The government of the United States sees and hears all, with or
without legal authority," Castro wrote. "They can prevent any attack on
their people, unless there is some imperial need to deliver a bang so
that they can carry on with and justify the brutal war which has been
declared against the culture, religion, economy and independence of
other peoples."

The accusation came at the end of an essay titled "Bush, Health and
Education," in which Castro claimed Cubans are better cared for than
Americans, and that his poor island nation and its legions of doctors
working around Latin America have done more for the region than the
U.S. ever will.

Published in the Communist Party youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde, the
essay criticized President Bush for suggesting that recent U.S.
initiatives have provided quality medical care to Latin Americans.

"In Cuba, where health care is not a commodity, we can do things that
Bush cannot even dream of," Castro wrote.

"Bush knows that he is lying and that his tall tales are hard to
swallow, but he doesn't care," Castro wrote. "He is confident that if
he repeats it a thousand times, many will finally believe him."

He added that despite Washington's 45-year-old trade embargo, "Bush is
discovering that the economic and political system of his empire cannot
compete with Cuba in vital services, such as health care and education."

Recuperating in an undisclosed location, Castro has not been seen in
public since announcing last summer that emergency intestinal surgery
had forced him to cede power to a provisional government headed by his
75-year-old brother, Raul.

For weeks now he has published the frequent essays, in which he has
touched on issues ranging from U.S.-backed plans to use food crops for
biofuels to complaints about Cuba's economy and hints about why his
recovery is taking so long. Castro's writings seem to show he is in no
hurry to return to power.
       
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