Cuba's Fidel Castro attacks 'lies' about his health

[Judi Lynn]

Source: BBC News

22 October 2012 Last updated at 03:19 ET
Cuba's Fidel Castro attacks 'lies' about his health

Cuba's revolutionary former leader Fidel Castro has written a strongly-worded article condemning persistent rumours that he is on his death bed.

The 86-year-old attacked international media "lies", and published photos of himself in Cuba's state media.

He said he was in good health, and could not even remember the last time he had a headache.

~snip~
"Although a lot of people in the world are taken in by the organs of information, almost all of which are in the hands of the privileged and the rich that publish these stupidities, people are increasingly believing less and less in them," Mr Castro said in his article.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20025624

[graham4anything]

1. May he live another 50 years!

and may the ridiculous embargo end. WE are hurting them.They are not hurting us or their people. We are keeping their people in prisons financially.

and their healthcare system has been a heck of a lot better than ours(until the new system is in place).

[secondwind]

3. His healthcare system IS better, but it gives priority to tourists, govt. officials, sports

celebrities, etc.

The average Cuban comes dead last. We were in Havana a year ago.. many people have serious dental issues, and the elderly are suffering the most. they rummage through garbage cans

[naaman fletcher]

37. So what's better about it then? nt

[Fearless]

2. Ok so one source says he's dying, he says he's in perfect health...

That leads me to assume that like most 86 year olds, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. It's still irrelevant though. Again, just like most 86 year olds.

[secondwind]

4. Since this is a "written statement"... I think Fidel is very very ill.

[JackRiddler]

8. How are you doing?

How come we only get written statements from you? Can't you at least post a speech on Youtube?

[flamingdem]

10. go to Cubadebate.cu and see Fidel holding yesterday's Granma n/t

[Judi Lynn]

11. As flamingdem suggested, you should have gone to Cubadebate.cu and realized

not only are there photos of him and his wife taking the Venezuelan Vice-President-elect Juau back to his hotel, taken with him yesterday, and photos of Juau showing the photos of him and the Castros, with Juau wearing the same shirt in both places, there are also other photos of Fidel Castro taken yesterday as he arrives at his next stop. holding a copy of yesterday's Granma paper, wearing the same shirt he wore to the airport, and the same hat.

Couldn't get more direct evidence than that in another country.

It would be downright idiotic to have so many people involved in creating an illusion which has nothing really profitable in it for them or anyone else. How unbelievably stupid.

On edit, adding photo:
[center][/center]

[Fearless]

16. I'd tend to think that he is of the same ailments of most elderly people

To some degree or another.

[Zorro]

5. A public speaking appearance would go a long way to dispel the doubts about his health

More so than a stongly-worded article.

[JackRiddler]

7. Yeah, every time some CIA tool makes up bullshit about his being near death...

The 86-year-old man should run out and do a speech to please you. Because it's his job to "dispel doubts" (respond to the usual lies). Maybe you can exhaust and kill him by making up some bullshit every day.

My guess is, he's as near or as far from death as anyone else who's 86 - and doing a lot better than most people that your CIA allies have tried to kill 14 to 140 times (depending on which estimate we go by).

[Zorro]

17. It is eminently reasonable to suggest that Castro

-- who for decades was known for hours-long stemwinders -- make a minor public speech, so that the swooning claques of adoring Fidelistas and other armchair revolutionaries would have something more substantial to clutch to than a "strongly worded article" and a handful of pictures to confirm his health and mental state.

[JackRiddler]

18. Sorry his death won't restore your great-grandfather's hacienda

or whatever it is you think you'll gain from it.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

23. exactly - Castro has his many faults, but

if all these Batistaites think the second he croaks, they're going to get on a boat, reclaim their mansions and lord it over the rest of Cuba again, it just aint happening.

[naaman fletcher]

38. "Castro has his many faults"

Like what?

[Zorro]

27. Oh I don't need another hacienda

It's quite curious that someone who eagerly encouraged Khrushchev to launch nuclear missiles and commence WWIII, risking the total annihilation of the Cuban people in addition to the deaths of hundreds of millions, would be looked upon with such reverence.

[JackRiddler]

29. Was Castro eating babies while doing these crimes, in your dream?

It's been 50 years, so you figure everyone's forgotten 1962 and you can just make up the most outrageous lies? Nah.

You probably really believe the nonsense you just wrote.

[Zorro]

33. Cuban missile crisis still a teachable moment

A teachable moment to those who are not willfully deaf, dumb, and blind, that is.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cuban-missile-crisis-still-a-teachable-moment/2012/10/22/b1dd7454-1a22-11e2-94aa-9240e72ee00b_story.html

<snip>

...Novotny prepared a record of Khrushchev’s statements as the Soviet leader discussed details of the Cuban crisis, according to the released Czech document. Khrushchev claimed he had put the nuclear weapons in Cuba to prevent a U.S. invasion. When the United States discovered them, Cuban President Fidel Castro sent Khrushchev a letter saying that “the USA would attack Cuba within 24 hours,” according to the Novotny document.

In the letter, Castro “proposed that we ourselves should be the first to start an atomic war,” Khrushchev said. That led him to say, “Do you know what that would mean? . . . We were completely aghast. Castro clearly has no idea about what thermonuclear war is.”

Khrushchev added: “It is clear that with a first strike one cannot today knock the opponent [the United States] out of the fight. There can always be a counter-strike. . . . There are, after all, missiles in the earth [American ICBMs were based in underground silos], which intelligence does not know about; there are missiles on submarines, which cannot be knocked out of the fight right away, and so on. What would we gain if we ourselves started a war? After all, millions of people would die, in our country too. Can we even contemplate a thing like that?”

<snip>

Now go read a history book, since you have clearly demonstrated you don't know Jack.

[JackRiddler]

34. If true, that would merely put him on the level of the Joint Chiefs.

Last edited Wed Oct 24, 2012, 02:35 PM - Edit history (1)

They pressured JFK to have a nuclear confrontation and to invade Cuba. They even came up with a plan to commit terrorist acts in the United States and blame Cuba as a pretext for an invasion (the Northwoods project). Did Cuba ever attack the US, by the way? No, it did not. The US sponsored an invasion of Cuba by hired mercenaries the year before the missile crisis. The US had imposed and supported a series of dictatorships in Cuba prior to the 1959 revolution. The US was trying to assassinate Castro and sabotaging the Cuban economy. You seem to specialize in selective omission.

Now go be a mercenary for plantation owners, like your namesake, Zorro.

[Zorro]

36. Your pathetic attempt to obfuscate your previous foolish claptrap is duly noted

[JackRiddler]

39. ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=277447

[Zorro]

40. You've made your point

You're OK with Castro having urged a nuclear first strike against the US and triggering WWIII.

[JackRiddler]

41. Ha ha!

And you've made yours: You'll distort the history, strain the rhetoric and make up any bullshit to restore CIA and the Batista holdovers to power over the Cuban people. Unfortunately for your plan, they're ready to defend themselves.

People can read for themselves:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=277447

[LanternWaste]

35. Even more teachable when taught in the only nation ever to used atomic weapons

Even more teachable when taught in the only nation ever to have used atomic weapons.

History, indeed.

[flamingdem]

9. go to Cubadebate.cu and see Fidel holding yesterday's Granma n/t

[Judi Lynn]

12. So, there are both: photos of the man in public, and the "strongly-worded article".

[center]?1

This picture released by Cubadebate on its website early Monday Oct. 22, 2012 shows Cuban leader Fidel Castro in Habana, Cuba Sunday Oct. 21, 2012. Castro has written Sunday an article in state-media criticizing those who spread rumors he was on his death bed. Persistent rumors circulated last week that the former Cuban leader was on his deathbed or had suffered a massive stroke.(AP Photo/Alex Castro, Cubadebate)







Vice-President-elect Elias Jaua showing the photo taken in Havana to people in Venezuela.
He was delivered to his hotel in Havana by the Castros, and Fidel Castro's wife, in a minibus.


[/center]

[bitchkitty]

6. He should be used to the lies by now.

Although the constant barrage from the right is exhausting - I find it wearing on these threads, I can only imagine what it's like for him, or for Chavez, or for anyone who winds up in the sights of the corporate/fascist right.

I admire his strength - decades of this, but he's still here!

[Judi Lynn]

13. Fidel Castro reportedly seen at Havana hotel

Fidel Castro reportedly seen at Havana hotel
By Andrea Rodriguez

The Associated Press

AP

2:14 p.m. EDT, October 21, 2012

HAVANA—
Fidel Castro has appeared in public for the first time in months, a top hotel executive told The Associated Press on Sunday, challenging persistent rumors that the aging revolutionary is near death.

The 86-year-old leader dropped off a Venezuelan guest at the Hotel Nacional on Saturday afternoon, then stayed for about half an hour to chat with hotel staff, commercial director Yamila Fuster said.

“Fidel Castro was here yesterday, he brought a guest and spoke to workers and hotel leaders for 30 minutes,” Fuster said. She said she was not present but that the news was being released officially by the state-owned establishment.

“They told me he looked very good. He was wearing a checked shirt and a hat,” she said.

Fuster would not release the name of the Venezuelan guest, but witnesses at the hotel say former Venezuelan Vice President Elias Jaua is staying there. A car with Venezuelan diplomatic plates was parked Sunday outside the hotel.

More:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-castro-hotel-20121021,0,7689340.story

[Judi Lynn]

14. InternationalCastro ends rumours, appears in public

Tuesday, October 23, 2012
InternationalCastro ends rumours, appears in public

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has reappeared in public, meeting at a Havana hotel with a Venezuelan politician -- quashing swirling rumors that the former leader was on his death bed.

Castro -- who led Communist Cuba for almost five decades before illness sidelined him -- "is very well," Venezuela's former vice president Elias Jaua said Sunday after meeting the bearded revolutionary icon.

The 86 year-old Castro "is very well, very lucid," Jaua, a loyal supporter of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose government keeps the cash-strapped Cuban regime afloat with cut-rate oil and aid -- told reporters.

After the five-hour meeting Saturday, Castro accompanied Jaua back to the posh Hotel Nacional, where the visitor was staying, and then posed wearing a straw farmer's hat for pictures with hotel staff.

More:
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=254993

[brooklynite]

15. So, a former dictator is still alive...

Explain to me why I should care.

[JackRiddler]

19. Because your taxes are still paying to strangle Cuba?

[brooklynite]

20. So as long as bad US foreign policy applies, you can oppress your local population?

not an excuse.

[Judi Lynn]

21. You could gain everything by starting to do your research on Cuba.

It's far better to know what you're talking about, rather than to operate on grotesque propaganda handed out by people who don't respect the Cuban need to be free of U.S. domination, which includes financially, materially backing actual dictators who torture, mutilate, murder, even bomb dissidents in their country, exactly like US puppet and Mafia-loving Fulgencio Batista, who sent death squads throughout the country to drive fear so deeply into the minds of Cubans they'd be afraid to speak out.

[center]



Mothers marching in Santiago de Cuba protesting Batista's assassination of their sons, some found hanging from trees outside the city, in 1957, two years before the overthrow of Batista and his sadistic torturers, and killers.



Police as they open up fire hoses upon the mothers of the murdered young men.[/center]

[brooklynite]

24. And why is this an excuse for an equally dictatorial regime with a different economic plan?

[hack89]

25. Because there are good dictators and bad dictators.

That different economic plan is important to many.

[brooklynite]

26. "Good Dictators".....

I think I'll leave it right there...

[JackRiddler]

28. You're arguing a strawman with someone who agrees with

your propaganda about Cuba.

If you want to see an opening there, you should start by ending the 52-year USG war on the Cuban people.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

22. Miami's elderly rightwing Batista/mafia holdovers will need extra blood pressure medicine now

[Judi Lynn]

32. They probably thought their moment of revenge was here. "Ha ha" is right!

In the meantime, they should have another cup of Cuban coffee.

[center]







[/center]

[sofa king]

30. And now, for the hard of hearing....

[Judi Lynn]

31. Always loved Garrett Morris. So thoughtful for him to do the news like that. n/t