A view to a kill

[Briar]

A view to a kill
A film about the US government's 638 failed plots to kill Fidel

Castro could hardly have come at a more timely moment.

Duncan Campbell


Last week, US government officials briefed reporters to suggest that Fidel Castro might have only months to live. They have, of course, been predicting his demise for the last four decades but what was significant about the latest briefing was the tacit acceptance that the Cuban leader will die a natural, rather than an unnatural, death.

There have now been, according to the Cuban security service, no fewer than 638 plots to kill Castro, either directly organised by the CIA or their many proxies. The attempts have been annotated by two of Castro's top minders, Fabian Escalante, who has written about them in his book, 638 Maneras de Matar a Castro (638 Ways To Kill Castro) and his colleague, Xavier Solado, who wrote a pamphlet of the same name a few years ago.

Now a film about those plots is to be shown on British television. It could hardly come at a more timely moment as the world is being asked to take a stance against terrorism and western horror is expressed at the assassination of political leaders.

"Some of the attempts were a bit like Clousseau," says Peter Moore, the film's executive producer. Some of them are familiar - the exploding cigar, the ballpoint hypodermic syringe, the gift of a poisoned wetsuit, others more traditional. Dollan Cannell, the film's director, says that the plots seem to have failed through a mixture of incompetence, chance and bad timing. "The CIA had to do it without being blamed for it," says Cannell. "There had to be no
smoking gun."

...

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/duncan_campbell/2006/11/post_689.html

Oh, what moral governments we have.

[flobee1]

1. Oh, what moral governments we have.

Is there any way we can scrap this one and start over?
...or be adopted by Canada
or go back to the 13 colonies?

[neilepi]

2. There is a certain irony.....

....that if the conspiracy theories are to be believed the CIA had an easier time bumping off a US President and his brother, a strong candidate for the presidency, than the dictator of a country which is less than a third of the size of California.

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[Demeter]

3. Not Really. The Kennedys Had Powerful Enemies Here

namely, the Bush Family Evil Empire, with the CIA behind them.

No such insurgency exists in Cuba. For some reason. Maybe because the rebellion is in Miami, supporting Bushes? Maybe because the Cubans are a lot happier with Castro than ever were with Baptista/US Fruit/Mafia?

[Briar]

4. What if

divine providence intervened? I'd love to see the Red-hating Fundies explain that one away. <g> After all, in terms of evil done, the Cuban regime trails far behind those of the US and UK.