LOL oh Castro, senile already?

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
Whoop, lost me there..what conflict?

Border patrols mainly trading bullets.. sheesh where were you?

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Border patrols mainly trading bullets.. sheesh where were you?

Ahh! (I was watching Neil Armstrong )

[miko2d]

midnight Target: Border patrols mainly trading bullets.. sheesh where were you?

 More like a few smal-scale wars  really, by western standards, with batallions of troops and serious artillery bombardments.
 Allegedely an island on the border river (Amur) was completely removed by Soviets to get rid of argued territory and avoid future conflicts. Of course it was never in the Soviet papers. Probably not Chinise either.

 Belligerence of Chinese caused Soviets to bancrupt the country building a huge railroad to serve as a backup to the one close to the chinese territory and useless otherwise - kind like a second front to the West Cold War "exhaust the enemy economically without firing a shot" plan.

 miko

[wulfie]

Boroda, maybe you misunderstood my wording:

1. Soviet nuclear weapons on cuba (not complaining about this - we had them all over NWE).

2. Casto knows they are there - but under control of Soviet military.

3. Castro asks Soviet leadership if he can have control of nuclear weapons directly, because (his reasoning) "If U.S. invades might not be enough time for Soviets to receive clearance to launch from Moscow".

4. Soviets say "No" (this is a wise thing showing great responsibility in my and many other's eyes, 30+ years 'after the fact').

5. Castro gets pissed. Is insulted, etc.

6. Soviet Union, seeing his reaction, eventually withdraw weapons from Cuba due to the 'severity' of his reaction. They were concerned for the safety of the weapons. ~10,000 Russians on Cuba. Many more Cubans on Cuba.

Substite 'afraid' (of Castro) for 'worried about temperment and stability' (of Castro) maybe.

Information is from (heavily censored, to protect sources + methods) communications intercepts of the time, from U.S. intelligence and military intelligence files cleared under FOIA. It appears (with FOIA data in bibliography section) in at least 2 books in the last 5 years.

Mike/wulfie

[wulfie]

Miko2d - most Americans are totally unaware of the battles you are speaking of. It's the post WW2 version of 'All German fighters were shot down by P-51s'.

You still need to email me at AH_wulfie@cox.net so I can ask you a couple of questions via email!

Mike/wulfie

[wulfie]

To hold anyone but a handful of people in Russia responsible for anything during the cold war is stupid.

The whole point - the whole difference - between the 'democratic' U.S. and other Nations (U.K., Canada, Germany, etc.) and the U.S.S.R. was the fact that in the U.S.S.R. all the power was in the hands of, and all the decisions were made by the same small elite group of people and the rank and file of Soviet citizens had no say over what happened to them or what their Nation did. When they opposed something via demonstration they were brutally repressed with punishment totally unmatching any (perceived) offenses.

You can't fight a (cold) war to give people living behind 'an iron curtain' 'freedom of choice' and then turn around and blame them for what their totalitarian state did while they were at it's mercy, can you?

Most of the people involved in the most 'evil' acts commited by the Soviet Union are dead now anyways.

Mike/wulfie

[midnight Target]

Gonna try once more. Do you think the US embargo perpetuated Castro, or hurt him?

I think that without the embargo, Castro would have been gone along with the rest of the communist block.

[Toad]

Yah know... I think Castro saved almost every Cuban from the perils of overeating too.

'Cept maybe himself and a few of his close buddies that are probably risking it for the good of all Cubans.

[Wlfgng]

yeah we have a lot of cleaning up to do... first the terrorists including castro.. don't forget the oil, we need the oil..
then I was thinking Canada.

Why?   what's to stop us?  Their military ?

I'm thinking a few more ski resorts, fishing spots and lots of land to drill for oil on... for starters.

[Thrawn]

You tried that once in 1812.  

[-dead-]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
Whoop, lost me there..what conflict?

Hehe that's right - I forgot you guys were all spoon fed "international communist conspiracy" & "domino theory" and all that other cold war paranoia. In the meantime the "communist conspiracy" was shooting at each other. The same effect can be got today by putting Iran and Iraq together in "an axis of evil"

[Boroda]

Hehe, and in the same time Soviet media told us about "Chinese regime, united with American imperialists...".

Miko, the border conflicts were not described in the media (since lat-70s they were only rarely mentioned, without any details), but I have some Politizdat books with detailed ananysis of Chinese revisionism and Maoism, together with cultural revolution and other things, with a foreword mentioning "recent events on Damanskiy island" as a result of the "politics of so-called 'great helmsman Mao'"...

In the 80s the anti-Chinese propaganda was almost stopped, but until mid-80s we were told different things like Chinese atmospheric thermonuclear test explosion at Soviet border etc. And Maoism was declared an enemy ideology on the political informations until that meetings stopped in 1989, but mentioned mostly when speaking about ultra-left terrorist organisations.

Border conflicts of different scales happened quite often even after the demarcation of border started in the 80s. Chinese border was the most dangerous place for border guards. One of my friends got wounded there in 88 during an inspection on a "questionable" territory.

[lazs2]

castro used to believe in the right of the people to bear arms to overthrow tyranny from without and within but he has rethought his positions and now, like beetle, realizes that the home office is allways right and benevolent.   No need for citizens to own firearms.
lazs

[StSanta]

Heh Dowding, as I said I like the man because he's resisted all US attempts to overthrow him. That doesn't mean I don't think he's a total stunninghunk however.

Atrocities do not necessarily mean murders (although I'm pretty sure there's been a few of those). Atrocities to me is the imprisonment and torture of political prisoners, the subjugation of citizens and all the suffering he's caused to the Cuban people due to his outdated 'socialism'.

This comes from a biased source (being the US state department) but I've seen many of the things mentioned in here verified by sources such as Amnesty International. It's lengthy but well worth reading as it details out what I mean with 'atrocities'.

http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/5/1/143641

Beyond the deaths caused by guards and police (which aren't prosecuted), this snippet will serve as an illustration of what I mean:

'Chamber, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "enemy propaganda" and "disrespect for government authority," regularly was denied family visits because of his insistence on treatment as a political rather than a common prisoner. '

First of all that you get 10 years for 'enemy propaganda' and 'disrespect for government authority'. Then to top it off no visits from family.

Dowding, regardless whether you see Fidel Castro as a hero or likeable (hell, I like the guy for being able to withstand the pressure from the US - and he might even have had good intentions with the revolution - I believe he did at the time) one CANNOT ignore the human rights abuses that take place in his anti-democracy totalitarian impoverished nation.

Oh about the 'wannabe republican' comment. I'm not a Yank, so the term doesn't apply. I'm a European liberal - that is, I support a minimalistic state, do not support the current socialistic welfare handouts that punish the responsible and award the lazy. If I was to pick a side in US politics it would be impossible, as I support the democrats in some areas (like abortion and medicare, environment) but the Republicans in others (requiring people to WORK for a living, defense spending, self reliance).

Uncontrolled capitalism isn't a good thing, but uncontrolled 'socialism' always lead to a totalitarian state where human rights are removed. Point me to one place where we now have a purely socialistic state that also is free, and I'll concede. I doubt you can, though.

[wulfie]

People often crow about 'America's failure to kill Castro', which is not really a fair statement.

Every attempt (America, other Nation's intelligence services attempted to kill him on more than one occasion) made to kill Castro was made by Cuban citizens with the assistance of the CIA. Cuban citizens who were against the Castro regime were put into contact with CIA officers and a plan was formed.

As usual, with certain people's opinion of America, it's a no-win situation. The USSR/KGB would have done the 'more reprehensible' but far more intelligent and effective thing if they had to go after Castro - used their own personnel to make sure the job was done properly. Dirty? Yes. But the KGB has long known what it took the intelligence services of 'democratic' Nations (including the U.K.) more than 40 years to figure out - nothing in 'intelligence work' is ever clean, honorable, etc.

But the U.S. (and the CIA) tried to maintain an semblance of legality to their actions..."Freedom loving people of Cuba overthrowing a totalitarian regime with assistance from a decmocracy", etc. The Russians have been smarter when it comes to intelligence work from the late 1800s onward - they would have 'claimed' that the 'shooters', 'assassins', etc. were Cubans but the team conducting the assassination attempt would have been Russian personnel.

That's not evil in my book - it's the way it should be run if you are going to go to such extreme measures in the first place.

So on one hand, we have the U.S. failing to have Castro killed, which labels them as 'incompetent' *and* 'immoral'. Go the KGB way and you are only labeled 'immoral', and the label doesn't mean anything really - certain groups of people are going to label you 'immoral' *no matter what you do, and no matter how much restraint you show*.

Castro was almost (as in *really* almost) killed twice:

1. An FN-FAL, with specialized (for killing someone) ammunition and a telescopic sight was provided by the CIA to a group of Cubans. They had a time and a place where Castro would be 'in the open' in an area where plenty of positions perfect for a 'sniper' were available. The Cubans took the weapon but the attack was never conducted.

2. A member of the 'dining staff' for Castro was recruited by the CIA and given a very lethal poison. Literally, at the last moment (i.e. when Castro was about to eat poisoned food) the 'waiter' panicked and confessed. I can't recall what happened to him or his family (see below for a book reference that mentions his fate).

So in both cases the CIA was working with Cuban citizens who were apparently willing to kill Castro. Was it a failure on the part of U.S. intelligence - in my opinion, yes. If you are going to make the decision to kill a foreign head of state - if you resort to such extreme measures for whatever reason - then go all the way. The U.S. army at the time had no shortage of personnel that could have carried out the task.

It was a failure of will, not a lack of competency. Various people in various political positions in the U.S. weren't willing to do without complete 'plausible deniability'.

For a very detailed and unbiased look at the 'Bay of Pigs invasion' (Kennedy was in no way to blame - he was blatantly lied to by CIA leadership at the time, and believed the lies despite the DoD telling him the invasion in it's 'new form' could never succeed) and the entire story of the CIA from the end of WW2 (i.e. OSS) thru the first part of the U.S. involvement in SEA read:

'The Very Best Men'.

It's a book written by a reporter who is in no way a 'fan of the CIA' - but on a promise to attempt to be impartial he was given access to official CIA in-house historical data and other documents that were cleared on the spot under the FOIA specifially for his use in writing the above mentioned book.

Mike/wulfie

(edit: I mistakenly typed 'Cuban missile crisis instead of Bay of Pigs invasion' - the book mentioned does cover the Cuban missile crisis in depth however)