they are no longer a problem for the United States

["James Daly" <james.irldaly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Did Bush actually say this? And was his meaning obvious? (I can
imagine the leering smirk). Why was there no response (apart from the
applause)?

JD

Originally in Granma International
Havana, Cuba
April 29, 2003

No longer a problem
BY RICARDO ALARCÓN DE QUESADA
IT was January 28 of this year. George Bush spelt it out so that
everyone would understand. He didn't hide away where no one could hear
him. At a formal session of Congress he openly proclaimed it, in a
state of the union address - the most important speech given by U.S.
presidents.

To paraphrase his words: Over 3,000 terrorism suspects have been
arrested in many countries. Many others have suffered a different
fate. Put it this way: they are no longer a problem for the United
States.

The official text issued by the White House recorded that this
revelation was greeted by applause from those who heard it at the
Capitol building.

For some time now it has been known that there are thousands of people
imprisoned in the United States and other countries whose governments
promote human rights as zealously as Bush does. For more than one year
now, many have been imprisoned without formal charges and without
recourse to a defense lawyer. Their number is not known although it
has been confirmed that the majority are immigrants or are too
dark-skinned for the racism cultivated by those societies that believe
themselves superior.

But the White House incumbent added something that he had never
publicly affirmed before: Many others have had a different fate - or
rather, they are not prisoners but. they're no longer a problem.

Nothing like it has been recorded since Hitler's times.
For some time now the world has not heard any similar official
acknowledgment of an extra-judicial execution policy, the physical
liquidation of human beings without any other proceedings before
squeezing the trigger.
The speech was widely published for everyone to understand. It
provoked no denunciations or protests, save that of one New York
magazine. After the applause came the silence.

Once again a confirmation of what Mark Twain discovered one century
previously regarding the three gifts that God blessed the United
States with: Freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and the
prudence not to exercise either of them.

Three months have passed since then. A war unleashed against the
defenseless Iraqi people deployed all the destruction capacity of an
empire that attacked without cause or justification, abusing
international legality just as the other Führer did in his era.

The number of "suspects" held in prisons in the United States and
other countries without any legal trial has constantly increased. And
there are the many more who had a different fate, who are now simply.
no longer a problem. Nobody has any idea of exactly how many dead
swell the never-ending list of 'no longer a problem.' Those people
throughout the world who claim to advocate human rights and who earn
an elegant, lucrative living doing so are not bothered about them.

Recently, certain politicians and other figures have felt an urgent
need to criticize Cuba over the legal trial of mercenaries who acted
against their homeland in the pay of the Washington government, and
the sentences given to various terrorists, all of whose cases were in
conformity with national law and legal procedures. Cuba has not
violated any legal principle, any international norm; it has done
nothing to affect world peace or endanger anybody's legitimate
interests. It has simply exercised its sovereign obligation to defend
itself and has done so without recourse to war or violence.

Cuba defends itself from any persons trying to attack or undermine its
sovereignty by organizing, directing and financing groups of traitors
while intensifying an implacable economic war and threatening to
destroy the nation. No one has the right to ignore the fact that
Washington has created these groups because this has been recorded in
official documents published there some years back. No one has the
right to ignore the fact that those traitors are instructed and
supported by the U.S. government when it is easy to find plenty of
information on that fact by merely visiting that government's Internet
sites.

Instead of slandering Cuba, a basic sense of justice should lead us to
condemn the aggression that the island is suffering.

Those who wring their hands over the necessary measures that Cuba has
been obliged to take have still not uttered one single word to
repudiate that unwonted statement that Bush made three months ago.
Perhaps they are still applauding him?

Ricardo Alarcón