Cuba: Fidel "Grave" or Recovering Well? MSM Chooses Their Prognosis
The Spanish surgeon who examined Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Dec 27 that Fidel is making a "good recovery" from intestinal surgery and could forseeably return to governing his country.
It has been another amazing day in the world of Castro-watching. Despite a galore of first-hand accounts from those who would actually know in the last few days , which went virtually ignored, the MSM has today printed more than 1,200 stories claiming that Fidel is in "grave condition" in their headlines. Did they have some secret access to Cubans in the know, or Fidel's medical team? No, the authority for a headline is based on what 2 unidentified workers at a Spanish hospital had to say to the newspaper El Pais. Two sources they must have figured.
But lets ignore and say nevermind what Fidel's own son said yesterday - that he is "...better, better. I see him improving." Nevermind Cuban diplomats calling the stories "invented" and Hugo Chavez echoing Fidel's own New Years Address. And certainly do not publish the positive comments from the (above) world's leading intestinal specialist, a Spanish Doctor who visited and diagnosed Fidel 3 weeks ago (or his standing behind the words, which he reiterated today. Nevermind all of that because we have two unknown persons who made the statements every newsroom was waiting for (and saying without proof) for months - that things are not looking good for Fidel.
The problem is that is not true. Fidel's condition is not "Grave," he is - I believe - recovering and will be back in the public relatively soon. Of course, some aspects of these stories coming out of Spain might have some truth. All I know is that the media was printing as fact that Castro had cancer all the way up to the visit by the Spanish doctor disproved that and that they have no real basis to today spread 1200 headlines around the world saying Castro is gravely ill .
An interesting side note is that the headlines coincided with remarks by the US' new Director of Intelligence (Negroponte) who told Senators last week that Castro's days "seem to be numbered." Negroponte tried to lie his way out of questions about why no uprisings had occured in Cuba. Now we know that in official US intelligence view, the post-Fidel transition has already begun and appears to be heading for a "soft landing." Even if we buy this, the USG views this peace and progress unacceptable.
"From the point of the United States policy, we don't want to see that happen," Negroponte said.
..
Negroponte said last week it is an open question whether Castro's death could trigger a popular demand for democratic change.
"What is not known is whether people are holding back - maybe we're not seeing the kind of the ferment yet that one might expect to see once Mr. Castro has definitively departed the scene".... "We don't know in large measure because it is a repressive society. They've repressed their opposition so severely over all these years, so people aren't exactly speaking up yet."
Oh yeah? Is that what the best intelligence minds in the US have come up with to explain the lack of counter-revolutionary uprising, the lack of even a whimper for counter-revolution in the thousands of press reports? Where is the proof of this severe repression with all these journalists in Cuba? I see only a handful of long-time deviants having a hard time because they are despised by their neighbors, but no police hauling people away or water cannons. Oh, I see it is the oppression "all these years" that has got people scared... unlike in the Soviet Union, or East Germany or Romania of course. I suggest the CIA stop cooking the books and read some straightforward and honest explanation of the current calm. It is on the front cover of Foreign Affairs magazine at Barnes and Nobles - called Fidel's Final Victory by Julia Sweig.
Labels: fidel castro cuba
posted by leftside at
3:54 PM
6 Comments:
Fidel will live forever, or at least until he's 140. The same rules of biology that apply to us, do not apply to him, given the excellent health care system of Cuba!
Speaking of Cuba, readers of this blog should also check out What Cuba's Youth Really Want on MSNBC, a far cry from what Leftside would allow if his ideas continue to be manifest in Cuba.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16707996/site/newsweek/
Chavez: Castro 'fighting for his life,' progressing slowly
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (CNN) -- Cuban leader Fidel Castro is "fighting for his life," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday.
Chavez, who said he spoke to Castro a few days ago by telephone, compared Castro's battle against a serious intestinal illness with the Cuban leader's time in the island's mountains heading the revolution against the Fulgencio Batista government.
"Fidel is again in the Sierra Maestra again," Chavez said Friday in a speech to the state legislature in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
"He's fighting for his life. We don't know; we want him to recover, and he continues progressing, although slowly."
Noting Castro's age, Chavez said that "he said it himself: the machine that they have to fix is 80 years old."
Castro has not been seen in public since before July 31, when he relinquished power to his brother Raul so that he could undergo intestinal surgery. The Cuban government has maintained secrecy about his condition.
Earlier this week, the Spanish newspaper El Pais quoted unnamed medical sources saying Castro was in grave condition. But a Spanish surgeon who visited Castro in December -- and who works at the same hospital as the sources -- said those reports were based on rumors and that Castro's condition shows "some progressive improvement."
"The only truthful parts of the newspaper's reports are the name of the patient, that he has been operated on, and that he has had complications. The rest is rumors," the surgeon, Dr. Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido, told CNN in an exclusive interview.
He declined to go into specifics on Castro's health, or to discuss El Pais' reports point-by-point, but he said they "are not in line with reality, are not truthful and not real."
El Pais, one of Spain's largest and most reliable papers, reported Tuesday that two sources at the hospital in Madrid, Spain, told its reporters that Castro had suffered complications after three failed surgeries.
El Pais reported that Castro suffered from diverticulitis, an inflammation of sacs on the large intestine that can rupture and cause bleeding. The infection spread to the tissue on the walls of the abdomen, a condition called peritonitis.
The infections, the paper said, have impeded the healing process. On Wednesday, El Pais quoted sources as saying that Castro personally made a decision to undergo a type of operation that subsequently went wrong instead of a more routine surgery.
I should probably post this with your MLK post below, but...they're burning biographies of Martin Luther King in Cuba.
http://www.4freadom.org/BurnDoc.html
Spin that. Oh, and don't try to say it was made up. The cuban court documents specifically mention the order to burn the book, along with many others. Another example of the kind of government you support.
Umm, JSB, your link shows absolutely NO mention of them burning a MLK book. You shouldn't just post a link without actually reading it...
The only mention of incineration in the whole lot (covering 7 people) were things written by a defendent. All the rest of the materials (provided by foreign diplomats, Jimmy Carter or the US Interests Section) were given to the relevant municipalities for their use.
But I suppose that the US Judge in Chicago right now would allow, say, Hamas political pamphlets to be distributed to local US libraries and not be confiscated as part of a Federal crime?
They burn books in Cuba Matt. It is a fact that all of your true-believer spinning for Fidel can't change.
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