Feeling the approach of death, castro wants to go out with the sight of the world burning.

That's why he seems so eager to trigger some kind of war.

Rarely have I ever seen so many warlike signs and signals from the murderous dictator. Note the sudden reappearance of battle fatigues, the repeated sneering at 'peace' and the insane behavior of his little buddy, whom he has got on a monkey-leash, barking about blowing up his own oil wells. The Cubans are clearly feeding Chavez this stuff, manipulating his emotions, because he clearly really believes it. They want him to get in a war with the U.S. And in the meantime, he is keeping up the steady drumbeat of war, hollerating about he won't 'beg' for peace, amid a sea of belligerance.

castro defiant on Bay of Pigs anniversary

Havana, Apr 20 (EFE).- Forty-five years after his government repulsed a U.S.-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs, fidel castro decried here that Washington continues to harass Cuba, and while pledging to avoid provocations, the septuagenarian autocrat said he will not "beg" the United States for peace.

castro, dressed in his customary olive-drab uniform, presided over Wednesday night's event marking the anniversary of his regime's triumph at the Bay of Pigs or, as it is more commonly known on the island, Giron Beach.
"It has been an incessant battle for 45 years," he said at Havana's Karl Marx Theater before a crowd of more than 3,000 invited guests, many of them veterans of the fighting at Giron.

He said that since the foiled invasion by CIA-trained Cuban exiles, "there has not been a single day of peace, nor will there be, nor do we ask for it." "We do not provoke war, nor will we provoke war, but never will we beg for the peace (the United States) has deprived us of for so long, almost half a century," castro said.

Despite those 45 years of confrontation with Washington, he said, "Cuba is doing better than ever," (sic) before going on to claim that U.S. officials "have never once ceased to carry out plans for terrorism, for attacks." The Cuban leader also pointed to a shift in Latin America's relations with the United States.

"The hemisphere is falling from their (U.S.) hands, they cannot continue subjugating peoples ... and the feeling of independence grows stronger every day," castro said.

Much of Latin America has opted in recent years for leftist or populist governments critical of U.S. policies in the world.

Expanding on his critique of the United States, the Cuban mentioned the conflict in Iraq, saying that "the damage to the world caused by this empire is planetary," while adding that the Iraqi insurgency has left Washington "stalled on a dead-end street."

castro also blasted the Bush administration's approach toward Tehran's nuclear program, warning that a U.S. military strike on Iran "can give rise to a global conflagration without anyone's being able to avert it." He said continuing Middle East turmoil and spiking international oil prices could produce a crisis with the capacity to worsen social problems.

"The destabilization could be universal," castro said. EFE mar/dr