Day after day, there is story after endless friggin story from the Cuban state press about how recovered fidel is. Once again, Washington chimes in.
Excerpt from the Ledger-Enquirer:
Castro migrates to elder-statesman role in Cuba
By Pablo BacheletWASHINGTON – Fidel Castro’s health is improving and the 80-year-old leader increasingly is involved in Cuba’s foreign affairs, but he’s unlikely ever to take full command again, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday.
The comments suggesting that Castro is settling into an elder-statesmen role come after China’s Xinhua news agency reported that Castro was in a hospital when he met Friday with a top Beijing delegation.
The Cuban government released photos of Castro at the meeting, looking healthier than in previous appearances and wearing a track suit. But Xinhua’s mention of the hospital suggested that Castro’s health is still precarious after his announcement last July 31 that he’d undergone surgery for an undisclosed intestinal ailment.
The U.S. intelligence official said the photos themselves suggested that while Castro may indeed be recuperating, he’s not out of the woods.
“An 80-year-old man who’s gone (from public appearances) nine months and still wears a track suit when he meets with foreign dignitaries suggests this is an extremely serious illness still,” the official said in a briefing for two journalists who cover Cuban issues.
All I can say to these “intelligence” officials is to do the math. No one except allied communist officials have seen or spoken with fidel castro in 8 1/2 months.
As Bob Dylan once sang, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
Well, Castro has an ally in the mainstream American media. All that he or his filthy lying regime has to do is say the word and American news outlets are tripping over themselves to give him a platform and repeat his every utterance regardless of how ridiculous it may sound. Don’t forget that right before he was hospitalized, the media was only talking about the incredible longevity of Cubans under Castro. Below is another article, this one taken from the New York Times that also claims that Castro is recuperating. Of course, this articule doesn’t consider EVEN THE REMOTE possibility that the picture could be doctored, or that this is a propaganda campaign from a country with a propaganda machine that could give Goebbels a run for his money. See below:
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April 24, 2007
U.S. Intelligence Sees Castro Recovering
By REUTERS
Filed at 5:18 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. intelligence agencies, which appeared to be on a death watch for Cuban leader Fidel Castro a few months ago, now believe his health is rebounding and cannot rule out a full return to power, officials said on Tuesday.
May Day celebrations in Havana next week could show just how well the 80-year-old communist leader is recovering from emergency stomach surgery, if Castro appears in public for an annual May 1 parade near his presidential palace, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Castro handed over power temporarily to his brother, Raul Castro, last summer and has since been seen only in videotaped footage and in photographs.
“It would be a definite indication that his health is substantially improved if the doctors were willing to allow him to do that,” a senior intelligence official said.
Castro, who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States, is Washington’s oldest political foe and U.S. officials keep a close watch on his health.
But U.S. intelligence has a poor record on Cuba dating to the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs invasion by U.S.-trained exiles in 1961, which the CIA believed would spark an uprising against Castro that never happened.
Castro’s health, like his whereabouts and personal life, are secrets in Cuba and no details of his medical crisis have leaked outside his inner circle.
For the moment, U.S. intelligence suggests that Castro’s health is still a serious concern but that he has rebounded enough to meet visiting dignitaries, intervene in state affairs and author columns on key issues.
“You could make the point that he already has returned in some form,” another U.S. official said.
U.S. officials including intelligence chief Mike McConnell have cast 2007 as the end of Castro-dominated rule in Cuba. But officials now say Castro could remain a decision-maker on major issues including foreign policy.
“It won’t be a consolidated succession to Raul so long as Fidel’s health holds out,” the senior official said.
A full recovery appears unlikely, according to intelligence analysts who believe Castro has a disease of the large intestine called diverticulitis, complicated by Parkinson’s disease. Some intelligence reports say Castro could also have the inflammatory condition known as Crohn’s disease.
“He probably has rebounded. Whether that means he’s ever going to experience a full recovery would be speculating,” the senior official said.
“It certainly is possible. One can’t rule it out. And it’s the same thing with retaking power. I think it’s unlikely at this point, but we can’t entirely rule it out,” he added.
The senior official said U.S. analysts initially suspected Castro had either cancer or diverticulitis but drifted toward the bleaker diagnosis as months passed without a public appearance.
Former U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte said in a December interview that Castro was near death.
Now U.S. officials believe he had a botched operation for diverticulitis and follow-up surgery in November. But they have still not ruled out cancer.
Castro’s apparent rebound became clearer to U.S. officials with images taken during his hour-long meeting with Chinese officials last week in which he had gained weight.
News about his improved health don’t depress me. In fact,I find them stimulating. The healthier he gets, the longer he’ll be hanging from that trendy little number Saadam Husein wore. Que clase de coco me estoy haciendo con eso! Can’t wait to see it! Oye fifo, here’s to your health!
Yes but the second Castro is dead the blame game begins. Everyone, especially his current allies will blame him for everything wrong with Cuba. The only love anyone ever felt for Castro was they loved what he could steal for them from other people. Dead Castro’s can’t steal any longer.
elder WHAT??
I *wondered* when y’all were gonna get around to discussing this.
What’s up with the smegging track suit? It’s sooooo 1987. If fidel is still alive, can it be hiding any wasting and/or medical equipment attached to his body (provided it’s him)? If it’s a double, could the track suit be obscuring body shape? After all, you can get plastic surgery on your face, but you can’t get a whole other skeleton. And you bet your bottom dollar Langley has every one of fidel’s measurements, and feverishly compares every image to known measurements to see if the picture is fidel or a double. If you can’t see where the elbow actually begins, it’s hard to get an arm measurement.
2) All we have are still photos, carefully posed. Why no video? What would video reveal to the Cuba desks at Langley, London, and Madrid that the castro government doesn’t want them to see? Makeup? An unnatural-looking movement of the belly that may indicate the suit was stuffed? A double’s body language that is inconsistent with the way fidel is known to move?
3) I think the meeting with Kofi Annan was the real thing. Kofi is venal as Hell, which means for the right price. he’d blab to anybody, the Americans included. Why would the Chinese play along? Look for Cuba to be making an extra effort to pay off their debt to China. Again, it all comes back to all that money Cuba owes. Until somewhere in the ’70s or ’80s, money passing through China would set off big red flags, which made having a lot of assets in China useless for fidel in funding subversive activities. This could have potentially left China in a position upon fidel’s death (and/or announcement thereof) with Cuba owing China a debt and China not having Cuban assets in-country to seize in order to pay those debts off. If raul approached the Chinese and offered them a heck of a lot more toward Cuban debt to China than they’d hope to get otherwise, maybe China would play along at a little charade intended to keep the Europeans and Americans off raul’s back until the debt is paid.
Even a monkey can pose holding a piece of paper and it doesn’t mean it can speak coherently. While I agree that fifo looks much better physically, his mind is a whole other matter. For heaven’s sake these Chinese can’t speak a word of Spanish, ergo the translator. fifo could have been reciting his abc’s and they wouldn’t have known the difference. The fact that there IS/WAS no video shown of this meeting is proof enough of that. Wouldn’t want to have the half of the world that does understand Spanish know fifo was uttering nonsense. That may be why he is still in hospital. To keep him isolated.
The Chinese may be fifty five thousand kinds of bastard, and a whole lot more things, but one thing they ain’t is stupid. *Somebody* they sent to Havana knew Spanish, whether or not he pretended to understand. If at all possible, they probably snuck in their own videocam, and some Intel guy in Beijing has been hitting the teapot while analyzing every frame——provided the Chinese weren’t in on it—-and probably even if they were.
RS- you said, “Kofi is venal as Hell, which means for the right price. he’d blab to anybody, the Americans included.” He’d also keep silent for the right price, especially if blackmailed. Who knows what Havana has on him.