Excerpt from President Bush’s remarks at Tuesday’s dedication of the Victims of Communism Memorial near Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
Remembering those victims:
They include Chinese killed in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution; Cambodians slain in Pol Pot’s Killing Fields; East Germans shot attempting to scale the Berlin Wall in order to make it to freedom; Poles massacred in the Katyn Forest; Ethiopians slaughtered in the Red Terror; Miskito Indians murdered by Nicaragua’s Sandinista dictatorship; and Cuban balseros who drowned escaping tyranny.
Mr. President, your failure to name the tyranny the Cuban Balseros were escaping from is an insult to the memory of the victims of that tyranny. That tyranny has a name, it is fidel castro, raul castro, che guevara and their henchmen. They are guilty of horrific crimes against humanity: mass murder, torture, concentration camps, slavery, and the systematic denial of all human rights to the citizens of Cuba.
Call castro what he is, a mass murderer. I’m outraged the this omission.
The link is here.
Ziva,
Bush, like all presidents before him and many politicians today, was reading a prepared speech written by one of his speech writers who is not too keen on details.
In the mid 1980s, when the U.S. Congress was investigating the secret Kennedy-Khrushchev understandings that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, I gave the historical details of the agreement to the speech writer for New Jersey Congressman Jim Courter. A week later, the speech writer telephoned me and asked me to turn on C-Span. There was Courter, detailing word-for-word, what I had told his speech writer about the secret Kennedy-Khrushchev understandings. Since then, I have never believed in any political speeches.
Professor, with all respect,I don’t belive in political speeches either, but this president has made freedom for Cuba a “talking point” of his administration. I don’t excuse this slight, in fact I believe it deliberate. After all, the non-embargo not withstanding, the U.S. is doing almost 200 million worth of business with this “tyranny” this year, and no doubt doesn’t want that hypocrisy announced in a speech.
Ziva, I also share your indignation of this omission. Sadly, Bush has been a disappointing reflection of his entire Administration on the Cuba issue – alot of ‘talk’ and no ‘action’. “Where’s the Beef” would fit this entire approach to Cuba.
Ziva,
I am not making excuses for Bush’s Cuba policy. I agree with your perspective. Reagan and Bush Sr. also touted Cuban freedom, and nothing came of it. Please read my book chapter “U.S.-Cuba Relations During the Reagan Administration,” in Eric J. Schmertz, Natalie Datlof and Alexej Ugrinsky, eds. President Reagan and the World. (Conn:Greenwood Press, 1997), pp. 381-391.
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/articles/Reagan.pdf
You will see that U.S.-Cuba policy has been consistent since 1962, no matter what political party is in the White House.
Ziva:
You’re so right. I’m sick of the politicians that come to Versailles, have a cafecito and Yell “Viva Cuba Libre”. But what really gets my blood boiling is the bunch of idiots that fawn over these guys and give them the vote! What a bunch of bull! My father always says “La politica es cochina”.
Ziva, I also don’t think his failure to mention the mostly dead fifo by name warrants outrage since it seems he was speaking in generalities. From your quote, and not specifically as to Cuba. In fact, he didn’t mention the greatest mass murderer of them all: Chairman Mao, who single handedly killed more people under his rule than hitler and stalin.
Mike, then why mention the Balseros? To me it is comparable to saying don’t forget the poor victims of Hitler’s Germany who died of starvation during the war, while not mentioning that they were worked and starved to death in concentration camps while waiting their turn for extermination. It is lying by omission; sometimes what is not said is more important than what is said. Like Jewbana, I’m sick of the politicians, the MSM, and the useful idiots whoring for fidel. Professor de la Cova, you are right of course, while some have been worse than others, it has been every administration, from both parties. Ditto for Mao’s victims, but I guess that’s just ancient history now, China being such a good trade partner and all.
I think it’s a bit of an overreaction. How can he say they were “fleeing tyranny” without inescapably implying that the land they are fleeing is run by a tyrant? You can’t have tyranny without a tyrant and “mass murder and crimes against humanity” is what makes a tyrant a tyrant — and there isn’t anyone who doesn’t know what a tyrant is or who the “leader” of Cuba is.
Even the Castro sycophants can put 2 and 2 together on that one, the difference is they’ll just get mad about Bush calling Castro a tyrant instead of nodding in agreement like the rest of us.
Zhangliqun, if we were referring to any other “tyrant” I would agree with you, but all you have to do is glace at the endless stories about “president” castro to see that normal doesn’t apply to him. The MSM has covered up the true nature of the castro regime for almost 50 years. If you think I’m over-reacting you’re entitled to your opinion, but I disagree.
Ziva,
With all due respect, I do not like Bush and I am not a Republican, but my opinion is you may be a little too tough on him with your comments on this issue.
There are opportunities to “clarify’ his comments that his or any other President’s handlers can make.
Maybe that will happen here.
Understand your concern however.
“These voices cry out to all, and they’re legion. The sheer numbers of those killed in communism’s name are staggering, so large that a precise count is impossible. According to the best scholarly estimate, communism took the lives of tens of millions of people in China and the Soviet Union and millions more in North Korea, Cambodia, Africa, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Eastern Europe and other parts of the globe.”
HELLO! I guess Cuba is included in the part of his speech that refers to “other parts of the globe” as an AFTERTHOUGHT. You would think that with little brother Jeb (who not only counts many Cubans among his friends, but also as business associates) Bush would have a little more knowledge about all the Cubans killed by Communism.
“and Cuban balseros who drowned escaping tyranny.”
I’m incensed BEYOND belief. So the only Cubans “killed by the hand of Communism” DROWNED escaping? I’m so pissed I can’t think straight. Jeesh! even “The Black Book of Communism” published by Harvard’s University Press, (of all people) mentions the Cubans that were executed.
For heaven’s sake, don’t you all think that he reviewed his speech several times before delivering it? This has a very foul smell and I don’t like it. This is the THIRD time that OUR dear President Bush commits a faux pas regarding Cuba. Conmigo, a la tercera va la vencida. H De P
Thank you Firefly, my reaction exactly. There is no excuse for the aside mention. Either say it right or shut up.
I’m with you on this Ziva. President Bush did not seize the moment. He OWES us, and THIS is the thanks we get? Well as far as I’m concern, we can build OUR own MONUMENT. F..him.
JackW,
We’re sick of President Bush “clarifying his comment” when he’s only SPEAKING TO US. There is the always the right time to make a statement. I’m afraid he missed it.
Firefly,
Point well taken. Much respect.
John Vondran
aka JackW
Bush didn’t mention the executions because that would have meant that he acknolwedges what is going on there and then begged the question: “What are you going to do about it?” He threw the Cubans a bone by acknowledging the balseros but it’s clear that this administration, like the ones before it, that by stirring the pot and calling castro a murdering thug, they will piss of the castro-loving left and they will piss off the exile community who want to know what will be done about it.
Just my dos centavos,
Claudia
The only thing that would make me expect any more from Bush than previous US presidents, including Republican ones, is that the Cuban-American vote put him in the White House. Otherwise, I’d think nothing of the fact that he hasn’t “delivered,” because that’s never happened and won’t happen unless the Cuban regime is stupid enough to force the issue (and it won’t).
However, even though Bush is more obligated to Cuban-Americans than prior presidents, he’s been up to his neck with Iraq and related concerns for quite some time, he’s hardly Winston Churchill, and he no longer needs the Cuban vote. Even if Bush had said exactly what Ziva would have liked, it would have amounted to little more than lip service. That’s not an apology, just reality. The bottom line is that it was always a serious mistake to expect all that much from the US. It’s not really a matter of what the US does or does not owe Cuba; it’s a matter of what we could realistically expect. Obviously, we’ve expected too much for way too long, and many Cubans are still doing it.
We’re basically in this alone. We always have been. There are no “brother” countries. Our “mother,” for all practical purposes, is a bitch. The presumed bastions of democratic freedom in the West have been rather more interested in doing business with Castro & Co. and vacationing in Cuba than in listening to the anguished cries of its people. The indifference, insensitivity and out-and-out betrayals will continue. Nobody does or ever will care enough to do much of substance except Cubans themselves. We badly need to face that and act accordingly.