(Taken from CubaDebate)
I affirmed recently that the world
would soon forget the tragedy that is about to occur
as the fruit of the policy followed, for more than
two centuries, by the neighboring superpower: the
United States.
We are familiar with its devious and
cunning way of acting; the impetuous economic growth
attained on the basis of its technical and
scientific development; the enormous wealth
accumulated at the expense of the vast majority of
its working people and those of the rest of the
world for a demanding minority which, in that
country and others, enjoys the unlimited wealth at
its disposal.
Who are those who are complaining
more and more but the workers, the professionals,
those who provide services for the population, the
retired, those lacking employment, street children,
people deprived of elementary knowledge, all of whom
constitute the vast majority of the close to seven
billion inhabitants of the planet, whose vital
resources are being visibly exhausted?
How do the so-called forces of
order, whose job is supposedly to protect them,
treat them?
Who are those beaten by the police,
armed with every instrument of repression possible?
I do not need to describe events
that peoples everywhere, including in the United
States, observe via televisions, computers and other
mass media.
It is somewhat more difficult to
work out the sinister projects of those who have in
their hands the destiny of humanity, absurdly
thinking that such a world order can be imposed.
What did I write in the last five
reflections with which I took up space in Granma
and on the CubaDebate website between May 30 and
June 10, 2010?
By now the basic elements of a very
near future have been launched into flight and there
is no possible going back. In the course of a few
brief days, the impressive events at the World Cup
in South Africa have captured our minds.
We barely have time to breathe
during the six hours broadcast live and direct on
television in almost all the countries of the world.
Having witnessed the encounters
between the most prestigious teams in just six days,
and applying my not very reliable points of view, I
am venturing to say that the champion of the cup
lies between Argentina, Brazil, Germany, England and
Spain.
Now there is no team left that has
not shown its lion claws in that sport, whereas
earlier on I didn’t see anything more than people
running across the expansive field from one goal to
the other. Now, thanks to famous names like Maradona
and Messi, and aware of the feats of the former as
the finest player in the history of this sport and
his belief that any other player is the same or
better than him, I can distinguish the role of each
one of the 11 players.
I also learned in the last few days
that the new football has a variable geometry in the
air, that it is faster and rebounds much more. The
players themselves, starting with the goalkeepers,
are complaining about these new characteristics, but
the forwards and defense are complaining too, and
strongly, given that the ball travels faster and
they have spent all their lives learning to handle a
different one. It is the FIFA directors who decide
things in each World Cup.
This time around they have
transformed that sport; it’s another, although it
still goes by the same name. The fans, who don’t
know about the changes introduced to the ball – the
soul of a large number of sports activities – and
fill the stands of any stadium, are those who enjoy
its beauty and all of them will accept those changes
in the magical name of glorious football. Even
Maradona, who was the best player in history, will
calmly resign himself to the fact that other
athletes will score more goals, from a greater
distance, more spectacular and with better aim than
him, in the same goal of the same size as the one
where his fame rose to such a dizzying height.
In amateur baseball it was
different; the bats changed from wood to aluminum or
from aluminum to wood, but specific requisites were
established.
The powerful professional clubs in
the United States decided to implement rigid
standards in relation to the bats and another series
of traditional requisites that maintain the
characteristics of the old sport. They really gave
the spectacle a special interest and also enormous
profits paid for by the public and advertising.
In the current sports whirlwind, a
sport as exceptional and noble as volleyball, so
much enjoyed in our country, is immersed in its
World League, the most important tournament in this
specialty every year, apart from titles derived from
the first place in Olympic or world championships.
The penultimate games scheduled to
be played in Cuba took place on Friday and Saturday
of last week in Sports City. To date, our team has
not lost a single game. The last opponent was no
less than Germany. Its athletes included a German
giant of 2.14 meters and an excellent spiker. It was
a veritable feat to win all the sets, apart from the
third in the second game. Our team members, all of
them very young, and one of whom is only 16,
demonstrated a surprising capacity for reaction.
Poland is the current European champion and the
German team won the two encounters it had again that
team. In the face of these successes, nobody
imagined that the Cuban team would once again be
among the best in the world.
Unfortunately, on another front, the
road in the political sphere is saturated with
enormous risks.
One of the subjects that I pointed
to earlier, among the basic elements of a very near
future launched into flight with no possible
retreat, is the sinking of the Cheonan, the
flagship of the South Korean Navy, which sank in a
matter of minutes on March 26, causing the death of
46 marines and dozens of injuries.
The government of South Korea
ordered an investigation to find out whether the
event was the consequence of an internal or external
explosion. On confirming that it came from the
exterior, it accused the Pyongyang government of
sinking the submarine. North Korea only had at its
disposal an old torpedo model of Soviet manufacture.
It lacked any other element except for the most
elemental logic. It couldn’t even imagine another
cause.
This past March, as an initial step,
the government of South Korea ordered the activation
of propaganda loudspeakers at 11 points on the
demilitarized shared border separating the two
Koreas.
For its part, the chief of general
staff of the Armed Forces of the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea stated that the loudspeakers would
be destroyed as soon as that activity began. It had
been suspended since 2004. The Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea stated textually that it would
convert Seoul into a "sea of fire."
Last Friday, the South Korean Army
announced that it would initiate that as soon as the
Security Council announced its measures in relation
to the sinking of the South Korean Cheonan
corvette. Both Korean republics already have their
fingers on the trigger.
The government of South Korea could
not believe that its close ally, the United States,
had attached a mine to the bottom of the Cheonan,
as research journalist Wayne Madsen related in an
article published by Global Research on June
1, 2010, with a coherent explanation of what had
happened. He bases his information on the fact that
North Korea does not possess any type of rocket or
instrument to sink the Cheonan that would
escape detection by the sophisticated equipment of
an anti-submarine warfare corvette.
North Korea had been accused of
something that it did not carry out, which prompted
the urgent journey of Kim Jong II to China in an
armored train.
When these events suddenly occurred,
in the mind of the government of South Korea there
was and still is no space for any other possible
cause.
In the midst of the sporting and
happy atmosphere, the sky is growing darker and
darker.
The intentions of the United States
have been obvious for quite some time, given that
the actions of its government are obligatorily
measured to its own designs without any possible
alternatives.
Its intention – being accustomed to
the imposition of its designs by force – is that
Israel should attack the enriched uranium facilities
in Iran, utilizing the most modern aircraft and
sophisticated weaponry that the superpower
irresponsibly supplies it with. The United States
suggested to Israel, which does not have a border
with Iran, that it ask Saudi Arabia for permission
to overfly a long and narrow air corridor, thus
considerably reducing the distance between the
take-off point for the attacking aircraft and the
objectives to destroy.
According to the plan, essential
parts of which have been made public by Israeli
intelligence, waves of aircraft are to attack time
and time again in order to obliterate the targets.
This past June 12, major Western
newspapers published information on an air corridor
granted by Saudi Arabia to Israel, following a
previous agreement with the U.S. State Department,
with the objective of making test flights with
Israeli hunter bombers for a surprise attack on
Iran, and that these had already been carried out in
Saudi Arabian airspace.
Israeli spokespersons did not deny
that, but confined themselves to merely stating that
the countries mentioned were more afraid of Iranian
nuclear development than Israel itself.
On June 13, when the London Times
published information taken from intelligence
sources, confirming that Saudi Arabia had announced
an agreement authorizing Israel to pass through an
air corridor over its territory for an attack on
Iran, President Ahmadinejad stated, on receiving the
accreditation letters of Mohamad ibn Abbas al
Kalabi, the new Saudi ambassador in Tehran, that
there were many enemies who did not want close
relations between the two countries. "But if Iran
and Saudi Arabia remain by each other’s sides, those
enemies will give up continuing their aggression."
From the Iranian point of view, in
my judgment, that statement was justified, whatever
the reasons were for making it. It is quite possible
that he did not wish to hurt his Arab neighbors in
the slightest way.
The yankis have not uttered a
single word, only to reflect more than ever their
ardent desire to sweep away the nationalist
government that is leading Iran.
One now has to ask, when the
Security Council analyses the sinking of the
Cheonan, the flagship of the South Korean Navy:
what conduct it will follow after the fingers on the
triggers of the weapons on the Korean peninsula fire
those weapons; and if it is a certain fact or not
that Saudi Arabia, in agreement with the State
Department, has authorized an air corridor so that
waves of modern Israeli bombers can attack Iranian
facilities, possibly even employing nuclear weapons
supplied by the United States.
Diabolical news is filtering little
by little between games and games in the World Cup,
in a way that nobody is paying much attention to it.
