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Is Castro Already Dead?

Who/what will die first? Fidel Castro or this here thread?

(For definitional purposes, the death of this thread will be when it reaches page 11 of the forum. The death of Castro is not so easy to define.)
 
Darth Rotor said:
Beeps, he's the President, FFS. He's going to get better than average health care, no matter the country.
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No, no, he's in Cuba, where everyone is equal. So he gets the same care as any other Cuban, which is better than average (just like in Lake Woebegone).
I'll know he's back in fine shape when they report that he's smoking cigars again. :)
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I'll consider him to be in fine shape when he's being used to fertilize tobacco fields.
 
Darth Rotor said:
Beeps, he's the President, FFS. He's going to get better than average health care, no matter the country. I'll know he's back in fine shape when they report that he's smoking cigars again. :)

DR
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Castro quit smoking 20 years ago.
 
BPSCG said:
No, no, he's in Cuba, where everyone is equal. So he gets the same care as any other Cuban, which is better than average (just like in Lake Woebegone).
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You appear to be the one who's living in never-never land. Dream on.

Harvard Publich Health Review: ”Cuba also boasts the highest rate of public health service in Latin America and has one of the highest physician-to-population ratios in the world. Alone remarkable for a developing country, these feats are even more extraordinary considering the context of a US embargo that's been in effect since 1961.”

Health and Education in Cuba: "Cuba's achievements in social development are impressive given the size of its gross domestic product per capita. As the human development index of the United Nations makes clear year after year, Cuba should be the envy of many other nations, ostensibly far richer. [Cuba] demonstrates how much nations can do with the resources they have if they focus on the right priorities - health, education, and literacy."
Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, April 11, 2000

Health Care in Cuba
Cuban Health-Care System

If anybody is interested in the difficult transition period Cuba went through in the 1990s in its struggle for sustainable development and against the the punitive and disproportionate US embargo, they should take a look at the links on this blog:

How Cuba survived peak oil
 
dann said:
You appear to be the one who's living in never-never land. Dream on.

Harvard Publich Health Review: ”Cuba also boasts the highest rate of public health service in Latin America and has one of the highest physician-to-population ratios in the world. Alone remarkable for a developing country, these feats are even more extraordinary considering the context of a US embargo that's been in effect since 1961.”
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Hey, I admitted Castro's getting better-than-average care, just like all Cubans, and that no goddamn HMO would've have sent me home five days after open-heart surgery if Fidel was running things here. So what's your beef?
 
No beef. I just enjoy pointing it out to you.
By the way, did anybody claim that Castro only receive treatment "just like all Cubans"? Did anybody claim that an expert is flown in from Spain every time there's a complicated case in a Cuban hospital?
So what's your beef?
 
Darth Rotor said:
I not only do, but some of what I was doing then was directly tied to both of those nations. I even got to meet the head of the Albanian Navy.

Again, where were you and what were you paying attention to?

DR
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Appeal to authority. Post me sources that US forces - and I assume from the tone of your note the US alone - were involved in military action in Albania.
 
Architect said:
Appeal to authority. Post me sources that US forces - and I assume from the tone of your note the US alone - were involved in military action in Albania.
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I already posted for you evidence of US forces in Albania, the iron hand behind the velvet glove of "dipomatic" means. The EU failed, miserably, to handle a European security problem. If you want slightly more fun, when the decision to lay the lumber on Serbia did come, roughly 90% of the sorties were flown by US aircraft.

EU: paper tiger. I lived with this crap every day I went to work for three years. The big political fig leaf of (16 nations) (then 19, possibly more now) is a bald faced lie to cover up the pathetic truth: the B side predominantly provides real estate and hot air. Peacekeeping is fine when there is a peace to keep -- note the superb contributions of folks like the NORDPOL Brigade -- but peace enforcement was, and seems to remain, beyond the capability of the EU, and the WEU. It was encouraging to see the French lead in Lebanon (parochial as it may have been) last summer. Maybe the tide has turned.

What more do you want?

In NATO, there is an A team, and there are varying degrees of B team. The capability gap is at times ludicrous. (That seems to be slowly changing as NATO goes out of area in Afghanistan, though the logistics is still pathetic without the US backbone.) The EU had three years to unscrew the Yugo mess, and chose not to stand up, but rather muddle about. Until US participated, in a big way, nothing got resolved. At the same time EU and WEU loudmouths, particularly in France and Belgium, some in Germany, went to considerable lengths to make noise about Eurocorps, Independent Security Identity, and more. Did any of these nations back up their talk with augmentation to their defense establishment? No. The cuts kept on coming, 1992-2000. Did big muscle logistics get funded? Little, though the jointly developed air transport (bigger than the Herc, smaller than C-17) seems to finally be arriving.

For the sake of Albanians, and at the behest of EU nations (I recall France being rather vociferous in advocacy of "do something") America put their blood and treasure on the line. I again ask where Albanian security is a US security priority? The answer is: nowhere. It's a regional matter.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27c/623.html said:
Eighty-seven people drowned in rough seas on the night of March 28, {1997}some 35 miles east of the Italian port of Brindisi, after the frigate Sibilla rammed the Albanian vessel twice, sinking it immediately. The Italian navy was enforcing Rome's orders to turn back refugees from Albania -13,000 of whom have reached Italy's coasts since February
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.
The Weinberger Doctrine was grossly ignored, and the core reason it was so ignored was because EU and NATO allies across the pond were weak sisters who could not solve a small regional security problem.

DR
 
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Darth Rotor said:
I already posted for you evidence of US forces in Albania, the iron hand behind the velvet glove of "dipomatic" means. The EU failed, miserably, to handle a European security problem. If you want slightly more fun, when the decision to lay the lumber on Serbia did come, roughly 90% of the sorties were flown by US aircraft.
[snip]
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Darth Rotor: I suspect that the basis for Architect's statements have something to do with whether the action actually took place in the country of "Albania." You're being baited.
 
Darth

You said:

On 20 April 1999 Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen directed the deployment of additional units to provide force protection for Task Force Hawk in Albania. Some 615 soldiers from the headquarters and headquarters company and two light infantry companies of the 2nd Battalion, 505th Infantry Regiment, 11 additional AH-64 Apache attack helicopter crews from 229th Aviation Regiment, and logistics support personnel from the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, N.C., began deploying to Tirane. This deployment brought the approximate number of US forces in Task Force Hawk to 3,300. Ultimately a total of roughly 5,000 personnel deployed.
It took almost four weeks to deploy the Apache helicopters. The Apache crews started training for deep strike missions against Serb forces in Kosovo. Given the changes in the scope and specifics of Task Force Hawk's deployment, a different means of moving the task force might have been chosen. It is a misimpression that the Task Force Hawk deployment merely involved 24 Apache helicopters. In fact, Task Force Hawk was an Army Aviation Brigade Combat Team. This unit included a corps aviation brigade headquarters, a corps artillery brigade headquarters with a Multiple-Launch Rocket System (MLRS) battalion, an attack helicopter regiment (Apache), a ground maneuver brigade combat team, a corps support group, a signal battalion, a headquarters troop battalion, a military police detachment, a psychological operations detachment, and a special operations command-and-control element.

Two 11th Aviation Regiment soldiers killed 04 May 1999 in the crash of their Apache helicopter in Albania were the first US troops to die in the NATO air offensive against Yugoslavia. The crash occurred about 75 kilometers northeast of the Tirana-Rinas Airport during a training mission in support of Operation Allied Force.
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So in other words

1. US forces were based in Albania as part of their operations in Yugoslavia, but not in action there.

2. The soldiers who tragically died were not, in fact, engaged in any sort of military action but rather involved in a training accident.

Are you always so sloppy with your evidence?

Incidentally:
the Kosovar ALBANIAN cock
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Those would be ethnic Albanians in the former Yugoslavia, not Albanians in Albania.

Incidentally, you going to bother mentioning all the other countries that sent troops to Kosovo including the Brits, or just take all the credit yourself?

Got an axe to grind, perhaps? :covereyes
 
ZirconBlue said:
Darth Rotor: I suspect that the basis for Architect's statements have something to do with whether the action actually took place in the country of "Albania." You're being baited.
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That's OK, having lived the problems of collective security, I should not expect anyone who has not to "get it."

DR
 
ZirconBlue said:
Darth Rotor: I suspect that the basis for Architect's statements have something to do with whether the action actually took place in the country of "Albania." You're being baited.
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Actually, I'm giving him every chance to correct what appears to be a balls-up before he digs himself any deeper into the hole.

After all, if he doesn't know the difference between (say) Yugoslavia and Albania, it would be a trifle worrying.
 
Architect said:
After all, if he doesn't know the difference between (say) Yugoslavia and Albania, it would be a trifle worrying.
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Way to act like an asshat, which is very not like you.

My paternal grandmother emigrated from Yugolavia, and I was involved in the NATO FY operations for three years. I also got to do some (very preliminary and skeletal) work on a narrow portion of a Contingency plan for support to Albanians and Kosovars, which ended up happening less than a year after I left.

I think I know this subject a bit better than you think you do.

DR
 
Architect said:
Actually, I'm giving him every chance to correct what appears to be a balls-up before he digs himself any deeper into the hole.

After all, if he doesn't know the difference between (say) Yugoslavia and Albania, it would be a trifle worrying.
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It appeared to me that you were being deliberately obscure. Further, when it was clear that your specific point of contention was being misunderstood, you not only didn't clarify the point, but rather, continued to make cryptic comments that you had to suspect would be misconstrued.

IMO.
 
Havers, as we say in Scotland.

Darth made a big show and dance about US forces allegedly saving the EU arse by intervening in Albania - a country that in fact has seen no such military action - and has his "facts" so screwed up that (a) he confuses two seperate countries and (b) conventiently forgets - for example - the rather large British forces which have been present throughout the Yugoslav problems.

How do I know the Brits were there? Because my sister and her husband (both REME) both saw a couple of tours before scooting off to the Gulf. Because one of my mates in the Navy spent a considerable amount of time parked off of the coast. Because Glasgow University sent forensic teams to help investigate the mass graves. And so on.

But hey, Darth clearly has an anti-European thing going, so why let facts come in the way of his prejudice?
 
I suspect that his opinions are rather fixed, given his claims that the US keeps saving our arses because we cannae be bothered outselves.
 
Architect said:
Darth made a big show and dance about US forces allegedly saving the EU arse by intervening in Albania - a country that in fact has seen no such military action - and has his "facts" so screwed up that (a) he confuses two seperate countries and (b) conventiently forgets - for example - the rather large British forces which have been present throughout the Yugoslav problems.
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No such confusion was anywhere except in your mind.

Before the December 1995 intervention by NATO, which was enabled by the US throwing out the RoE that European idiots (governments) accepted when sending their troops to Bosnia, there was a three year sustained cock up that the Serbs exploited. That all changed when the US took in an armored division in the Northern Third of Bosnia to supplement the UN forces already there (NATO forces mostly changed hats from UN to NATO. ) It took US political will to bolster the limp European spine. The troops on the ground were doing fine, indeed, the Brits stopped a mess in Gorazde (Sep Aug 95 IIRC) thanks to a ground commander no longer putting up with UN RoE limitations. He didn't screw around with dual key.

As to the Albanian matter, the Albanians all over southern Serbia were who the US deployed those people for, and for whom US led the NATO operation. This was completely unnecessary except for a massive lack of spine, and capability, in Europe. Albanian security, provided by US leadership of a passle of NATO nations who would not act without that leadership.

Given that many European nations had troops available, and on the ground, why did those milksops in Europes capitals have to come running to Daddy across the pond? What prevented the EU and WEU from handling it? Two things: Lack of will, and lack of capability beyond the tactical level.

That has everything to do with the failure of European collective security, and nothing to do with how well the various units on the ground handled their missions. You choose to ignore the simple fact that absent the US, no decision.

I repeat, so that you don't mistake this: Europe unable to handle its own small security problem. Had to come across the pond to get help to solve the problem. US bailed Europe out.

That is fact, in both Former Yugoslavia, and in Serbia, where freaking Albanians, as well as Albania itself (see again the refugee matter) were the prime beneficiaries of US blood and treasure.

Enough time wasted on your myopic, parichoal view of EU security. Small wonder Europe can't solve its security problems, if your 'can't see past the nose on my face' PoV is common.

DR
 
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