Why would the editors of a publication as illustrious as the
Wall Street Journal commit journalistic hari-kari before making an important
point, thus lose credibility and defeat their own argument before they even
start?
Are these people so gripped by the power of dogma, they have
a difficult time admitting they can still be motivated by human empathy? Or is
it that their behavior is nothing more than the manifestation of juvenile peer
pressure acting on adults whose time has come to descend into senility?
Amid a chorus of voices emanating from the four corners of
the globe eulogizing Cuba's Fidel Castro who passed away at the age of 90, most
American voices trashed the man's memory even though he never erected a single
checkpoint in Cuba, and never congratulated a soldier that shot an injured boy
in the head.
The response of those Americans is unusual, to say the
least, but is not the worst that can happen to a dead man that can no longer
defend himself. Actually, the worst that did happen came from the editors of
the Wall Street Journal who went beyond trashing Castro's lifework.
Putting the cart before the horse is a human weakness of
character that is usually not a serious thing in itself unless the act is done
deliberately, and done for the purpose of breaching the principle of causality.
And this is what the editors of the Journal did in the piece they wrote under
the title: “Fidel Castro's Communist Utopia” and the subtitle: “He turned a
developing Cuba
into an impoverished prison.” That piece was published on November 28, 2016 in
the Journal.
Here is what the editors did that is unforgivable. They
wrote: “Castro took power [after] toppling dictator Fulgencio Batista. He soon
revealed that his goal was to impose Communist rule. He exiled clergy, took
over catholic schools and expropriated businesses … An attempt by the CIA and a
force of expatriate Cubans to overthrow Castro was crushed at the Bay of Pigs
in a fiasco for [America 's]
Kennedy Administration. Castro aligned himself with the Soviet
Union ”.
What's wrong with that? What's wrong is that the editors
began the description of what happened with what may be called a preemptive
lie. They invented a fictitious horse, which is this: Castro's goal from the
start was to impose Communist rule. Behind this fake horse, they placed what
they want you to believe is a cart: the CIA attempted to overthrow the regime.
But in reality, this was not the cart; it was the horse behind which came the
inevitable cart: Castro aligned himself with the Soviet
Union .
Do you see how these people violated the principle of
causality and almost got away with it? Instead of saying that the invasion of Cuba caused Castro to turn to the Soviet Union , they said that Castro intended all along to
impose Communist rule. As to the invasion; what invasion? Do you really believe
that a harmless invasion could have motivated Castro to turn to the Soviet Union ? And it was around that dishonesty that they
built their case.
Worse, they did not stop there. They went on to compound
their cowardice by not attributing the Bay of Pigs fiasco to what is
fundamentally an ingrained deficiency in America 's foreign policy. Instead,
they attributed the fiasco to a Democratic Administration, the point being that
if a Republican were in the White House at the time, the result would have been
different.
Little did they know – or cared to know – that before there
was a Democratic John Kennedy in the White House, there was a Republican John
Foster Dulles at the State Department. He too caused Egypt
to turn to the Soviet Union for help when – responding to Jewish bribes and
blackmail – he went out of his way to pressure the World Bank to refuse
extending a line of credit to Egypt .
The country needed that facility to build the Aswan Dam and power station, a
project that was more important for the country than anything done before.
Such behavior is not specific to one party or the other; it
is bipartisan because it is purely American. You see, my friend, America is
plagued by three groups: the Cubans, the Jews and the Taiwanese. The Cubans
caused the rift between America
and Cuba .
The Jews caused the rift between America and the Arab/Muslim world.
The Taiwanese caused the rift between America
and China .
But thanks to President Nixon, the situation with China did not get out of hand.