fidel will attend the cuban parliament today

[click images]

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I think this is going to be very important.

Saturday's appearance will be particularly interesting because the last time Fidel Castro attended parliament was a month before his health emergency. Since then lawmakers have convened with an empty chair set aside for Fidel.

The special session will deal with a topic followed closely by the elder Castro brother: the threat of global nuclear war.

A brief statement read on state television's Friday night newscast did not say if Castro would address the assembly, which will be broadcast nationwide. But it's hard to imagine that he won't since he requested the special session.

I hate to say it, but I feel things beginning to shift into place. I think Fidel does too.

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UPDATE: BB2 points out in comments [*HE DID NOT! I MISREAD IT!] that so far today people are saying Fidel is urging Obama to attack Iran. I think that [*MY MISREADING] is [*WOULD HAVE BEEN] a misreading of the end of Fidel's most recent regular column:

"’You are backing a country that has hundreds of nuclear weapons [Isreal] but you are saying that you want to stop Iran, which could possibly have them some day…’"

The Iranians have stated that they will fire 100 rockets against every one of the U.S. and Israeli ships that are blockading Iran, as soon as they inspect any Iranian merchant ship.

In that way, when Obama gives the order to comply with the Security Council resolution, he will be decreeing the sinking of all the U.S. warships in that area.

Never before has such a dramatic decision fallen upon a president of the United States. He should have foreseen that.

On this occasion, for the first time in my life, I am addressing United States President Barack Obama:

You must know that it is in your hands to offer humanity the only real possibility of peace. Only on one occasion can you make use of your prerogatives by giving the order to fire.

It is possible that later, on the basis of this traumatic experience, solutions might be found that will not lead us once again to this apocalyptical situation. Everybody in your country, including your worst adversaries of the left or the right, will doubtless be grateful to you, and also the people of the United States, who are not in any way guilty of the situation created.

I ask you to deign to hear this appeal that I am conveying to you in the name of the Cuban people.

I understand that a rapid response cannot be expected, nor would you ever give one. Think it through well, consult your specialists, ask your most powerful allies and international adversaries for their opinion on the matter.

I am not interested in honors or glories. Do it!

The world really can be liberated from nuclear weapons and also conventional ones.

The worst of all the variants will be nuclear war, which is already virtually inevitable. PREVENT IT!

I am pretty sure Fidel meant for Obama to use his prerogative NOT to inspect Iranian ships, to NOT go so far as to force Iran to protect herself. I admit that is not so clear from this wording, but the rest of it, here, and in everything he's written over the years, doesn't make sense if he is urging Obama to provoke the Iranians.

I'm still looking.

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UPDATE: From the end of a piece at the Miami Herald about his speech in the parliament today:

Castro noted that after months of warning of the risks of nuclear war over the enforcement of sanctions against Iran — he even gave a deadline in June — he's now less pessimistic.

"At first I thought that the imminent danger of war had no solution possible," he said. "I am sure, however, that it will not happen that way and that, on the contrary, the conditions for a solution (...) are being created at this time."

"One man alone will have to make the decision: The president of the United States," Castro said, because Iran will not bow to U.S. and Israeli demands to halt its nuclear program.

If Obama approves an attack on Iran, he added, he will trigger a war that will spread through the Middle East and Asia and cause "the instantaneous death of hundreds of millions people, among them an incalculable number of people in his own country."

The "established order of the planet ... will inevitably collapse, the reigning social order will disappear abruptly" and all currencies will be worthless, he added.

Castro noted that "as luck would have it,'' Obama's father was Muslim and his mother was Christian and added he hoped the U.S. president will become conscious of the threat to world peace.

In comparison, he called Richard Nixon a "cynic," branded Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman as "ignorant" and called Jimmy Carter "a decent person."

So I guess we settled that one anyway.

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UPDATE: I really hate wading through MSM propaganda for any good bits, but this one was worth the work:

"Fidel attracts more people. There's nobody better than him," said Pedro Gonzalez, a 90-year-old retiree who watched the session of parliament on a nationwide broadcast. "Look how well he's recuperated. It's incredible. Fidel makes us feel better."

Me too, Pedro, me too.

I don't think there will be a reliable translation of his eleven-minute speech until after the weekend, but I'll keep looking.

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OKAY. PRIME EXAMPLE WHY YOU NEVER TRUST THE AP.

While it was the first time the brothers have appeared together publicly since Fidel fell ill, neither made any effort to approach the other, and they never even seemed to make eye contact.

There is no rift between the Castro brothers. Jesus. Give it a rest.

And, man, being something of an expert on the topic of old men, I can't tell you how great it is to be poring through pages and pages of images of Fidel looking so well. There was almost no hope for his survival, and he damn well has DONE it. I hope he never dies.

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UPDATE: * Sheesh. I have GOT to train myself not to start blogging before I've had at LEAST a few gulps of coffee. Bad enough I try to comment without enough in me, or while waiting for it to be ready. That's embarrassing enough! I'm leaving this all up here because it's still cogent stuff you need to know, even if I started in on it assuming the preposterous was what was coming of it all... which... in my own defense... is lately a fairly safe assumption....

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