Axis of evil stretched

The US administration has classified Cuba, Libya and Syria alongside Iran, Iraq and North Korea as “axis of evil” states because they develop weapons of mass destruction while Russia is quoted as being responsible for proliferation.

US Under Secretary of State John Bolton made the claims in a speech titled “Beyond the Axis of Evil”, claiming that these nations are deliberately trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction. He stated that these three states could be classified alongside other “rogue” states and added that they would face action from the United States. The speech was made at the right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation.

Still pressing the global terrorism issue, Mr. Bolton said that “America is determined to prevent the next wave of terror…States which sponsor terror and pursue weapons of mass destruction (WMD) must stop. States which renounce terror and abandon WMD can become part of our effort, but those that do not can expect to become our targets”.

In the speech, Libya was accused of trying to obtain components for nuclear weapons, while claiming that Cuba’s threat to the USA was “underplayed”, accusing Havana of “a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort” and of providing “dual-use technology to other rogue states”.

Russia and China were also included in the speech, being named as “unquestionably the two largest sources of proliferate behaviour internationally”.

If the ticket to enter the “axis of evil” club is having weapons of mass destruction, then it would be logical to include practically all developed nations, including the United States of America, as “axis of evil” countries, a phrase coined by George W. Bush in his state of the union speech earlier in the year.

Cuba has been fighting a blockade imposed by the USA for decades, after the US-backed Cuban rebels, complete with their US “military advisors” were defeated at the Bay of Pigs shortly after Castro came to power. The US mafia had lost their playground and demanded retaliation. This blockade has been implacably maintained and includes the sale of medicines, even during epidemics, which has cost the Cubans thousands of civilian deaths over the years.

On the issue of weapons of mass destruction, one immediately remembers Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in which hundreds of thousands of civilians died, and the napalm attacks against Vietnamese men, women and children, killing or burning countless thousands.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru