[Cuban-born writer Humberto Fontova has just published Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant ]


It gets old. It really, really gets old.

I refer to all the moralizing and humbug by U.S. political and business hucksters when they visit Cuba. Take Louisiana's own Democratic governor, Kathleen Blanco, on her visit to Castroland last week. If the woman had simply told us: "Look, Cuban-Americans, there ain't enough of you voting in Louisiana to make any difference to me. Worse, all you Cubans are Republicans and didn't vote for me or contribute to my campaign anyway. I owe you people nothing." How refreshing it might have been!

But no. She insists on warbling about the "strictly business" aspects of the visit and how this "builds bridges with the Cuban people," and how this "positions Louisiana for dealing with Cuba after the transition," etc., etc. The best came when she rationalized her luncheon with the mass murderer himself. She did it, said her spokesperson, "out of respect for the Cuban president."

Mrs. Blanco, I realize you're very busy with state business, but in case you haven't heard: There have been no "presidential" elections in Cuba for the past 46 years, ma'am.

From the moment President Bush set his war policy after the 9-11 attacks, our country has been divided into two factions. The first faction supports the President because it believes he’s doing the right thing, while the second faction opposes the President because it believes he’s doing the wrong thing.

Now a third faction has emerged, comprised of those who believe the President is doing the right thing - but that he isn’t doing it very well.

For many families of the 3,000 American citizens murdered on September 11, 2001, the worst that could happen would be for their loved ones' sacrifice and loss to be forgotten. To ensure that didn't happen, federal, state and local authorities have put millions of tax dollars toward a memorial on the site of Ground Zero -- where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood in Lower Manhattan.

Incredible as it may seem, those charged with translating that laudable commitment into reality have come up with plans that could surpass even the September 11 families' worst fears: A scheme for the design and use of the Ground Zero complex that threatens, at best, to obscure and, at worst, to defame the memory of those lost on that day.

This past Sunday, September 11, Palestinian mobs torched and destroyed four synagogues left behind by Israel in the evacuated Gaza strip. The Palestinian Authority (PA) police did nothing to intervene, while the PA President - Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) - justified the violence as the people “expressing their emotions.”

The torching of houses of worship, just like the lootings, beatings and home burnings carried out against a Christian Arab town near Ramallah at the beginning of this month by Palestinians shouting “Allahhu Akbar” (God is Great) as the PA police stood by, bode ill for peace in the Middle East.

Religious hatred inspired by Jihadi Islam is clearly no local matter. It is part of a broad conflict unfolding between radical Islam on the one hand and Christianity, Judaism, the Bahai faith, and Buddhism on the other.

In 2003, Sheikh Nasir bin Hamid al-Fahd, a prominent Saudi cleric close to al-Qaeda, provided a comprehensive religious opinion (fatwa) justifying the use of nuclear weapons against the United States, even it killed up to 10 million Americans, under the pretext that the U.S. is to blame for the deaths of 10 million Moslems.

Over 20 million Moslems - 7% of the total population - live in Russia today. The increasing influence of Salafi/Wahhabi Islam among them may facilitate penetration of the Russian military-industrial complex by collaborators and sympathizers of terrorist organizations.

Anti-Americanism pervades the Russian elite from the top down and is escalating in the media. A former senior Russian officials stated that "U.S. behavior [vis-à-vis Russia] is not that of a friend, but of an adversary... While we need to talk to the U.S., we need to keep in mind that it is an enemy." Such anti-Americanism may facilitate illicit transactions involving nuclear weapons or components in which the Russian seller or thief understands that the U.S. is the likely target.

The result of an extensive research and five months of field interviews in numerous schools in 20 French provinces by a distinguished group of French educators should be sobering for anyone who values European civilization.

The report documents the extensive Islamization of French schools in the vicinity of Moslem ghettoes and the imposition of strict conformity with Islamist dictates through violence and intimidation.

Having by and large completed their takeover of the Moslem ghettoes, often by “targeted violence” against non-Moslems and moderate Moslems alike, the Islamist fanatics are making great progress towards achieving control of the educational system as well.

This is not just France’s problem. The same phenomenon of large numbers of angry young Moslems who totally reject European civilization is easily observable in virtually every large urban center across the EU.

Partisan politics in Washington this season are getting interesting, as a few Democrats are cautiously beginning to challenge their leadership's strategy of total opposition to major Bush initiatives. It is dawning on some Democrats that their all-defense strategy may not pair up well with President Bush's all offense strategy.

President Bush plays politics the way my friends and I used to play pick-up football when I was a kid. In the huddle, the quarterback would tell everyone else to go out long. On the snap the quarterback would dance around in the backfield until one of us five or six receivers got open, at which point he would complete the pass. With both sides going long all the time, we often ended up with basketball scores.

The Democrats, on the other hand, when on offense, merely receive the snap and fall on the ball. When on defense, they put all their men on the line, trying for a quick sack of the quarterback. If the quarterback is too agile for them, they are vulnerable to be scored upon, given their lack of a pass defense.

When two such teams meet, the best score the all-defense Democrats can hope for is a 0-0 tie. The best score the all-offense Republicans can expect is at least a 56-0 win.

The clerical dictatorship in Iran wants the defeat of President Bush because his commitment to political democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, and his endorsement of freedom for the people of Iran, threatens a regime that knows it is deeply unpopular.

Fidel Castro also wants to see Bush defeated because his determination to help democratic allies could threaten the emerging pro-Castro axis in Latin America. Both dictatorships have plans that could result in visible and sharp foreign policy setbacks that might cost President Bush the 2004 election.