The War on the Dark Corners of the World
Resisting the Doctrine of Pre-emptive Strike
By FIDEL CASTRO
March 7, 2003
These are hard times we are living in. In recent months, we have more than once heard chilling words and statements. In
his speech to West Point graduating cadets on June 1 2002, the United States president declared: "Our security will
require transforming the military you will lead, a military that must be ready to strike at a moment's notice in any
dark corner of the world."
That same day, he proclaimed the doctrine of the pre-emptive strike, something no one had ever done in the political
history of the world. A few months later, referring to the unnecessary and almost certain military action against Iraq,
he said: "And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States army."
That statement was not made by the government of a small and weak nation, but by the leader of the richest and mightiest
military power that has ever existed, which possesses thousands of nuclear weapons, enough to obliterate the world's
population several times over--and other terrifying conventional military systems and weapons of mass destruction.
That is what we are: dark corners of the world. That is the perception some have of the third world nations. Never
before had anyone offered a better definition; no one had shown such contempt. The former colonies of powers that
divided the world among them and plundered it for centuries today make up the group of underdeveloped countries.
There is nothing like full independence, fair treatment on an equal footing or national security for any of us; none is
a permanent member of the UN security council with a veto right; none has any possibility of being involved in the
decisions of the international financial institutions; none can keep its best talents; none can protect itself from
capital flight or the destruction of nature and the environment caused by the squandering, selfish and insatiable
consumerism of the economically developed countries.
After the last global carnage in the 1940s, we were promised a world of peace, a reduction of the gap between the rich
and poor and the assistance of the highly developed to the less developed countries. It was all a huge lie. We had
imposed on us an unsustainable and unbearable world order.
The world is being driven into a dead end. Within hardly 150 years, the oil and gas it took the planet 300 million years
to accumulate will have been depleted. In just 100 years, the world population has grown from 1.5 billion to over 6
billion people, who will have to depend on energy sources that are still to be researched and developed. Poverty
continues to grow while old and new diseases threaten whole nations with annihilation. The world's soil is being eroded
and losing its fertility; the climate is changing; the air that we breathe, drinking water and the seas are increasingly
contaminated.
Authority is being wrenched away from the United Nations, its established procedures are being obstructed and the
organisation itself destroyed; development assistance is being reduced; there are continuous demands on the third world
countries to pay a $2.5 trillion debt that cannot be paid under the present circumstances, while $1 trillion dollars are
spent in ever more sophisticated and deadly weapons. Why and for what?
A similar amount is spent on commercial advertising, sowing consumerist longings that cannot be satisfied in the minds
of billions of people. Why and for what? For the first time the human species is running a real risk of extinction due
to the insane behaviour of the very same human beings, who are thus becoming the victims of this "civilisation".
However, no one will fight for us, that is, for the overwhelming majority, only we will do it. Only we can save humanity
ourselves with the support of millions of manual and intellectual workers from the developed nations who are conscious
of the catastrophes befalling their peoples. Only we can do it by sowing ideas, building awareness and mobilising global
and North American public opinion. No one needs to be told this. You know it very well. Our most sacred duty is to
fight, and fight we will.
- Fidel Castro is the president of the Republic of Cuba
ENDS