Washington Post Denies that Cuba Is a Terrorist Country
HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 5 (acn) The Washington Post, the most important and oldest newspaper of the US’s capital city,
published an article today criticizing the inclusion of Cuba in the US list
of terrorist countries.
The article, written by 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Robinson, refers to Washington’s rigorous airport security
rules put into effect last Sunday under which passengers flying to the United States from Cuba and another 13 so-called
terrorist countries will be submitted to extra screening.
The text says Cuba represents a threat of terrorism equal to zero. “Cuba is not a failed state where swaths of territory
lie beyond government control; rather, it is one of the most tightly locked-down societies in the world,” the author
wrote and adds “a place where the idea of private citizens getting their hands on plastic explosives, or terrorist
weapons of any kind, is simply laughable.”
“There is no history of radical Islam in Cuba. In fact, there is hardly any history of
Islam at all…the island nation would have to be among the last places on Earth where al-Qaeda would try to establish a
cell, let alone plan and launch an attack,” the article reads.
“Yet Cuba is on the list because the State Department still considers it -- along with Iran, Sudan and Syria -- to be a
state sponsor of terrorism.”
In addition, the text notes: “Despite the fact that the U.S. Interests Section in Havana was one of the few American
diplomatic posts in the world to remain open for normal business, with no apparent increased security, in the days after
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks?” Further in his writing Robinson says Barack Obama’s administration’s policy
towards Cuba has been tentative and halting and he criticizes the fact that the blockade against the island nation
remains undisturbed as well as the ban that keeps American citizens from travelling to Cuba.
ENDS