Havana: NATO is a "military mafia," the war
in Afghanistan is "genocidal" and US President Barack Obama deserves the prize for the "best snake charmer" who ever
lived, Cuba`s Fidel Castro has said.
In an article published yesterday in response to the
Western alliance`s weekend summit in Portugal, the former
Cuban leader called NATO an "aggressive institution" that
ignored "billions of persons suffering from poverty,
underdevelopment, shortages of food, housing, health,
education and jobs."
Castro, 84, communism`s most visible living figure, led
Cuba from the 1959 Revolution until he stepped down for health
reasons in 2006, handing over the presidency to his brother
Raul.
Castro called NATO (short for the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization) "a bird of prey sitting in the lap of the Yankee
empire," that was used by the United States to wage "the
genocidal Afghanistan war."
He brushed off ambitious plans unveiled at the Lisbon
summit that would have Western leaders press Kabul to take
over security by 2014, predicting they would eventually "hand
over power to the Afghan resistance, in defeat."
The United States is "going through a difficult phase as
the result of its war exploits" and using its "enormous media
resources to maintain, dupe and confuse world public opinion,"
Castro said.
"Obama already admitted that his promise to withdraw US
soldiers from Afghanistan may be postponed... After the Nobel
Prize, we would have to award him with the prize for `the best
snake charmer` that has ever existed."
PTI
