Che-ney?

Few would dispute that former Cuban president Fidel Castro is responsible for countless human rights violations and has done everything within his vast powers to suffocate human and political freedoms on that small isle of Cuba that rests less than two hours from the shores of Florida.

Despite the glorification of some, Castro has used the power of the state to usurp the individual under the auspices of the always ubiquitous “revolution” since 1959. And when a tyrant like Castro calls out the United States for “torture” he isn’t exactly speaking out from a high moral perch.

Still just the fact that he has any opening to do this, that the Bush/Cheney administration permitted and even encouraged dabbling in such practices that in the past we have condemned regimes like Castro for using, is quite tragic and makes Cheney look even more out of touch. The fact is our moral perch is at least in the eyes of the world and some would say the law, is no longer as high as it used to be.

Asia One:

HAVANA (AFP) – Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Wednesday criticized former US vice president Dick Cheney for defending harsh interrogation techniques used against terror suspects.

“The former vice president has prepared his comments carefully,” but “they defend torture as a method to obtain information in certain circumstances,” Castro, 82, wrote on the government website Cubadebate.

Castro’s comments came in response to Cheney’s speech last week during which he defended the anti-terror policies backed by the administration of former president George W. Bush.

Cheney told the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, that the use of enhanced interrogation tactics – denounced as torture by new US President Barack Obama – had helped save lives in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The one-time defense secretary’s “attacks on the Obama administration were really tough, but I do not want to give an opinion on this subject. Terrorism did not fall from the sky: the method was devised by United States to fight the Cuban Revolution” in 1959, Castro said.