Prince Harry, the 23-year-old son of Prince Charles of England, has been in Afghanistan since December 2007, most of it in a forward base in Helmand province that has daily contact with Taliban and/or al Qaeda fighters and operatives. A second lieutenant in the Household Cavalry Regiment Battlegroup, Prince Harry's posting to Afghanistan existed under a negotiated British media blackout to ensure the Prince's safety while stationed there. He was to remain in Afghanistan until April, but will soon be headed home to England instead, according to the Ministry of Defense.

"The Drudge Report" announced Thursday, February 28, that Prince Harry was in Afghanistan. The story places the prince and those he serves with in a more dangerous position, Ministry officials believe, due to his high profile. It was the secrecy of the assignment that provided the prince with the protection of anonymity in order for him to serve his tour of duty, being the first person of the royal family to actually serve since his uncle fought in the Falklands War. For his and his fellow soldiers' safety, it was determined that Prince Harry should return home.

In one interview after the news of his posting broke, Prince Harry said that enjoyed serving as a "normal person." Back in December, he told the press that he had nearly resigned his commission when it was decided that he could not go to a posting in Iraq.

Much has been made over a royal being on the front line or in combat situations where their life may be endangered. Many believe that any type of posting of a royal or a high profile person not only brings unwanted publicity to those in their military units, but also opens those high profile persons and their units to increased enemy attention, thus increasing the danger to the lives of the high profile persons and any and all in their units. There is also the added worry of the enemy using the death of that high profile person, especially a member of royalty or the child of a prominent politician, for propaganda purposes.

As for whether or not persons of celebrity should be given preferential treatment (such as Prince Harry being quickly pulled out of Afghanistan), there would have to be some concessions made to accommodate increased scrutiny and targeting. But a personage that would bring about the constant threat of imminent death to his comrades should be treated differently. The stress would be immeasurable. In fact, that person should never be allowed to serve in a forward position or in a combat situation, even if that person volunteered for military service. Soldiers serving in Vietnam were told before deployment never to salute superior officers so as not to draw inordinate attention to a person of rank. A person of royalty on the front line, especially if the enemy knew such a person was on the front line, would increase the likelihood of targeted attacks astronomically.

One of the most amazing aspects of this story is that the notoriously glib and free speech protectionistic British press remained quiet for ten weeks, therefore allowing Prince Harry to serve relatively unendangered (his unit's position was attacked at least five times a day). Of course, the military, in exchange for the press' silence, was embedding journalists and allowing unprecedented access to Prince Harry's unit. Still, it is an formidable feat in this age of instant journalism and the expose.

And of course it had to be an American publication that exposed the Prince's whereabouts to the world, to the Taliban, to al Qaeda...

Source:

Andrew Pierce and Natalie Paris, "Prince Harry to return from Afghanistan," Telegraph.co.uk

Raul Castro, Fidel Castro's younger brother, was voted into the office of president of Cuba Sunday, February 24. Although Fidel Castro, who had ruled the island nation for 49 years, had conveyed almost all governing powers to his brother in 2006 when he became ill, the official title of president remained his until his resignation on February 19. The election by the National Assembly made it official.

Since Raul Castro was by his brother's side as First Vice-President during his reign, few see change in the way Cuba operates -- politically, economically, diplomatically -- in its future. And many analysts see the interim period, publicly stated as a period of waiting for the elder Castro to recuperate, as a mere staging for the transition of power. With Raul already president in everything but name only for two years, the interim could be used to justify his ascension to the presidency without too much infighting.

And so it went...

The younger Castro faces the same problems he's faced at his brother's side over the years: excessive poverty, poor trade options, an oppressed populace of unknowable disposition, a failing infrastructure, a debilitating trade embargo imposed on Cuba by the United States, no diplomatic relations with the United States (it's closest neighbor), etc. And many believe that he will continue his brother's militant dictatorship until Fidel's death or he is deposed.

However, there are those that are and have been attempting to change the course of Cuba for years and some of them believe that the time may have come or is exceedingly near. Where diplomatic talks with Fidel Castro have either been stymied or failed for various reasons, many hope that Raul Castro may chart a separate course for Cuba, especially after his brother, who is 81, dies. Some U.S. Congressmen have been fighting the trade embargo for years, stating that it is punitive and unproductive, that it punishes Cuba's people for purely political reasons. Senator Barack Obama told the audience at the Austin, Texas, Democratic debate on CNN February 21 that he believed that the next president, after the disastrous mishandling of foreign affairs by the current Bush administration, should become more closely involved in diplomatic matters and that he would not, as Senator Hillary Clinton had suggested she would do, make it a prerequisite for other nations to meet some predetermined criteria in order for diplomatic talks to take place.

Castro has defied the United States for years, becoming a satellite to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) until its collapse, then taking a solitary stance against the U.S. (until recently, when Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, showed support for the ailing dictator). His public rhetoric and militant stance against his northern neighbors has resulted in Cuba becoming one of the poorest nation's in the world. The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted over 2800 Cubans attempting to enter the U.S. via the Straits of Florida in 2006, suggesting that Cuba's people are restless under Castro's heavy-handed rule, despite Castro's assertions that all is well on the island. Still, he maintains that his governance has been benevolent, producing a great health care system and educating far more Cubans than his predecessor, dictator Fulgencio Batista.

It remains to be seen if rule under Raul Castro will bring about change that some have been anticipating for half a century.


Sources:

"Fidel Castro Resigns," TheStar.com

"Cuba," CIA.gov

"Obama, Clinton agree to disagree," CNNPolitics.com

 

Actress Sharon Stone in the Middle East.   She claims that she is there to highlight the horrors of the War in Iraq and the Afghanistan War, something the media has neglected to do, that she was there to find the truth that the media failed to provide. "War is not a movie," Stone told Al Hayat, a pan-Arab newspaper, according to the Associated Press.

Stone criticized the United States' ongoing wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, stating that September 11 should not have been used as a pretext to start either of those conflicts. She went on to say that she was pained to see that, although 4000 U.S. soldiers that have been killed have been spotlighted by the media, there have been 600,000 Iraqis killed and virtually ignored. The star of "Basic Instinct," "The Mighty," and "Bobby" added: "I feel sad when I realize how much truth is being changed or obscured in the American media."

The outspoken actress' views are just the latest in a long list of Hollywood and music industry celebrities that have publicly decried one or both of the conflicts in which the United States is currently involved.

Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, and Jessica Lange have been some of the more notable actors to denounce the use of military force in the region. Sean Penn made headlines with "An Open Letter to the President..." news conference where he used the convoluted imagery of president Bush's "bloodstained underwear" and the complicity of his cronies and the media pundits in promoting an illegal war. Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Tori Amos and Eddie Vedder have all contributed to the soundtrack of the soon-to-be-released (March, 2008) anti-war documentary, "Body of War," which chronicles the life of paralyzed Iraq war veteran, Tomas Young.

Stone's comments are already a hot topic in the blogosphere, much of which is negative toward the Oscar-nominated actress. Some have gone so far as to liken her to Jane Fonda and that actress' unpopular media events involving North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

And many will take exception to her numbers with regard to the Iraqi dead.   Official death counts range from IraqBodyCount.org's nearly 90,000 documented civilian deaths (February 22, 2008) to the British medical journal Lancet's estimate of over 650,000 "excess" deaths in Iraq (October, 2006). Results from an Opinion Research Business poll conducted in Iraq in 15 of 18 provinces (two of the provinces not polled were its most violent, Anbar and Kerbala) that were released in late 2007 and while the American military "surge" was in its infancy estimated that there were between 733,000 and 1, 446,000 Iraqi deaths since the war began. The ORB poll had a margin of error of 2.5%.

Whether Sharon Stone is correct in her assessment of the media with regard to its coverage of the wars in the Middle East may be debatable, but one aspect of the coverage is not. The number of stories about the war has dwindled in the past couple months as has their prominence of placement. Where once the War in Iraq was front page and evening headline news, the war has fallen behind stories of economic woe and the political drama of the presidential race.

Sources:

Associated Press, "U.S. Wars, Media Stoned by Actor," WinnipegSun.com

Sean Penn, "An Open Letter to the President...Four and a Half Years Later," HuffingtonPost.com

"Springsteen, Young Join Anti-War Soundtrack," Reuters.com

Hamit Dardigan, John Sloboda, and Josh Dougherty, "Reality Checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates," IraqBodyCount.org

"September 2007 - More than 1,000,000 Iraqis Murdered," Opinion.co.uk

 

President Fidel Castro, the aging military dictator of Cuba, announcedTuesday, February 19, that he has resigned as Cuba's president and as commander-in-chief of the island nation's military forces. The letter of resignation appeared in the early morning edition of the state-run newspaper Granma. In it, Castro, ever the soldier of revolution, stated that he wished to go on as a "soldier of ideas." The letter was clear: "I will not aspire to, nor will I accept the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief."

Castro's resignation brings to a close almost five decades of personal rule. His government, which came to power through the overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, has held a tight reign over Cuban affairs; suffered through attempted American interferences and oustings, a missile crisis, and numerous punitive trade embargoes; and refused to give in to its mighty northern neighbor on nearly every matter of state concerning the two nations. Although Castro effectively transferred power to his brother, Raul, when he began suffering from intestinal problems two years ago, he had never formally given up his position as president and commander-in-chief.

Fidel Castro has outlasted nearly ten American presidents and, during the Cold War, was a constant reminder that the United States could not and did not control the affairs of everything, most notably a small island nation just 70 miles off its Florida coast. Wars of words were common between each successive president of the United States and the president of Cuba. After the failed Guantanamo Bay (Bay of Pigs) invasion, an anemic military endeavor to oust Castro's young government during the Kennedy Administration, Castro and Cuba became the ultimate symbol of defiance for governments opposed to American interests, especially those with Marxist-Leninist leanings and diplomatic ties with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). Castro became famous for his fiery anti-American rhetoric.

Symbol of defiance or no, Castro was also criticized by much of the world for not doing more for the people of Cuba to better their lives. The strain of having no diplomatic ties with the United States, years of embargoes, and oppressive governmental rule have left Cuba isolated and one of the poorest nations in the world. Reports of human rights violations over the years have done nothing but add to Cuba's problems.

President Bush, who was in Rwanda signing a trade agreement with that nation's president, Paul Kagame, stated that Castro's resignation should begin a "period of transition" for Cuba's government. According to Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times, Bush went on to say that Cuba should begin with free elections. "And I mean free and I mean fair, not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as true democracy."

President Bush created a transitional commission in 2003 for an occurrence such as the resignation of the 81-year-old dictator. It is chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and is authorized to aid Cuba in a transition toward a democratic government, complete with a financial package. The Cuban government must first make a formal request.

The United States and Cuba have no formal diplomatic ties at the moment. There also exists an American trade embargo against Cuba which will remain in effect until one nation or the other decides to compromise.

Given that Raul Castro was his brother's First Vice-President and helped rule Cuba through the years, it could be some time before Cuba is ready to have normalized relations with the United States, especially if one of the conditions remains a change in Cuba's government.

Sources:

Morgan Neill, "Castro resigns as president, state-run paper reports," CNN.com

Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Bush Greets Castro Resignation," NYTimes.com

Ed Payne, "Castro's resignation won't change U.S. policy, officials say," CNN.com