HUNGER: WHERE IS THE SCORN?

HUNGER: WHERE IS THE SCORN?

Cuba shipped $780 million worth of vegetables, sugar and agricultural
exports to the United States in the 1950s, but communist dictator Fidel
Castro has turned his nation into a lunar wasteland over his 48-year
dictatorship, its famous sugar industry now gone, says Investor's
Business Daily (IBD). Does Castro take responsibility? No. He blames
global warming, not his disastrous decisions.

But Cuba's land lies in ruin not because of bad weather but because its
massive propaganda-driven "great sugar harvests" of the 1960s ruined the
land in the name of making Castro's arbitrary quota -- and because no
citizen can own or trade land for its most efficient use. Now, Cuba
grows so little food it must import it from the very nation its leader
denounces and undermines and blames.

In fact, it's Castro's dirty secret -- the United States is Cuba's food
lifeline, says IBD:

* The United States sells $340 million in food a year to Cuba just
so its ration books can be worth the paper they're printed on.
* The United States is Cuba's top trade partner, but Cuba ranks
only 32nd on the U.S. list; America grows enough food to feed dozens of
countries and, through ethanol, its own cars.

"Prior to 1959, when Castro took power, Cuba had the fourth-highest
protein consumption in the Western Hemisphere," says Humberto Fontova,
author of "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant." "Today, it's near the
bottom."

* According to a Spanish study, Fontova said, in 1842 Cuba's
plantation slaves got royally decreed daily rations of 8 ounces of meat,
4 ounces of rice, 16 ounces of starch and 4 ounces of beans.
* By contrast, when Castro started rationing food in 1962, Cubans
got 2 ounces of meat, 3 ounces of rice, 6.5 ounces of starch and 1 ounce
of beans.

Source: Editorial, "Hunger: Where Is The Scorn?" Investor's Business
Daily, March 29, 2007.

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