Friday, March 23, 2007

McCain Tortured Again (Part 1)

There's no question that Senator John McCain from Arizona is one tough guy, but when he met Armando Perez Roura this past Wednesday (March 21, 2007) on Radio Mambi he was no match for "La Beligerancia."

To Armando Perez-Roura the option of military aggression, covert or not, is an acceptable option to regime change in Cuba. He mentions it every once in a while, knowing that his idea is not very popular at all, only to hard-liners. But, Perez-Roura romantically calls it "La Beligerancia" (the spirit of militancy) to mask his rhetorical hostility.

Well, John McCain, Republican presidential hopeful, began his campaign in Miami with a morning interview on Radio Mambi, and Perez-Roura was ready to grill him. Earlier this year, in another interview McCain suggested that he was perhaps willing to negotiate with Raul Castro, saying: "When Castro has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx, I think that that is the time that we offer a package of trade, of assistance, of economic development, of assistance in democratization..."

This kind of talk has been abolished on Radio Mambi (and on other hard-line Cuban-American forums), so McCain was grilled that morning in order to a show him what La Beligerancia was all about. Perez-Roura (poorly translated through Enrique Encinosa) made it clear that McCain should consider a military strike as a viable option. McCain has said before that such a scenario would not be accepted, but after a grilling on Radio Mambi, McCain changed his attitude a bit. He finally succumbed to saying:

"... if you're asking me if I will send in troops for military action [coughs]... I don't know."

Wow. Its definitely a different McCain compared with his January interview where he clearly said: "I cannot say invade. I cannot say Bay of Pigs. I cannot say military action of any kind."

[Photo by Gabriela Murillo/Univision]

[Part 2]

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