US Radio Bombing of Cuba Found Illegal (US Radio Marti)

[Mika]

Source: Prensa Latina

Geneva, The World Radiocommunication Conference recognized Wednesday that US transmissions against Cuba are illegal, thus causing irritation among US representatives at the forum.

After three weeks of negotiations, the conference of technical experts from several countries rejected this practice.

"Radio transmissions from an aircraft only toward the territory of another government, and without its consent," contravenes radio communication regulations," the conference decided.

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After the remarks, the US delegation decided to withdraw from the agreement and, clearly challenging the meeting, said the illegal transmission policy toward Cuba will be maintained.

Read more: here.

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To mods: :hi: This story was posted on the PL website just before midnight, so its less than 12 hours old.

[Judi Lynn]

1. It's a damned shabby thing to do. Very crude. Raw aggression.

And it only costs the American taxpayers millions and millions annually.

Hope much more will be made of this now they've made this formal determination. Why not make them wear the disgrace publicly for this pathetic assholery?

Thanks for posting the info. It's somewhat doubtful we will be reading this or hearing it through our corporate media.

[Mika]

3. Can you imagine the outrage if Cuba was transmitting disinfo via plane on US frequencies?

The US disaster capitalists (the BushCheneyCrimeInc admin) would be mewling to the World Radiocommunication Conference and using their ruling as a pretext for some further horrendous actions against Cuba.


--

[Judi Lynn]

8. That would definitely serve as sufficient reason to engage in some nasty action.

Undoubtedly destroying the place where the noise is transmitted would be the FIRST step, on the way to whipping up interest in an armed invasion, regardless of the promise made to Russia about refraining from another invasion as a condition of the removal of missiles.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

20. We already have that. It's called FOX NEWS.

[slackmaster]

23. They'd be shot down in a nanosecond

:nuke:

[ngant17]

24. actually Radio Havana could be heard on my AM dial

for a very short time during the Raygun/Bush heydeys. It wasn't disinformation, though. A normal RHC broadcast, they boosted up there signal considerably, and it pushed their broadcasts into the US AM radio dial. It happen for just one day, I remember that, but I forgot the exact year, but it did happen.

Cuba did this as a protest against US actions in this regard, BTW.

[ngant17]

25. RHC retailiation of 1985

Some background on the tit-for-tat which happened in 1985:

When Radio Martí was established in 1983 by Pres. Raygun, a model based on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, it was countered a few years later by Cuba. After continuing to ignore its protests for the illegal broadcasts, Radio Havana Cuba in 1985 briefly broadcast its own powerful signals onto the US medium wave band, which disrupting U.S. AM radio station broadcasts in several states.

Radio Habana Cuba greatly boosted its transmitting power allowing the station to be heard on American AM stations broadcasting on that frequency, being picked up as far away as Des Moines, Iowa on 1040 kHz. RHC no longer transmits on medium waves even though Radio Martí still transmits from the United States to Cuba on 1180 kHz.

[Billy Burnett]

4. The Bush regime starves Americans and cuts health care & education programs to pay for this.

Meanwhile, big BAD Cuba is expanding its health care and education programs - not only domestically but also international aid to people in need, all while under sanction and blockaded by little old USA AND being hailed for its ability to feed, educate, and provide world class health care by the UN.

[Judi Lynn]

5. You saw that too. You have to wonder why that news didn't get any mention

in U.S. corporate news, anywhere.

It was published within a day of the admission the U.S. is at the bottom of the list of countries in infant morality, in addition to vast numbers of people without access to health care, etc.

[Mika]

6. C'mon Billy. Wake up, will you?

ALL that you mention of Cuba is obviously the work of a brutal tyrannical dictatorship. :eyes:

EVERYONE knows that good health care and good universal education programs have to be forced upon an unwilling populace. ;)

:hi:




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[peacetalksforall]

9. I'll bet the budget for this was never reduced. Too many people making

money from it. Which is always laundered circle like. From Congress to NED to joint organizations and employees, and a cut goes back to Congressmen and women.

Taking money from our children to blast propaganda at the children of Cuba.

I will admit I'm wrong if anyone can step forward and show me how the radio and tv blast away money against Cuba has been reduced since our debt started and skyrocketed under Cheney.

Ours is a really disgusting country.

Laundering money and sneering at worldwide regulations.

I think that is the same as being a juvenile criminal.

Unable to understand the consequences. Full speed ahead. Fraternity tricks.

Blasting at Cuba was in place under Clinton and was sustained under Clinton. Sorry to say.

[Judi Lynn]

11. True enough. It started under Reagan, possibly. There is something new, however.

It's a brand new plane, gua-ran-teed to blast that signal right in there!

Radio and TV Martí:
Washington Guns after Castro at Any Cost

In the face of a sweeping debt and budgetary crisis currently afflicting the U.S. economy, the passage of the FY 2006 budget witnessed a brutal bloodletting of vital domestic programs from education and child welfare to Medicaid. At the same time, Congress, at the White House’s passionate urging, allocated an additional $10 million to purchase a specially equipped aircraft to transmit the broadcasts of the long-standing anti-Castro media project, Radio and TV Martí. This figure comes on top of the $27 million the media operations already receive annually. Since its founding, the Martí concept has been a “bridge to nowhere.” Nevertheless, almost half a billion dollars have been thrown away in the project.

As in the past, this year’s funds were routinely granted despite what have proven to be fatal weaknesses in the daily operations of Radio and TV Martí, namely no audience, no legitimacy, no professionalism – with the whole enterprise representing a colossal waste of taxpayer funds. The Martí operation’s most hard-hitting critics, including highly regarded neutral specialists, have not been able to persuade Congress to shut it down. In their evaluations, these critics allege that the whole venture is little better than a glaring boondoggle, which mainly serves as a propaganda machine spewing its tendentious product to a miniscule audience. It must be seen as little more than a custom made product to service the radical rightwing fringe of the Miami Cuban community, and a act as job-bank for unemployed ideologues within its fold.

As mentioned above, over the past 20 years, the highly criticized Martí operations have absorbed close to $500 million of public funds. This huge figure has generated a number of spirited attempts in Congress to cut – if not completely eliminate – Martí’s funding. But such initiatives have been stifled by thunderous recriminations and even open threats from Miami’s lethal politicians, led by Miami and Dade county’s rabidly rightwing Congressional delegation composed of the Diaz-Balart brothers and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. The South Florida exile community has been able to purchase such pervasive influence as a result of years of working a brilliant strategy based on significant, but still relatively modest, financial largesse to both Republican and Democratic politicians. By means of this alchemistic process, hundreds of thousands of dollars in private campaign contributions to the White House and members of Congress are converted into hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds for programs enacted by Congress that are used to bankroll anti-Castro groups and which are aimed at destroying the Castro regime.

Thus, the continued funding of such a certifiably questionable project as the Martís in many ways reveals the long reach of Miami’s Cuban community into the U.S. legislative agenda. The political process has already witnessed its uncanny ability to convert carefully targeted campaign contributions into raw ideological, ineffectual hard-line projects aimed at deconstructing a Cuban society that is perpetually in Miami’s cross-hairs.

The shameful willingness of local and national politicians to bend their knees to South Florida’s financial backing, while egregiously pillaging the public treasury on its behalf, results in the squandering of hundreds of millions of dollars on worthless enterprises like Radio and TV Martí, while at the same time much-needed domestic social welfare programs are slashed or eliminated. This should be cause for national outrage.
(snip/...)

http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2006/COHA%20Report/COHA_Report_06.03_Radio_TV_Marti.html

[Kokonoe]

13. No its not costing Us millions and millions.

Halliburton probable owns the plane and they have to pay for it(at very low transmission to save money). We just give the millions and millions away.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Yup, it would make perfect sense to assume their grubby mitts would be in there somewhere! n/t

[Ian David]

2. Can we use the same ruling against NewsCorp? n/t

[harun]

15. LOL Brilliant

"Radio transmissions from an aircraft only toward the territory of another government, and without its consent," contravenes radio communication regulations," the conference decided.

I haven't consented to any of the RW propaganda on the radio nor the MSM on TV. However I have blocked them all on my Sat dish, which was easy enough. (My house is a Kool-aid free zone)

[dipsydoodle]

7. I just thought I'd wave back

:hi:

[BushOut06]

10. Don't we do the same thing with North Korea?

And I wouldn't be surprised if we were sending unauthorized, unwanted radio transmissions into Iran, Venezuela, and any other country that Herr Bush decides needs "help".

[Judi Lynn]

12. I think I've heard that about Iran,several years ago:programs aimed at seducing the young people.

I think I read they were all designed around the idea of celebrating the joys of materialism, in its various manifestations, like great American clothes, etc. Odd!

Here we go! I just located an article which could help:

December 7, 2002
U.S.'s Powerful Weapon in Iran: TV
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON WITH NAZILA FATHI

The letter, written in Farsi, was as tantalizingly mysterious as the videotape it was wrapped around. ''Excuse the unprofessional quality of the video,'' wrote the sender, a young Iranian. ''We didn't want to attract authorities by using a production crew.''

On the tape was a jolting series of interviews with frustrated Iranians complaining about their country's stalled political reforms and the repressiveness of its ruling mullahs.

The unsolicited video was sent not to the C.I.A. but to the young Iranian cast of ''Next Chapter,'' a hip, new MTV-inspired television show broadcast from the Voice of America headquarters here and beamed to Iran via satellite. The sender, who had smuggled the tape out of Iran and mailed it from London, could not broadcast the hotly political material on government-controlled Iranian television, so he appealed to his Iranian peers in the United States.

The subject was more controversial than the show's typical fare, which intersperses bites of politics and hard news with fast-cut segments on sports, movies, fashion and cars. But the show's hosts broadcast it anyway, between a piece on the winners of the third annual North American Wife Carrying Contest in Newry, Maine, and an interview with Jay Leno.

''We know that so many young people in Iran are fed up, and they just want to be heard,'' said Roozbeh Mazhari, 29, one of the hosts of ''Next Chapter,'' referring to the sandwiching of the tape. ''But they also want some fun.''

While the United States is bracing for a possible military offensive in Iraq, behind the scenes a soft war is well under way. It is aimed at winning the hearts and minds of young people in the Middle East at a time when radical Islamists are encouraging anti-American sentiment.
(snip/...)

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E7D8103BF934A35751C1A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

[Ghost Dog]

18. Bikinis!!!

(The beginning of the end for Spain's Franco regime, so we're told... But then, that certainly wouldn't be an issue in Cuba's case).

[peacetalksforall]

16. I read that we do it in Central America - they try to use the same

programs in both Cuba and Central America? Still true?

I loved the report that came in about introducing TV in Cuba - Havana blocked out reception and the people in the countryside didn't have tv.

Still true?

If yes, it's money down the purpose hole - but still money in the pockets of (some of?) our elected ones.

[Ghost Dog]

19. I don't know about TV (almost ever watch, anywhere). But there's certainly some great music

on Cuban radio.

And Cuban cinema is world class. But I guess you're not allowed to see any in the "land of the free".

[peacetalksforall]

26. Just to be clear - we used to blast radio only, we started blasting tv.

It's a wasted effort.

I think that some people can get some broadcasts FROM Cuba. And they have allowed transmissions to the U.S. for events and speeches. I'm not knowledgeable about tv or radio getting here from Cuba.

The music can be great in Miami, but it seems that it would be even better over there when the set and setting is thrown in - no fancy lessons for the musicians, no fancy entry fees, no fancy public relations, no fancy clothes, and coming from the heart where every day improvisation rules. It would be great to ride in a 1950 car to hear a group who is a favorite on the island, or has never been on tv, or to hear a little known local group. Maybe I'm creating something too romantic - influenced too much by the program produced by Ry Cooder and the Buena Vista Social Club.

Yep - the U.S. - all one way.

Incapable of two way negotiations under this regime as well as Carter and Clinton. Clinton is the glaring one - because we should have established a relationship when the Berlin Wall came down, if not before.

[Judi Lynn]

28. Carter did seriously relax the travel ban, which was slammed back the moment Reagan took office.

He was heavily interested in pleasing Miami Cuban "exiles" for money and votes. You may recall that it was with their heavy influence he pushed Russia to break all connections with Cuba as a condition of their new alliance with the U.S., which really screwed Cuba royally, and plunged them into a nightmarish struggle for survival from which they have only recently extricated themselves, since Russia was such an important trading partner.

[peacetalksforall]

30. All the while they ranted and raved against Communism. When actually, USSR Communism - good;

Cuban Communism - bad, very bad - because of being held hostage by Cuban-Americans. Communism - those were the days. We must hate Communists because of Communism - unless we have decided that some corporations could profit nicely. Arm And Hammer.

[Ghost Dog]

17. But the US, as usual, simply declares that international law

doesn't apply to the US.

:hi:

[originalpckelly]

21. I'd much rather have radiobombing than bombingbombing

It really doesn't seem too offensive, I wished that's all our government did.

[Diclotican]

22. Mika

Mika

Maybee we, on the outside of US, must beginning to send that type of broadcast to the United States of America, becouse they dosent know, or dosent want to know what is really is happening in this state anymore

If the World Radiocommunication Conference say, verry clear that US aircraft/boat who are transmissing radio to Cuba, against Cubas will, they have to respekt that.. And if they withdraw from the agreement, it wil come and bit US in the famous ass sometime down the road.. The rest of the world, can transmit radio from Mexico and from Canada, og specially in the borderland you can with the tecnic we have today, can send powerfull radio long into another country, without the problem of ilegality. Even our biggest comercial radio P4 can been lisning to Gotenborg, or even longer down the Swedish coast, in most cases even in my old car, I can hear P4 verry long inside Sweden if I wisit that country.. And, P4 is just a "smal" radio station when it come to it, compared to Radio Stations in the United States....

So, if US are witdrew from a deal, they have made for many year ago, becouse the WRC dosent like USA, and the exil-cubans to send illegal messages to Cuba, against the wil of the goverment of Cuba, Then we have to try to get the same ball around to the United States.. Its look like you really need some "interception" to this regime of you...

This is disturbing, wil US come out of _all_ the deals, treaties and rules who have been in place since the late 1940s, becouse it is "bad" for the right wingers point of wiew.?.. If US cut all ties to the outside world, and one day decided to be a part of the world, they have to re-negotate ALL the treaties, ALL the deals, and ALL the rules they have been so helpfully to build up, and now, they are just going away from it all...

I really comon sence, are coming back to US, before the United States repotation in the world is totaly destroyd... But I fear it wil not be before a new american revolution... And I am _not_ kidding...

Diclotican

Sorry my bad engelish, not my native language

[Mika]

31. Diclotican

:hi:

Hey there. I agree with you. All of the US's unilateralism could come back and bite Americans in the ass (except, of course, the disaster capitalists will make out well no matter what happens). One little thing about that... any country that does challenge the US with illegal radio broadcasts and such WILL get bombed by the US. I mean, how many countries has the US dropped bombs on? I'm trying to remember.. is there any country in the Americas that the US hasn't bombed?

-

Your English writing is pretty good for a second language. :thumbsup:



-

[Diclotican]

32. Mika

Mika

:toast:

All this unilateralism could and wil come back and bite in the ass, off course the disaster capitalists wil allways make some money IF they are allowed to do that.. It is little up to you in the states to stand up, and stop this regular pilage of the american economic life as they are doing it... It is piracy, and plain crimial if you ask me...

Wel, it is more than 290 cuntries in the world, and I really doubt United States of America can, and would be allowed to bomb all this nations without that they want to stop United States of America.. Even that US are the most powerfull nations on the planet, I really doubt they wil stand a chance if ALL the others are beginnting to bitch a fight.. US is not THAT powerfull....

And as the US dollar are slipping down, and down the last year, I have tried to follow the US dollar the lasty year, compared to my own currency, the US dollar is pretty low now... It lowest point since 1981 I belive...

And US can't bomb other countrys becouse they are sending broadcast into US.. Even a Facist country cant do that.. That they can do, is to stop the dial on the radio to conect to others radio broadcast.. That have many, many regimes in other parts of the world doing for decades.. But even that is DIFICULT to maintain becouse it is not easy to close a country to other news now.. Even in China, with the "eletronic great wall of china" many who are not in agreement with the goverment can get true the wall, to the others... And if United States of America want to build a "eletronic wall of United States" they wil allways be some who are slipping tru, and are given the american public what they need, and want...

US have a record when it come to bombing other, but a radio broadcast cant they bomb.. And I guess both Mexico and Canada have their own defences to stop others... And if I know it right, mutch of the NORAD system, have some bases in Canada, and be "closed down" if the authorities in Canada want it...
And then, US is littarly Blind and Deaf in many ways...

Thank you for your nice word about my rather bad engelish.. But I try even who bad it is;)

Diclotican

Sorry my bad engelish, not my native language

[NorthernSpy]

27. WAAAAAHHHHHH!!1!

It's true that if it were the other way around, we'd certainly consider such actions to constitute aggression.


But why can't the rules just be different for us? We're special!

[Judi Lynn]

29. Colorado Democratic Congressman David Skaggs attempted to trim TV Marti from Congress's budget and

lost his seat, after vicious, ridiculous Cuban right-wing "exile" Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart launched an all-out war on him!

7/1/93 After having funds for Radio and TV Marti deleted in a closed mark-up session, the House Appropriations Committee restores funds for Radio Marti but not TV Marti (CAC, 6/22/93; CM, 6/25/93; MH, 6/25/93). Rep. Diaz-Balart succeeds in cutting $23 million from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in an effort to repay Rep. David Skaggs (D-CO) for cutting $17.5 million from Radio and TV Marti. Rep. Skaggs complains, "I was greatly disturbed and saddened that the normal business of this House was subject to these retributive tactics. This is an example of how difficult it is to pull the plug on a program, even one as ineffective as this one." Skaggs believes the programs are unnecessary because Cubans are able to view commercial broadcasts from Florida. (MH, 7/3/93) Another Cuban American Member of Congress, first-term Representative Robert Menendez (D-NJ), tells the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call that he intends to monitor projects in the districts of Members who are "obviously on a mission" to oppose the "peaceful diplomacy" programs of Radio and TV Marti: "It could be anyone...For every action, there's a reaction." (CAC, 7/23/92; RC, 7/5/93)
(snip)

7/2/93 Following the conflict between Rep. Skaggs, who cut TV and Radio Marti funding, and Rep. Diaz-Balart, who cut funding for Boulder-based federal programs, CANF sends out a press release announcing "Opposition to Cuba initiative costs Boulder rep pet project," sending Colorado papers to press with news of the Boulder-Miami feud. (MH, 10/13/93)
(snip)

7/10/93 The New York Times publishes an article regarding the deletion of funds for TV Marti and new concerns over the impartiality of Radio and TV Marti. The article quotes Francisco Hernandez, president of the Cuban American Foundation, who asserts that neither Jorge Mas Canosa nor any other CANF official dictates news coverage at Radio Marti. However, Hernandez argues, "Isn't it fair that if we produce 80 percent of the news related to Cuba in this community, we should get 80 percent of the air time?" The article also cites recent interviews with Radio Marti employees who claim they have been forced to lobby for CANF during working hours. (NYT, 7/10/93)
(snip)

7/20/93 Rep. Skaggs successfully raises a point of order on the House floor to delete $8 million in funding for Radio Marti from the State Department Appropriations bill. (CAC, 7/23/93)
7/21/93 The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, States and the Judiciary, chaired by Sen. Hollings (D-SC) approves in full the administration's request of $28 million for Radio and TV Marti. Sen. Hollings also successfully raises a point of order to delete $3 million for a Boulder-based project under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to retaliate for Rep. Skaggs' earlier actions against Radio and TV Marti. (CAC, 7/23/93; MH, 10/3/93)
(snip)

http://cuban-exile.com/doc_126-150/doc0146b.html



David Skaggs, Lincoln Diaz-Balart

[leftist_not_liberal]

33. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose