The U.S. should have assistance in Cuba within weeks of President Fidel Castro's death to support a transitional government and help move the country toward democracy, a government report recommends.

"The U.S. government will need to be prepared well in advance to help in the event assistance is requested by the Cuban transition government," the report says.

Oh yeah, that'll happen. Dream on, imperialists.

Among other things, the U.S. doesn't seem to understand (or want to recognize) that Cuba has an actual government, with elected leaders, laws, and so on. The U.S. media (and government) have been referring to the actions of "Castro" for so long (just as they refer to the actions of "Saddam," "Ahmadinejad," "Chavez", and so on) that they have deluded themselves into thinking that Fidel Castro is the Cuban government. As brilliant a leader and as influential as he is, he isn't.

There's lots more that's funny (and despicable) in the CNN article. Start with the despicable:

Earlier this month, the Cuban government cut off electricity to the U.S. interests section in Havana, the capital.

The Cuban government stated very clearly, with documentation, that the cutoff was part of a general failure of a particular transformer which affected an entire section of Havana, and had nothing to do with "cutting off electricity to the U.S. interests section." Now perhaps CNN thinks it's still a debatable question (though based on what, I don't know). Surely in that case, they still need to acknowledge the Cuban position, don't they? Only in a world of "fair and balanced" journalism, evidently.

Then we get this, about the actual U.S. plan:

Lending a hand with health care and clean water would be good starts, the report says.

Is this a joke? Other than the availability of medicine, which is a product of the U.S. blockade (which they could stop at any time), health care in Cuba is by many measures better than that in the U.S., and one of the reasons is Cuba's attention to public health issues, exemplified by such things as clean water. Perhaps they pulled this section from the report on Iraq by mistake.

And speaking of mistaking Cuba for Iraq, how funny is this:

That would include legal experts to help with elections. Training judges and police would be essential, according to the report.

Cuba has a perfectly functioning electoral system, not to mention a legal system and police as well. Some, of course, will want to talk about a two- (or multi-) party system. But that's a separate question entirely from the electoral system itself, which already not only allows, but requires (unlike the U.S.) multiple candidates for each office. The lack of actual knowledge about Cuba in this report is truly mind-boggling.

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