September 28, 2011 12:53 PM
By Dana Khraiche
The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Republican Party presidential candidate Michele Bachmann warned
against the U.S. normalizing trade relations with Cuba, citing reports
that the Latin American country is working with Hezbollah.
"There are reports that have come out that Cuba has been working with
another terrorist organization called Hezbollah," Bachmann said during a
speech to supporters in Iowa in the U.S. Monday.
"When you are 90 miles offshore from Florida, you don't want to
entertain the prospect of hosting bases or sites where Hezbollah could
have training camps, or perhaps have missile or weapons sites in Cuba.
This would be foolish," the U.S. Representative can be seen saying in a
YouTube video of the event.
Bachmann,a prominent member of the conservative Tea Party Movement and a
candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2012 U.S. presidential
election, was referring to an unsourced report published last month by
the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera regarding Hezbollah's presence
in Cuba. The party and the country are both on the U.S. terror list.
The Italian daily said Hezbollah is currently preparing to establish a
base in Cuba with a budget of more than half a million dollars.
The paper alleged that Hezbollah members have long been active in Latin
American countries, where it said the "lawless" atmosphere and lax
security provides the ideal environment for its activities.
Bachmann said during her speech that the U.S. is in need of a president
that "understands problems that are going on internationally," as the
country faces a decline in its global economic power.
No comments:
Post a Comment