Back to the good ‘ol USofA. (In Scotland US means useless.) Neil Diamond, in the song America, sang, “in the boats and planes they came”. But if you were black, you came as a slave in the stinking hold of a rat infested ship, and if you survived, were put to work in the cotton fields of the deep South, eventually leading to the civil war between North and South, the victor being the North, and the abolition of slavery.

But the slave mentality still persists, especially among the police.

Another black man, Freddie Gray, died in police custody from spinal injuries, resulting in six police officers being suspended.

Walter Scott, who it was said, shot Michael Brown in the back eight times, has been charged with murder. The police were also filmed punching a pregnant woman repeatedly in the back.

On to Cuba, and Guantanamo Bay. Further to David Cameron’s approach to Barak Obama, a group of British MPs are in America to petition for the release of Shaker Aamer. Meanwhile, as I sit here waiting to be extradited for writing this (joke, or is it?) I remember in 1959 Fidel Castro and Che Guevara staged a military coup in Cuba, to get rid of the dictator Batista.

They did so, with the help of America, and the CIA. Castro became leader. Che went on to fight elsewhere and become a legend, his face and name still on t-shirts everywhere to this day.

On assuming power, Fidel Castro promptly did a deal with the Russians, allowing them to instal missile sites pointing to America 90 miles away.

Well, he learned from two of the best! This led to the missile crisis, and nearly World War Three!

The Russians backed down, and the UN, America’s other poodle apart from Britain, applied sanctions against the Cuban people who did nothing wrong, and these sanctions have been in place ever since, until recently, when the truth came out about Guantanamo Bay, whereupon Cuba was suddenly welcomed by America like an old friend.

Sanctions lifted! Why didn’t America just invade Cuba? They would have had to contend with Russia! If the CIA and America cannot remove a regime, they, through the UN, apply sanctions. Cuba, Russian, China, North Vietnam, North Korea, the list is endless.

Sanctions do not hurt the people at the top, only the ordinary people. If a regime is too powerful for America to topple, this is what they do, apply sanctions.

Fidel Castro went on to become the best thing that happened to the Cuban people, and Cuba prospered, despite sanctions. If the SNP gain independence for Scotland (God forbid) and get rid of Trident, what’s the betting that we would have sanctions applied against us, like the Cubans?

Fidel and Che were true fighters, not like the riff raff, Isil, in Syria and Iraq. Viva la Revolution!

BILL BISHOP, Ballingry.