Fidel is not dead (again)

The U.S. government is now backing off its claims that Fidel is about to die. He’s been bugging Hugo Chávez on the phone, telling Evo Morales he wants to visit Bolivia next month, hanging out with Gabriel García Márquez, etc. Thomas Shannon argues that Fidel is an obstacle to democratization since he remains powerful.

Here’s the part I really like:

Intelligence agencies are taking into account the new information on Castro's health, but officials declined to elaborate.

''The intelligence community is continually reevaluating our assessment of Fidel's health based on any new information,'' said Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which coordinates the work of all U.S. spy agencies.

After news stories pop up about Castro, the U.S. government often makes a statement, couching it in terms of gathering intelligence. If events of the past year or so are any indication, this top secret intelligence work mostly involves googling “Fidel.”

So, why make such statements, which only reiterate our utter lack of knowledge? I suppose we’re trying to send signals, hoping to prompt some sort of power struggle, which of course has always worked so well in the past. I would really love to be a fly on the wall at Cuba policy meetings in the White House and State Department. Does it not start bothering anyone that they’re wrong almost all the time?