On the contrary, and as a response to Exgineer’s “what the Cuban people got instead was infinitely worse,” it does. Otherwise my examples would need to be called “infinitely worse to the tenth power” or some other childishly nonsensical superlative. I do not say that under Castro Cuba is peachy keen. What I say is that it could be whole BIG bunches worse and that those who exagerate how bad it is to make a a political point do their argument no favors.
Good, sure. And it makes Che and his cause seem very sympathetic (but then, it would, being based on his own writings). But I’m not the one to ask about historical accuracy.
I think you’d see just what I tried to capture in the report – a lot of situations that lend themselves to extreme approbation or extreme condemnation. You’d find an oppressive dictatorship with a citizenry that lives in fear of the government. You’d find a country with the highest literacy rate and the best health care in Latin America.
Believe me – I am no fan of Castro’s Cuba, and I consider Guevera’s politics a mix of foolish naivete and dangerous naivete. But the man was no hypocrite and no shrinking violet. You have to (I think) admire his consistency and his willingness to pay the freight, so to speak, even if you do not admire his goals or methods.
To simply inveigh against Che (has a nice rhyme and rhythm, eh?) is to ignore a very legitimate and reasoned point of view. A report that is supposed to deliver “The Straight Dope” has no business doing that.
Moderator interjects briefly: Discussion here should be limited to Che and his role, and the consequences thereof. You’re doing a good job of staying on track, I just want to thank you for that and remind everyone: discussion of which is the worst dictatorship, whether life in Cuba is better/worse than life in Uganda, whatever, those things go in the Great Debates forum. Not here.
Thanks. Still don’t see anything different about the eyes here and in the posters, though it does look like most prints are angled slightly so that his head is straight up and down, not leaning slightly to his right, the viewers left.
Sir Rhosis
But can one in good conscience delink A from B and thus admire consistent hands-on involvement in (random killings)? Che’s consistently wrong-headed embrace of a bankrupt, blood-drenched ideology seems worthy of condemnation, especially given his vanguard role.
In this case, to appropriate a catchphrased misused by some other media source, I think it’s a matter of “we report, you decide”, Carnac. That Bricker did not choose to make an editorial condemnation of Guevara’s ideology and actions, and the fruits thereof, respects the ability of this audience to read a report that pretty clearly states (a) Guevara failed to achieve the greater social revolution he sought, (b) in the process helped cause death and suffering © the one revolution he DID help succeed became a long-running totalitarian state, and connect the dots.
Che Guevara was a murdering thug. Whether he personally engaged in the rape of Cuban women and children prior the slaughter of their entire families, or merely permitted his goon squads to carry out such behavior, I do not know.
Cite? I have no cite, other than my memory. I am old now, but the names and faces of some who suffered this fate are forever with me.
I would add; there is good evidence that Fidel Castro arranged to have Che captured by bolivian security forces. Castro knew that Che would be executed, and this was his way of:
-getting rid of a potential rival
-elevating che to 'sainthood" in the communist mythology
Was Che LIKED in Bolivia? not from waht i read-most of the peasants that he came to “liberate” were more than happy to inform on him :smack:
I’m not sure about that, ralph124c. Che was no longer much of a threat to Castro anymore, and elevation to matyrdom is hardly something to bank on. Castro had consolidated his power and merely had to keep the adventurous Che out in the world waging revolutionary war, not a hard feat. Mostly, I find is unlikely because it was so unneccessary: Che didnt’ even want to hang around Cuba.
Great report, Bricker.
What is this evidence?
Also there is a school of thought that says that yes, Fidel’s (and the KGB’s) agents did give up Che to the Bolivian/American operation, but by incompetence or recklessness rather than malice. As in, the “export of revolution” to Bolivia was so badly run that it was doomed anyway, but once it was known just who was at it, it only motivated the Bolivian/American to make a point of getting HIM.
True, he would not be the only long-time Castro ally and major figure of the revolution to become eligible for “canonization” through an untimely end, and a betrayal would be entirely plausible, on the Castro Brothers’ record. But Fidel would not have had to directly set Che up, just give him enough rope to hang himself – Che had shown he had little interest or skill in being an apparatchik: he was a fighter, and of course it suited Castro just fine to have Che elsewhere fighting. Except for the Cuban revolution’s war phase itself, Che seemed to have a skill for getting into “doomed” projects; critics of his writings have said he far overestimated his own understanding of how you succeed at revolution. So one CAN imagine, Fidel and the Soviets, knowing that sooner or later Che would get himself way in over his head, letting him follow his heart on long-odds missions, but not going out of their way to provide good support precisely because the odds were so long.
One thing I have always found fascinating about the man is that he apparently was stricken with horrible asthma. He accomplished quite a bit in a time period when asthma was under control, and in fact actively sought out factors that would make his asthma worse. Does anyone have any information about that?
Also, well done Bricker. It is hard to keep your personal opinion out of something like that, and I think you succeeded in doing so. For the record I think Che was a brilliantly misguided man, but an inspiration in many ways.
That, of course, should read asthma was not under control. My apologies.
I guess you knew this was coming but now I have to “say it”. My reply is not directly pointed to you but to anyone that have similar opinions. The “go to Cuba and look around” kind of folks. One direct criticism though, I tend to be sceptic of your claim that the situation now is “infinitely worse” than it was before the revolution. But maybe that’s just my gut feeling…
When you look at the Human Right abuses in Cuba objectively and especially in relationship with other countries accused of Human Rights Abuses, one finds they are almost exclusively specific to one area: imprisonment of conscience.
So what is the resulting answer, doc? Cuba lacks freedom of speach. This simple and clear sentence captures the Human Rights issues in Cuba.
When one hears Human Rights abuses", one often instinctively think of tortures, executions and imprisonments.
Amnesty International initiates most of the inquiries and investigations into alleged tortures by various governments in the world. Their investigative reports do not suggest that tortures are part of the Cuban military or police interrogation methods.
However, there are many reports of tortures in Cuba, both by Cuban and foreign sources but those implement the military of the United States. These interrogation torture methods have actually been condemned by vast majority of country leaders (ironically Castro among them) and Human Right institutes such as Amnesty International. This of course refers to Guantanamo Bay.
Executions in Cuba are recorded in history. These executions are traced from the start of the guerilla warfare to time while the revolutionary government was being established. In modern Cuba the laws concerning Death Penalties are very specific and on par with countries that still condone it such as the United States and Japan. Like those countries the policy of death penalty in Cuba is retentionistic; only retaining it for ordinary crimes.
I have the feeling that your opinion towards the Cuban government is very biased. Admittedly my opinion of the United States government is highly biased as well but I think that doesn’t devalue the core claims of either side. I’ll get to my own claims soon.
There is another point worth mentioning about the problems in Cuba and that is general poverty. Along the government’s adverse policy to freemdom of speach these two points pretty much sum up the Cuban problems, so to summerize the Cuban problems are poverty and lack of freedom.
I make the assumtion that you claim the sole responsibility for the Cuban problems is the government itself.
My claim is that the responsiblity does not lie solely with the Cuban government. This is not the taken as the opposite of your claim, since I fully realize that some part of the responsiblity is on the hands of the government (as it is in all countries).
So where does this other responsibity lie? My claim is that major contributors to the Cuban problems are other countries, well almost exclusively the United States of America. Other countries also participate but mostly due to the fear tactics used often by the US in diplomatic relations (especially noticable in current administration) to have them share their hostile relations with Cuba.
USA is a super-power and therefore it’s policy regarding other countries can have tremendous effects on said country’s economic and diplomatic opportunities in the international community. Unfortunately for Cuba, the US government doesn’t like them, US is a super-power and… Cuba is only in 150 km distance off the US coast which makes their situation much worse. Due to the geographical location Cuba has little means of minimizing the effects of a US trade embargo. I believe it should be obvious that a major portion of the poverty displayed to anyone who makes a trip to Cuba is the result of US foreign policy.
Other facts are that the US has been in a constant “covert war” with Cuba ever since the revolution. It’s likely that no world leader has had to endure more assassination attempts than Fidel Castro (to come to think of it’s amazing he’s still alive). Personally I suspect that this has had affected Castro’s own character flaws more than subtly. I believe it has highly contributed to Castro’s paranoid tendencies which has then actively effected the government’s policy and especially it’s adverse freedom policies.
The darkest facets of this covert CIA war has however been innocent victims, citizens in Cuba. There are evidence that suggest very dirty methods used by CIA agents there (although that it’s debatable whether these are the result of lack of overview and control of the activities by the CIA squads/agents but not of some “morbid” policies). From a former CIA operative’s account, his team did anything to bleamish the Cuban administration. One mission they did was put ant powder (pesticide) in the cafeteria milk in a children’s secondary school. The objective was to spread word of food poisoning in Cuban schools. According to the account, they managed to infiltrate the food supplies en route to the school and the mission was afterwards deemed succesful. This may be one of the most extreme cases you can find but from accounts of many former CIA operatives they often pulled missions that were immoral in the way that the targets were often of no military significance and no threat to the USA. Side note; I highly doubt that any tax payer would want to fund these operations.
I think also that the disclosed secret document of Operation Northwoods suggests some of the amoral attitude of CIA towards Cuban operations and perhaps some operations in general. This document’s material was a plan to fake attacks on US bases in Cuba, fake airplane hijackings and even faking TV funerals. The objectives were to make plan to generate (manifacture perhaps the proper words) public support for military action against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. This plan was never accepted… but I think it must send some message as to how extreme methods were being contemplated just in order to attack Cuba. CIA’s activity has not gone unoticed by the Cuban government as is seen from the security measures there and reluctancy to free prisoners of concience. There are stories from tourists that have travelled to Cuba and who were interrogated for hours because the police feared they might be “working for the US”. I think the mind set of the Cuban government shows striking similarities to that of the US government. Just switch the word “CIA” with “terrorist”. There are countless tourist stories as well on the other side, stories of people being interrogated by US security persons for hours due to fear of them being terrorists. Maybe you don’t share this, but I find this pretty darn ironical!
My claims can be summed up thus: the US has had major influence on the economic crises in Cuba. The CIA has tried to introduce elements of anarchy in order to undermine the Cuban government. It has been succesful in making Castro and his administration extremely paranoid, which has contributed to a police-like state and lack of freedom.
Actually I also want to understrike my opinion that the freedom has lessened in the US as well, while under terrorist threat. Usually when governments feel threatened the freedom of the general citizen diminshes in proportions to the percieved threat. This is useful information in attempt to understand the motives of the Cuban administration.
I could go on and on… but in the end I want to point out few more facts. The USA government in recent Amnesty International reports has been accused of Human Right abuses just as has the Cuban government. While Cuba has been mostly accused of unjust imprisonments, the US has been accused of torture and illlegal arrests (relative to international agreements on war conducts).
It is also very interesting to notice the biased condemnation of the US government for Cuban Human Right abuses. While countries such as China have endorsed a policy that’s marked by lack of freedom, prisoners of concience and secret executions of criminals… I wonder why they take every chance to hype the Cuban Human Rights abuses while keeping abuses of extremely higher magnitude practically obscure light… I wonder why, heh.
One last thing that comes to my mind. Most of what I’ve said above are comparison between what’s bad about Cuba and what’s bad about the US and how this relates. But one positive thing can be said about Cuba. They have excellent health care system compared to all other countries in Latin America. Cuba has the lowest mortality rate in Latin America and has retained that status by far above the other Latin American countries, although Chile has been moving up and is getting closer. Cuba actually has lower child mortality rate than the USA (maybe this is the reason CIA poisoned children, excuse the inappropriate sarcasm). Tourist stories have reflected this fact. While poverty is noticable, they have also noted how healthy people look there, there is alot of sport activity and dancing. Young people tend to be well nourished, fit, and healthy and old people can expect long lives. People also tend to smile and have happy constitution, although this may be due to culture rather than the countries situation, although I myself find it doubtful that such happiness could be expressed in a horrible country. I think in terms of efficiency Cuba is far more succesful than the US in terms of health care, just take note of the fitness factor versus obesity in USA, although the US has serious technical and research advances over most of the world, it seems like a serious impotency in applying practical solutions to health care problems. Probably a political issue but this is just my hunch.
Quick comparison is that in Cuba we have well nourished, fit and healthy tendency while in USA we have well nurtured, fat and heavy tendency /sarcasm.
By the way, I’m not US citizen so I can’t be accused of being unpatriotic in this reply. I’m actually very patriotic! I’m Icelandic, I support commercial whaling and I’m proud of it! 
Some sources:
http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/cub-summary-eng
http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/usa-summary-eng
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-countries-eng
http://www.harpers.org/Torture.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8085945499556832271&q=conspiracy (this may have “conspiracy trends” but it has true accounts of former CIA agents which deserve it’s seriousness as a source)
Che Guevara was a dirty stinking rotten communist, who murderded thousands.
Fuck the idiots who idolize him.
He’s like half a Hitler, and one third a Bin Laden, if you ask me.
I know you didn’t.
Hmmm. Seems to me, that just a few short posts ago, a Moderator said that discussion here should be limited to Che and his role, and the consequences thereof. Discussion of which is the worst dictatorship, whether life in Cuba is better/worse than life in Uganda, whatever, those things go in the Great Debates forum. Not here.
Oops.
Which forum is this, again?
Well said, too many people make these fucking thugs out to be heros when in fact they are the opposite. If Kennedy wasn’t such a pussy Castro wouldn’t gotten his ass handed to him… the bay of pigs is a fuck shame.
I don’t recall anybody here calling them heros and if they did there are other fora on which to discuss or rant about that.