Fidel Castro dead

Churchill and Hitler - two sides of the same coin.

Anyway back to Castro:

 

Basically mate aye.

 

Kennedy said in 1963. “I believe that there is no country in the world, including the African regions, including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime.
This is one of the most, if not the most, important problems in America foreign policy. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. That is perfectly clear.”

This is after The Bay of Pigs('61) & The Missile crisis('62).

 

Even if he was worried about that there is something very disturbing about one man being head of state for 49 solid years then handing over to his brother. Even internal democracy within the Cuban Communist Party seems to not exist, something he could have improved without fearing the US at every turn. Having one person in control for so long is hugely detrimental.

 

Yes, this is exactly why. Anyone who claims the majority of the Brits see him as 'great' whilst being aware of his darker side is being disingenuous.

 

Aye very good

Comparing Castro to Hitler or Pol Pot is ludicrous beyond belief. It makes you sound ridiculous.

 

Ignorance is no excuse.

 

Typically Western indoctrinated viewpoint. Castro gets called a *, while Pinochet who used to watch his dogs rape torture victims was courted by the US & UK.

 

Yea went away and did a bit of research on the guy as I had heard mix things. Some were comparing him to Pol Pot/Hitler ect, others were claiming he was some sort of revolutionary hero who was a great leader.

As I expected the truth as always was somewhere in the middle.

He took over from another brutal dictator and improved things for the Cuban people in general. When he took over the infant/maternal mortality rate were high as was the illiteracy rate and life expectancy was low.

He then converted Cuba's health system to one of the best in the world and today Cubas life expectancy is amount the highest in the world competing with the like of the US and the UK . The Infant and maternal mortality rate was greatly improved and on par with the western world and illiteracy was eradicated. Their health service also made breakthroughs in vaccines, immunology and biotechnology .

He did all this with a trade embargo sanctioned on him by the US, who knows what he could have achieved without their meddling. Not bad for a bunch of commies.

It should be mentioned that the US didnt oppose him because he was a brutal dictator, in fact they propped up the last Cuban dictator and he was their puppet. They opposed him because he got in the way of the US and private firms who saw Cuba as a source of cheap profit.

All that being said he had a horrendous human rights record who sanctioned state killings of activists , didn't allow free press and was essentially a dictator. Despite their really good health service the standard of living is still quite low apparently but think that the US had a big part to play in that as well.

I essentially lifted this * from another website after about 20 minutes of research so feel free to correct me if any of this is sheer garbage.

 

Iv never heard a good word said about Pinochet and have lived all my life in the west.

 

Still a dictator to me when he was in power for decades and only people with communist or hard left leanings will regard him a hero .

 

Communists like to forgive mass murder so long as it is done in the name of anti-imperialism.

 

well, not really. You're confusing the opinions of the British Government with that of average Joe in the street (or on the forum in this case).

I know absolutely no one who thinks that Pinochet was a swell guy. Not a single person. And I'm willing to bet that the average Joe on the street probably thinks that Pinochet is someone that Arsene Wenger tried to sign for Arsenal during the summer or something.

No one on here thinks that Pinochet is a cool cat, do they?

 

TBH, I think you are missing the point. It's not that we regard him as a hero but he is being accused of the very things that go on in Guantanamo, yet he is worse.
He overthrew a sadistic Batista who was supported by the US, not in a communist overthrow but a nationalist & anti corruption revolution.
The people who fled Cuba to the US were the corrupt collaborators & Castro confiscated there land along with vast tracts of US business owned land.
Why was there no revolt at the Bay of Pigs if he was such a tyrant.

 

Comparing him to Hitler Stalin or Pol Pot is disingenuous though.

Hard to regard him as a hero though yes.

 

Maybe not in those exact words, but...

Let's be honest here, no one is really offering a balanced view, are they? Well, with the exception of Tim-Time & Sween.

 

I regard him as a hero and a thoroughly decent human being.

 

My point is that you can be a tyrant like some from history for no reason other than blood *. 0r like Castro you are backed into a corner & you really have to fight dirty just to survive.
To call Castro a tyrant IMO is to portray a level of ignorance beyond belief. He did not terrorise his population.
If the US had not spent over $50,000,000,000 in assassination attempts, economic destabilisation programs, mass poisoning of crops, sabotage of water & electricity supplies, blackmail, attacks on oil supplies & a complete embargo, then maybe, just maybe he could have delivered more to his people than he was allowed to do.
The real crime in Cuba was not committed by Castro but by the US.