He executed Thousands (though for scale you really have to compare him to Batista), Packed a bunch more off to “Re-Education” Camps which are by definition much, much worse than a Political Prison.
Oh, and he stole all their Mafia and Graft money when they fled to Miami and started raising an Army of Catholic Cavaliers and Mercenaries to retake the stuff they stole first back from those Roundheaded Apostates and Atheists.
Sure the CIA thought that was a great idea, and they organized the Bay of Pigs which if it weren’t such a bloody defeat would be a farcical physical comedy of the Three Stooges type (Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. Woo, woo, woo, woo. Said I didn’t like it, never said I didn’t know it).
We sent him an exploding Cigar!
I mean, how basic. Yeah it was actually poison something or other and we had this showdown draw over Nuclear Missiles (Mutually Assured Destruction works, 72 years and counting. Who wants a heap of glowey ashes?) and then Fidel killed JFK unless it was Sam Giancana or somebody else (Oswald? In the Book Depository? With a Sears Roebuck Rifle? Who’s naive now Kate?).
Finally we decided simmering hate and hostility rather than active aggression was the best course of action until Obama came around. I would have gone to Havana, still might at some point. They say it’s beautiful and it’s very historic in an Age of Exploration/Piracy/Colonial kind of way.
I must say I remember the bad old days quite well enough.
I also remember (120+ you know) all the Red Baiting from 1917 to 1940 when, after Hitler attacked, they became our temporary military ally, and then again from 1946 to 1989.
Besides Putin is our pal, he’s KGB not a Commie. Xi is a Commie right enough but we owe him money (not a lot in the grand scheme of things actually) so we’ll posture against him in meaningless economic ways that only harm United States Consumers, Farmers, and Manufacturers.
But heaven forfend you have a nice word about Cuban Literacy or their Global Humanitarian Health Care (not Insurance, actual Doctors, Nurses, Hospitals, Medicine, and Equipment) outreach.
Only good Red is a dead Red.
I’ll let digby take it a little-
Trump’s authoritarian buddies have his number
Published by digby, Hullabaloo
February 26, 2020
There has been a lot of discussion over the past few days about Bernie Sanders’ comment on “60 Minutes” that the authoritarian Cuban leader Fidel Castro had boosted literacy among his people. Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist so I suppose it’s not surprising that this would attract some attention, but his comment really wasn’t anything a standard-issue liberal wouldn’t have made. In fact, the most revered Democrat in America, Barack Obama, said pretty much exactly the same thing when he moved to normalize relations with Cuba in his final years in office.
Nonetheless, the subject was raised again at the presidential debate on Tuesday night when the moderators asked Sanders whether Americans could trust that a socialist would give authoritarians a free pass. Seriously.
I don’t know whether anyone’s noticed this, but Fidel Castro is dead. It’s interesting that such a dull observation about literacy programs in communist countries would cause such hand-wringing when you consider that our current president’s favorite global leaders are all authoritarian strongmen who are very much alive. In fact, Donald Trump was being fêted and fluffed by one of those at the very moment the press was calling for the smelling salts over Sanders’ mundane comments.
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It’s easy to see why Trump would be anxious to please the leader of an enormous nation with a fast-growing middle class, and it isn’t because he is concerned with the geopolitical implications of a U.S.-Indian partnership.Trump is likewise unconcerned with human rights violations, either in India or anywhere else. In the past he’s excused Russia’s authoritarian President Vladimir Putin’s killing of journalists, admired Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s violent crackdown on drug users and, of course, has relentlessly bragged about his bromance with Kim Jong-un, the sociopathic leader of North Korea. We can add to that list Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazil’s thuggish Presidnt Jair Bolsonaro and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, all of whom know that Trump is a fool. Modi is just the latest of those to flatter him and shame America in the process.
It’s never been so starkly demonstrated how little Donald Trump cares about anything but himself as it was in India this week. As he was being unctuously massaged and fawned over by the Indian government, there was mass violence in the streets of New Delhi against India’s Muslim minority, spurred on by Modi’s recent decree that threatens their citizenship.
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Of course Trump didn’t say anything to Modi about his increasingly violent anti-Muslim Hindu nationalist movement. He doesn’t know the first thing about Hinduism, of course. But he agrees with a vicious crackdown on Muslims.Trump had to water down his “Muslim ban” somewhat in order for the Supreme Court to put some lipstick on it and call it constitutional. But he got ‘er done. And he’s sent a message to every strongman in the world that the U.S. will reward them for such actions as well. You just have to give President Trump a little sugar and put on a little show.
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