COLUMN: A BIG IRONY OF OUR TIMES - FIDEL CASTRO'S IMAGE OF BRAVERY
MADRID -- Watching Cuban president-for-life Fidel Castro's visit to Argentina while on vacation here last week, I couldn't help thinking about one of the greatest ironies of our time: The 79-year-old leader is still regarded by many as an icon of courage, when in fact he is the biggest coward among Latin American leaders. Fidel Castro a coward? You bet! Consider the reasons cited in the column.
posted by Andres Oppenheimer at 3:30 PM
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16 Comments:
A dictator guilty of mass murder and torture, a man who managed to manipulate the media with his lies.Castro is responsible for one of the bloodiest and most repressive régimes on the planet, yes..he has earned the title of a "COWARD" and a "LIAR"Castro's accomplishments are a hoax.his statistics have been fudged or fabricated; his admirers abroad, from heads of state to movie makers to social activists, have been sucker into his weak ideologies, They are dazzled by a beard Psychopath in a military suit.
Andres, Fidel Castro is as courageous as they come. It took tremendous courage to stand up to the corrupt Fulhencio Bautista and to then storm the Moncada barracks. He risked his life to make a better Cuba. If Cubans risk their lives to get the hell out of Cuba to sneak into Anglolandia, that is not Castro's fault. You see that happening all over Spanish speaking Latin America; where the populace is desperate to get the hell out of their countries, not just Cuba.
Any society is only as good as its people, and at the beginning, Spain sent its derelicts and criminals to settle their colonies in the Americas. Those bad blood lines have been passed down. Although there are some very good Hispanics like Alex Rodriguez of the NY Yankees and the former boxing legend, Alexis Arguello, they are far outnumbered by a significant percentage of mean, violent, nasty Hispanics which has led to the total breakdown of Spanish speaking Latin American countries.
Paul Thorsen
PThorsen240@aol.com
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Once again, Castro's admirers are stickin their heads out-of-their-ass.I won't be wasting my time debating with obviously misinformed people.but for the record let's clear that air..People who never been to cuba to see the misery and agony of the people are always that first ones to open their mouth..Reading about it on your computer doesn't exactly make you an expert in cuban politics..I am cuban with family in cuba.I been to cuba.. I have seeing castro's wrath.I have seein Castro's apartheid..I have friends who were locked-up for their political beliefs. the Castro Faithful like Mr Thorsen and--the media moguls, celebrity journalists, filmmakers and Hollywood glitterati who continue to break bread with the Cuban dictator and idolize him as "one hell of a guy,"this long love affair with a sick pyschopath..This people are all suckers, suckers for fallin for a hoax of a dictator like Castro.the unswerving naïveté and obtuseness of the American left, which consistently has managed to overlook what a goon he is.The America's leftists like Mr.thorsen love him, many even grovel at his feet, chanting hymns of praise for this hemisphere's most blood soaked mass murderer. For people like Paul Thorsen Fidel Castro is a liberator, a champion of liberal values who has made Cuba a paradise.Newsflash amigo, "NO" Fidel Castro has made cuba into a cesspool of correction that benefit only him and his regime.. and the people of cuba are starving,with no real healthcare,jobs,housing,ect.People like yourself mr.thorsen are either ignorant of, or willing to ignore the real nature of Fidel Castro.Let's talk about tortures biological experimentation--prisoners electric shock, rape, sexual multilation, starvation and machete attacks.Sorry...Mr.Thorsen but there are no Nasty hispanics tryin to breakdown the spanish speakin latin american countries only smart ones who are tryin to save our dignity and our people from misery...
Thorsen is a sitepest. Ignore him.
It is so easy to be pro Castro when you are outside Cuba!!!!!!!
ESG, CCS Venezuela
It doesn't matter to me inside or outside of cuba..Venezuela is going to be just like cuba in "RUINS" Ration Books, your government already is turnin venezuela into a Cesspool...you will be cryin for democracy...VIVA CUBA LIBRE...
A good blog to read about venezuela my friend Martha
http://www.sinmordaza.net/blogs/martha.php/
YNM, given your apparent support for human rights, I wonder if you include health care, a decent education and housing to be rights of every person? What about the right to be free from need and hunger? What about the right to fully develop oneself as a human being through arts and culture or fulfill the innate desire to help people and build community? What about the rights of people to affect change at their workplace or neighborhood? Is there a right to dignity, to independence, to sovereignty?
"Fidel Castro is as courageous as they come. It took tremendous courage to stand up to the corrupt Fulhencio [sic] Bautista [sic] and to then storm the Moncada barracks." — Thorsen
Fidel Castro did not participate in the attack on the Moncada Army Barracks. His car got "lost" on the way to the barracks and by the time that he arrived the rebels had already been routed and were in flight. Castro joined them in flight though he had not not joined them in battle.
The rebels, incidentally, never actually attacked the barracks itself, but rather the barracks hospital, where they butchered convalescent men in their beds before being overwhelmed by troops from the barracks.
As soon as he could, Castro abandoned his companions to their luck and used his social connections to gain the protection of the local bishop, who sheltered him in the episcopal palace until arrangements were made for his surrender to the authorities.
Since the Constitution of 1940 had abolished capital punishment in Cuba, Castro risked nothing by surrendering peacefully (unlike, say, Saddam Hussein).
Even under the Batista dictatorship Cuba had an independent judiciary and the Rule of Law was respected. Castro was sentenced to 10 years in prison and served only 22 months after being amnestied by Batista.
And, yes, the Epilogue:
Once in power, Castro confiscated all Church property and expelled 80 percent of Cuba's priests and nuns.
He abolished the Constitution of 1940; restored the death penalty; and never again was an amnesty granted in Cuba.
Leftside...I believe in democracy and equal rights and human rights for all.. Castro not only destroyed the once prosperous and advanced Cuba, bringing misery to his people, that's why the American left is so sympathetic to this despotic regime. Is easy to judge a country that you don't resided in, and obviously don't have family there.Cuba, an island fortress utterly dependent on venezuela aid,would be the next domino to fall, the cuban government structure is a failer.Is only 2 people in cuba sharing and raping the wealth of cuba Fidel Castro and Raul Castro. The cuban people are living in a hell-hole, Electricity is strictly rationed in Cuba, is nothing for the cuban people..what are you talkin about? You are sucker for beliving castro's ideologies about socialism.Things are very difficult there.everything is [bought] by the ration book.Stop blaming the embrago or Bush for cuba's misery..BLAME FIDEL CASTRO FOR ROBBING CUBA OF HER FREEDOM.
FIDEL CASTRO IS DEAD.
For 47 years he has done nothing but lie to the Cuban people. It is therefore fitting that he should die as he has lived, lying to the end.
There has been no intestinal operation and no formal transfer of power; nor, naturally, will there be a two-month convalescense. Castro is either on life support, with no possibility of recovery, or else he has been mummufied like Lenin and only awaits the moment that Raul Castro has solidified his power to be formally declared dead and put on display for public adulation.
In any case, he has ceased to be the focus of power in Cuba. From now on, when men are murdered, imprisoned, tortured or exiled in Cuba, it shall no longer be by his order but will still be in his name.
The death of Fidel Castro does not mean the liberation of the Cuban people. This can only happen when Cubans shake off both the physical and psychological shackles which he has imposed on them. Today, at least, the psychological shackles have been broken.
And what would Fidel's hell be like?
To languish in a Cuba of his own making, except not as the lord of the manor, but as a miserable serf, enduring on his own flesh everything that he has made his people suffer over the last 47 years.
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