The Diplomad: Dealing With The Monster At Our Door, Fidel Castro

The Diplomad has an excellent post: Dealing With The Monster At Our Door, Fidel Castro.

The Diplomad expresses amazement and frustration with the gap between the reputation Castro’s Cuba enjoys with the MSM and academia and the reality of Cuba being the worst hellhole in the western hemisphere. All human rights violations that occur in Cuba are concentrated in Guantanamo bay; at least in the MSM’s version of the world.

The Diplomad begins by reciting Cuba’s well-known stagnation and repression under Castro. Then he makes a point that hadn’t occurred to me before:

Forget Osama and al-Qaeda; recall that it was Castro who nearly destroyed the United States. He proved genuinely mad during the Cuban missile crisis, the closest the USA has come to incineration, urging Khrushchev to "push the button." Castro from the beginning of his regime -- even BEFORE the CIA Bay of Pigs disaster -- had declared the USA and the rest of Latin America his enemies. … Cuban guerrillas undertook failed attacks on Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Venezuela. In 1967, he shipped off the increasingly mad and restless Che Guevara (who took personal charge of the firing squads in the immediate wake of Castro's victory in Cuba and as Minister of Economy devastated Cuba) to invade Bolivia, spark an Indian-European race/class war, and then use Bolivia as a launching pad for an invasion of Guevara's home country of Argentina. In the early 1970's, he …funneled weapons to leftist terror organizations in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.

During the 1960's, 70's, 80's, and part of the 90's Cuba served as a support and training base and R&R point for international terrorists, e.g., ETA, IRA, PLO, the Red Brigades, and Puerto Rican terrorists were among those who availed themselves of Castro's help. In the 80's and 90's, Castro and his brother, Minister of Defense Raul Castro, became involved in drug running, forming alliances with Colombian cartels. Castro, of course, during the 70's and 80's, played a major role -- along with the Soviets -- in fomenting anti-USA revolutions in Guatemala, El Salvador, Grenada, and Nicaragua.

In this light Castro resembles bin Laden in that he was — for most of his reign — a force for international terrorism.

Oh well, today he's largely a spent force. He'll be dead by the time we dispatch Iran, Syria and North Korea.