Wish I owned some land in Cuba. Gonna become the new Vegas. Mo money!!!

Yeah, having read about him today he seems a pretty Leninist kind of psychopath. As you say, not cool.

I studied Castro a bit, and took a class in US foreign relations in regard to Latin America.

Castro was interesting to say the least. He came to power because of legitimate grievances. He remained in power through illegitimate means.

The grievances: The want for America to get out of his country. This was legitimate. The US were as bad in their treatment of Latin Americans as Castro ever was during his lifetime. The want for the US to mind their own business economically and not tamper with other governments by causing coups and overthrows, was legitimate and felt by every Latin and central American country. For better or for worse, Castro is a hero to many because of this stance and through his unflinching ability to hold off the most powerful country in the world.

The illegitimate means: Castro never really recovered from the bay of pigs. It very much poisoned the waters and made him less trusting of the Cuban people. Honestly, to say that Castro brought the US on the brink of nuclear war is an oversimplification. The US did that on their own through stationing nuclear weapons near the border of Russia. Russia only returned the favor and Cuba helped. Still, these things, and the psychopathic paranoia of Castro, led to an amazingly oppressive regime, which there was really no excuse for. Castro, in his want to continue the revolution, never trusted anyone else but himself to carry on, even his own people. Ironically, he may be proven right. His brother has already thawed tensions with the US, and Obama will be shown to be very much ahead of the game by normalizing relations with a brand new market that can be tapped into for US gain. Future American presidents will reap the benefits that Obama sowed.

Cuba has universal health care, amazing research facilities, and universal literacy, but Castro negated all of those benefits through repression. He is a mixed bag of a legacy. Extremely mixed. Just like his revolution, complicated in many ways.

Fidel promised elections shortly after taking over Cuba, they are still waiting. Not sad not happy about his passing. He wasn't even relevant anymore for politics in his country just a figurehead. Hate that my country will grieve his passing.

True story: When Ortiega was in power in Nicuragua, my aut's brother was amongst the ones who were killed because of Castro's bed politics with Nicuragua.

Reductive to the point of stupidity.

Castro like most people is more complicated than that.

Here's someone with some expertise being a bit more balanced about he whole thing.

“Crowds exhibit a docile respect for force, and are but slightly impressed by kindness, which for them is scarcely other than a form of weakness. Their sympathies have never been bestowed upon easy going masters, but the tyrants who vigorously oppressed them. It is to these latter that they always erect the loftiest statues."

- Gustave Le bon, The Crowd.

I really fail to see how somebody like Tom can rage against the likes of Bush and Blair (and quite rightly), yet stresses the need for a more 'complicated' appraisal on Castro. Contradictory and unbelievably blindsided.

Yep, all those proven instances of rape, torture, forced labour, firing squads, repression of human rights - damn all that American propaganda deluding us into thinking this is terrible.

You don't half spout utter shite pal.

Not going to lie, she's not half wrong about the embargo.

You embargo any country and the economy is going down the shitter, especially because Cuba is 90 miles from the US. Some countries get a soft embargo, while Cuba got a hard embargo. That's an embargo that the US enforced every single day. No exports. No imports. No trade deals with American businesses or allies or any other country who didn't want penalties with dealing with the US.

Their economy was fairly steady because the USSR provided soft trade deals, they were the only country that traded with Cuba save for a few developing Latin American countries who weren't afraid of pussing off the US. But with the collapse of the USSR, Cuba's economy subsequently went with it.

You cannot underestimate the devastating impact that the embargo had on Cuba.

Honestly, your assessment on their economy is a vast oversimplification.

Though, human rights is a completely different story.

Whose talking about American actions here, and whose denying it? Nobody as far as I can see (though, in truth, enforced state torture in not near to the extent of brutality as Cuba).

It's just that you think that people are led to believe that those crimes are bad merely because of propaganda? Unless you are in favour of all that or you are just confused.

But then again, what do you expect from a Trump supporter?