Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant Read Online Free PDF

and offered to fight alongside us in Vietnam—ever present to the United States? Fidel Castro called the United States a “vulture preying on humanity”—but Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith (who flew combat missions on our side in World War II) never did, nor did he provide a haven for terrorists; indeed, he fought terrorists and Communists.
    Someone remind me: When did apartheid-era South African firing squads shoot down scores of U.S. citizens, or steal $1.8 billion from American citizens, or travel to Cu Loc prison camp outside Hanoi to join in torturing American POWs to death, the way Castro’s Cuba did? In fact, South Africa tried to stem Cuba-supported Communism in Africa.
    In Latin America, someone remind me: When did Uruguay, or Paraguay, or Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, or Anastasio Somoza’s Nicaragua point missiles at us?
    Perhaps sanctions are to be applied to punish regimes for their internal wickedness? Fine, but neither Ian Smith’s Rhodesia, nor apartheid South Africa, nor Pinochet’s Chile had political incarceration rates anywhere near to Castro’s, or execution rates, or rates of state-supervised theft of private property, or the total denial of human rights, or anything remotely like the internal repression of the Cuban police state. During the height of apartheid, black Africans immigrated into South Africa; no one starved in Rhodesia because of state-run farms and rationing (they had to wait for Robert Mugabe for that); and Chile under Pinochet enjoyed a famous free-market economic recovery. Latin Americans aren’t banging on Cuba’s door, hoping to get into that Communist paradise; no one swims to Cuba hoping to enjoy greater freedom and a higher standard of living.
    Ponder this for second, friends: Before Castro, more Americans lived in Cuba than Cubans in the United States. Cuba went from being the Western Hemispheric nation with the highest per capita immigration rate, 2 (yes, higher than the United States, including the Ellis Island years) to one where 20 percent of the population fled , and where probably 80 percent sought to flee. They fled in planes and ships, they crammed into the steaming holds of merchant vessels, they squeezed in the wheelholds of transatlantic jets, they leaped into the sea on rafts and inner tubes, knowing that their chances were about one in three of making landfall. Thus they vote with their feet against a place Jack Nicholson declared “a paradise.” Thus they flee the handiwork of the man Colin Powell assures us “has done good things for Cuba.” 3 Thus is their desperation to escape from Bonnie Raitt’s “happy little island.” And these were but a fraction of those clamoring to flee.
    “We emphasize the importance of maintaining sanctions. Sanctions were imposed to help us end the apartheid system. It is only logical that we must continue to apply this form of pressure against the South African government.” 4
    That’s Nelson Mandela addressing (and thanking) the Canadian parliament in June 1990 for imposing and championing economic sanctions against South Africa. Yet need I mention that for more than forty years Canada has been Castro’s most generous business partner? Need I mention how Canada consistently bashes the United States for its “counterproductive” policy of sanctions against Cuba?
    “Sanctions which punish Cuba are anathema to the international order to which we aspire.” That’s Nelson Mandela in September 1998 while decorating Fidel Castro with the “Order of Good Hope,” South Africa’s highest civilian award. Yet probably no world figure is more associated with economic sanctions than Nelson Mandela.
    “For a long time our country stood alone on applying sanctions to South Africa. Ultimately, we were on the right side of history.” That’s Democratic senator Chris Dodd praising sanctions. “U.S. sanctions against Cuba can only be thought of as bullying tactics by the world’s strongest superpower against a small