Betsy Og said:2. Human rights violations?? Maybe?? Historically but no longer??
shnaek said:You have to wonder what would Cuba be like without him. Would it become a US recreation island? Or would it go the way of Venezuala? Would their fine cigar quality suffer?
Betsy Og said:wouldnt it be nice if you could get those advantages without wrecking the look of the place.
See that's where you're wrong. Everyone in North Korea is happy; every time you see those well fed children on grainy footage from the latest parade they are all smiling!Imperator said:I view Askaboutmoney most days and get a lot from it, but the initial poster is being exceptionally naive, and I wonder if he would make the same remarks about the other worker's paradises: the USSR, North Korea, China etc.
Imperator said:I view Askaboutmoney most days and get a lot from it, but the initial poster is being exceptionally naive, and I wonder if he would make the same remarks about the other worker's paradises: the USSR, North Korea, China etc.
Anyone who holds up Castro as a hero in the way that that guy did is an idiot and a crank.Betsy Og said:Re the opinion of the Dublin medic - he's obviously well educated and has been there a lot - so if you're right then we have to cast a major doubt over his views. Maybe he's just a crank.
There are loads of things, including major wars, that we never hear about.Betsy Og said:Re why the Cubans were escaping somewhere, anywhere, I havent heard of them drowning as they made their way to any other Carribean islands, maybe because they got their safely or maybe because they didnt bother. If they got there safely then you'd expect significant Cuban ex-pat populations there, and maybe they are, but I havent heard of them.
I thought Ho Chi Minh was mainly trained by the Soviet Russians in the 1930’s and fought against the Japanese and later the French. AFAIK he was refused help by the Americans (President Wilson if memory serves) as he was a communist. He also helped to found the French communist party before that but I can’t remember when.Betsy Og said:Re the Yanks, they have a fine country and as a people are by and large fine, but their foreign policy appears to me to be unduly meddlesome. The train Ho Chi Minh & Sadaam only to have to turn around to fight them, numerous escapades in South America etc., it seemed to be that as long as you were right wing you could be supported, regardless.
Is there some sort of a relativity scale used in these circumstances that I don’t know about?Betsy Og said:Re blood on hands, whats the US headcount?, I forget the stats but they pretty well obliterated Vietnam as one example.
Because he’s yesterdays man, the US media still hate him but there are no new headlines to be got and the European media is so anti American that they still view him as a romantic figure.Betsy Og said:If Castro is that bad then why isnt he painted in the same light as Saddam by the media, e.g. in the recent stories about his surgery and handing power to his brother the stories seem to have a fairly neutral tone, i.e. no mention of despost/monster/murderous tyrant etc. etc.
Because he is not a threat.Betsy Og said:Why are some other South American countries not totally anti-Castro, e.g. Chavez in Venezuela - as part of the health story it said he was back from a visit to Argentina.
I’m not sure what you mean here.Betsy Og said:Is it collective amnesia by Irish media (to only one I access regularly)?, are all the other South American "supporters" just as bad as him?, is it eejits like me perpetuating a myth?
Because he’s not as bad as Saddam, he had no oil, he is not in an unstable geopolitical area and he is old news. We never hear about the Chinese in Tibet anymore or the Russians in Chechnya but that doesn’t mean that bad things are not happening there. We also do not hear much about northern Uganda, southern Somalia, southern Congo, Burma, etc, you get the point?Betsy Og said:To reiterate a few points:
-I accept I could be talking through my ****, & I should look up those websites mentioned, but I find it curious that if there is such compelling evidence then why is Castro's image not as black as other similar dictators/despots etc.? Maybe that should have been the title of the thread, "If Castro is so bad why doesnt the media hate him like Saddam?"
This is very much to your credit and you are quite right to ask for, and expect, civility.Betsy Og said:- The fact that I challenge what you say does not mean I'm not open to changing my mind, from step 1 I was asking for informed opinion and thank you for same. By responding to you and "debating" it we might learn more. On this basis I wont be getting personal with you and I'd appreciate the same courtesy.
Betsy Og said:Re the USSR - I was obviously talking about how those former USSR countries are in the present day. As far as I know, apart from Chechyna, they're muddling along. Not that I raised the issue at all, its a separate discussion for those interested, which I'm not particularly.
Good post.Sherman said:If I were you, I'd go and have a look at some of those websites mentioned above to see just how well many former USSR states are 'muddling along'. Ask for instance the people of Uzbekistan, chafing under a Putin-supported dictatorship, or the people of Georgia, where again, a Putin-supported militia has been waging a terrorist campaign in South Ossetia and Abkhasia, leading to over a quarter of a million refugees. Or ask the Ukrainians, who have endured constant meddling in their political system by, you guessed it, agents of Putin's Russia, and the use of gas as a means to ensure they 'behave' themselves. Or the people of Chechnya, who have the temerity to desire self-determination. Or the people of Kazakhstan, who endured a rigged election and are now under the increasingly despotic control of a, shock horror, Putin-supported quasi-dictatorship.
Hmm, what's the common theme here?
Purple said:I thought Ho Chi Minh was mainly trained by the Soviet Russians in the 1930’s and fought against the Japanese and later the French. AFAIK he was refused help by the Americans (President Wilson if memory serves) as he was a communist. He also helped to found the French communist party before that but I can’t remember when.
I know that at one stage he was wandering along the China/Vietnam case with his rattan case, apparently close to death as suffering from Malaria, when the CIA came to aid and got him back to health (not certain where their help ended but I understand they were the reason he lived).
Is there some sort of a relativity scale used in these circumstances that I don’t know about?
The point I was making is that no matter what non-neutral country you look at they have an certain amount of innocent blood on their hands. Unfortunately relativity scales are a fact of life. So 20 Palestinians civilans killed in Gaza doesnt seem to raise much outrage but 13 civilans shot in Derry is a huge outrage, put another way "Bloody Sunday" was/is a daily event in the Middle East.
There also seems to be a realtivity in terms of how or by whom civilians are killed. So killings by a government missile launched from a ship/plane that kills 10 civilans dont get treated as bad as 10 killed by a suicide bomber?, no I accept that you can claim a difference in the intent of both parties but theres 10 innocents dead in each case and since "surgical strikes" doesnt seem to be the norm then the guy on the ship or fighter plane, or really his army, is at the least recklessly endangering civilan lives. There's no easy answer to this one because you cant wage even a "just" war without civilians deaths - but I'm not for giving automatic or absolute absolution just because its a government bomb or bullet that kills, as opposed to a "terrorist"/"insurgent"/"freedom fighter".
As a current example Israel seems to have particularly sensitive relativity scale - one of theirs kidnapped means many hundred may have to die.
I’m not sure what you mean here.
Was trying to reason why Fidel Saddam isnt getting the bad rep from journalists who presumably are aware of what the Amnesty sites etc. say. Maybe its the uninformed keeping a myth going.
Betsy Og said:As a current example Israel seems to have particularly sensitive relativity scale - one of theirs kidnapped means many hundred may have to die.
Kind of hard for the Israelis to have anything but a particularly sensitive relativity scale, given that their nearest neighbours are all committed, not just to 'wiping Israel off the map', but also to the extermination of the Jewish race.
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