Then when Fidel came to power one of the things he promised was to reduce the reliance on US trade. And he nationalized all of the private property and assets belonging to American individuals and companies.
And in response to that, the embargo was introduced. AND THEN there was the Bay of Pigs.
So lets not pretend the embargo is what destroyed US Cuban trade. Fidel did that all by himself, without the help of the embargo.
Also, the US didn't push Cuba into the Soviet sphere.. Fidel already had close tied to the Soviets before the embargo. It was one of the reasons for putting the embargo in place.
This was 30 years before Fidel, before the embargo. The point was, you already had this anti-US sentiment in Cuba before Fidel came to power.
US Cuban trade did not end at that point. But when Fidel came to power (30 years later), he used that anti-US sentiment to nationalize all American property in Cuba. That is what actually ended US Cuban trade.
Keep in mind the Great Depression was worldwide, not just the US. It affected many countries, including those who did not trade with the US.
And yes, this happened decades before.. but it was one of the reasons Fidel came to power. In other words, there was already a strong anti-US sentiment in Cuba because of this and the forced military leases (which date back to the 1800s).
In American English, the phrase, "He murdered thousands," can't be followed by the word "but..."
Yet I hear good things about them too. Why can't the same be applied to Fidel? He committed atrocities and he did good for the country. And indeed much of the suffering (the "millions" not the "thousands") was directly caused by US actions, so don't come with the holier than thou.
The groupthink is prevalent on both sides of the aisle - you're either on my team or you're on the other. What sucks is when you're ostracized from both.
Agreed the sanctions were unproductive. More than anything else, US sanctions helped Castro stay in power for half a century.
But to blame the sanctions for his atrocities - or to say the good he did outweighed the bad - is to be willfully blind: When Cuban government ships spotted a tugboat full of refugees headed for Florida on July 13, 1994, they blasted it to pieces with high-pressure fire hoses. “Our tugboat started taking on water,” recounted one of the survivors, María Victoria García. “We shouted to the crewmen on the boat, ‘Look at the children! You’re going to kill them!’ And they said, ‘Let them die! Let them die!’” Forty-one of the refugees did. [2]
While you write about the good things he did from your comfortable home with high speed internet, with the rule of law in a capitalist liberal democracy, this is how desperate his citizens were to leave this country of “good things”, and how barbarous was Castro against his own people.
[1] https://twitter.com/YvonneMConde/status/802587003057410048 [2] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/...
Fidel was a tyrant, that's for sure. But lack of tyranny has hardly prevented American atrocity, often wrapped in layers of policy, plausible deniability, and indirection of responsibility. It's far easier for us to think of our voters and leaders as mostly good people, whereas Fidel personally owns all of the excesses of the Cuban state.
Then I hope you've been holding up to the same standard almost every American leader from the latter half of the 20th century till now - whether through political interference, violent regime change to authoritarian leaders, proxy wars, drone strikes or straight up war without a cause.
The truth is that in most people and things, we're inclined to overlook the good for the bad or the bad for the good, depending on our preconceived opinions. Most leaders - especially revolutionary ones - are this, but taken to the extreme, often liberating an entire populace while oppressing another. Which is why they often are notable for both, but more notable for one than the other depending on whether the person you're talking to suffered or prospered under their rule.
We shouldn't be afraid to say in the same breath that a person increased welfare and happiness for some and yet decreased it for others, stood up to imperialism and yet also was the pawn of larger global interests, was persecuted even while he persecuted others, was demonized even while he demonized others, was the target of many assassinations even while he ordered the murder of others, was spread lies and misinformation about even while he spread lies and misinformation about others. All of this happened together.
This doesn't mean it's balanced one way or another, or that one makes up for the other at all. This isn't excusing murder and atrocity - it's giving credence to the complexity of events. It's understanding how the life you live and the limited environment you live it in is very different from the experiences of others, and that people's realities, cares and worries are shaped more by things near them and less by things that don't affect them. It's a way towards understanding why others hold they opinions they do, and also a gateway to criticizing our own leaders and idols in the same way. Leaders should not be deified or demonized, but understood as a whole, wether to understand what to repeat and look up to or understand what never to allow to happen again.
He leaves behind a Cuba that was embargoed by the US, their closest and largest trade partner after the US had staged a failed invasion to overthrow the government. This forced them into the Soviet sphere of influence for supplies and trade.
Then, when the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of the cold war, it could no longer support Cuba. The island nation was driven further into poverty and essential goods like food and medicine became scarce.
And what did the US do at that point? Did they reopen diplomatic relations and try to find some rapprochement after an era of high tensions? No. Instead they decided that now was an excellent time to extend their embargo to include food and medicine as well, which were up to that point exempt from the trade ban.
To point to a single man and his inner circle as the sole cause for the sad state Cuba is in today is just as absurd as to deny the wrongs of the Castro regime, nor did he only do bad things for the Cuban people. The "trope" of education and healthcare being available to all is not some straw man. It is a legitimate achievement, and one that many nations the world around have not been able to match, no matter their affluence.