Obviously Castro is no saint, and had no qualms about repressing political dissidents (and I think those on the left in the US and Europe who hold up Cuba or Venezuela as some kind of bastions of freedom are delusional), but on the whole, Cuba actually did reasonably well for itself, especially considering the economic difficulties caused by the U.S. embargo.
My point was just that regular Cubans actually did alright, much better than US propaganda would have you believe, and better than most of the other states in the region, including those which were heavily subsidized by the US.
They could have easily ended up with a fascist police state or a civil war.
American policymakers obviously had legitimate reasons to fear anything that seemed like it might further Soviet interests, given the overall climate of the Cold War, and so as someone born in the mid 1980s I find it hard to judge their intentions and actions, after the fact. However, I tend to think that things would have turned out much better overall for everyone involved if we had kept up diplomatic and economic relations with the Castro regime right from the start, instead of basically forcing them into Soviet arms.
You could say, "But that's not a fair comparison, the USSR subsidized things that actually helped people in Cuba while the US only funded commando death squads and fruit exporters, of course Cuba had a higher standard of living".. at which point I'd ask you to review what you just wrote.
It wasn't pre-emptive or a straw man -- the poster had just (not pre-emptive) said that living standards were an unfair comparison due to USSR subsidies to Cuba (not a strawman), which is a fair point. I just pointed out that the US supported it's pet governments as well, and contrasted the USSR's approach with the USA's.
Ever read that book 'The Ugly American' back in the day? Great read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_American
Jeez, another straw man. Are they really necessary?
Actually I do think that Cuba has been tragically mishandled by the US. I would have thought that trading with them and being a good example of Freedom for them would have been much better than trying to punish the dictators with perpetual embargo.
That said, I sympathize with Cuban refugees who are furious with the mistreatment of dissidents and want the US government to continue a hard line against Cuba.
You say that you did agree with me, so my apologies for attributing that view to you.
But regardless I think the tactics themselves are commendable. Speech, not guns.
That doesn't mean these leaders don't have "a claim" to power, or that you necessarily have to actively start deposing them.
Yet the only reason a democratic government does not depose an antidemocratic government is if it can't do so. And the latter is true for almost all situations. It stops to be true when there is a specific oportunity to improve the situation.
From the outside, I can also paint a bleak picture of US election process (vote fraud, electoral college, gerrymandering) and if I select the correct news, the US have a presidency bordering on dictatorship that's bent on taking basic rights from the population, and a repressive police force.
Besides, the qualification of "human-rights respecting state" might be too much if you consider recent (and not so recent) history.
You also need to focus very specifically on "repressive police force", which is easier to do in the US, where the press will hunt down these incidences like sharks will hunt blood in the water.
Transparency actually hurts the democratic image of the US, whereas Russia won't ever have these kinds of public scandals...
There was a shortage of enemies to punish, so Saddam Hussein was the next best villain. After all, he did not only have weapons of mass destruction previously, but also used them.
I actually live in a country where regime change worked emphatically well (Germany). I can't recall any such "regime change" project though were the major intent was to install democracy. In Iraq it was the WMD pretense and a diffuse sense of retaliation. In Libya it was to stop an army from shelling civilian living quarters. Mostly the intention is "just stop killing people, dammit!" And it actually works. You can never say for sure, but for example if Syria is any indication, it worked in Libya. While there are tons of problems in Syria, continued shelling and bombing of civilians isn't one of them any more.
When it comes down to it, in Cuba there's one and only one candidate for president. That's not distortion, and that's not democracy.