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Early on, Castro was a hero to Cubans. He kicked out the American Mafia who ran most of the gambling and prostitution rackets in Havana where the gang had untold numbers of Cuban girls working (forced?) in the bordellos. He got rid of the corrupt dictator (Bautista) who was just a puppet of our State Department who'd let his nation rot and people live in despair. Then Castro provided health care where there had been none.
The USA could've helped Castro and had him for an ally, but our brilliant leaders sided with the Mafia and other interests who wanted the status quo to remain. It was the era of Banana Republic dictators and is a stain on our nation that we were involved in such meddling in Central America for decades.
Of course, Castro went on to become a bitter enemy, especially after our government's backing of an amateurish invasion that resulted in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Our government was so rabidly anti-communist at the time that we'd stoop to anything to fight them. What followed was years of Cuba and Castro being used by the USSR as a proxy in the Cold War, and Castro's track record of horrific human-rights abuses is well known.
That same anti-communist zeal of the U.S. government is what got us into war in Vietnam.
The bad blood between Castro and the USA runs deep. We've been behind hundreds of attempts to assassinate him; all failed. IMO he has moles inside our government agencies; how else would he thwart all those attempts.
After all these years, it's a damned shame we haven't been able to put old hatreds aside and do what's right for Cubans, both in Cuba and here in the USA. How nice it would be to have a MLB team in Havana and see the old man throw out the first pitch as the Cuban Tabaqueros open the season against the New York Yankees.
We can have trillion dollar trading with communist China, but not Cuba? Something wrong there....
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Last edited by Mike from back east; 04-09-2012 at 05:31 PM..
Our Cuba policy is moronic and Miami Cubans are bonkers. They remind me a lot of the Vietnamese in Orange County. So Ozzie's comments don't bother me one bit.
I think Dan LeBetard nailed it earlier today when he said that Ozzie should probably explain himself in Spanish. He may be very competent with English, but Spanish is Ozzie's first language, so that context may have been lost due to clumsy use of English.
I think reasonable people understand that Ozzie was speaking to Castro's resilience and longevity in the face of such opposition. That said, the Cuban community in Miami will never accept any comment that comes across as complimentary of Castro in any way. Hence, our politicians genuflect and we have the ridiculous Cuba policy we have.
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