Post-Castro and Post-bin Laden -- The Similarities Will Abound

Author: Jim Guirard

Source: FamilySecurityMatters.org -- June 26, 2006

At a time when reactionary-Left illiberals throughout American and Western society continue to whitewash the horrendous human rights record of Fidel Castro's police-state in Cuba, it is prudent that we take a close look at just who this aging "Socialism or Death" tyrant actually is.

This is particularly true when just to his south an oil-rich Venezuela, led by another Comandante-for-life, Hugo Chavez, is flirting with the murderous likes of al Qaeda, Hamas, Hizballah, the Syrians, the Iranians, the North Koreans, and every other anti-Western radical on the planet.

Is today's Castro still that nasty old communist dictator who most Americans remember all too well? Or is he merely a "fellow progressive" as all too many ultra-leftists in America and across the world seem to believe?

To begin with, we should note that without the benefit of such patently false labels as "liberation movements" and "progressive fronts" and "social justice," an unbiased analysis of Castro's 46-year tyranny demonstrates that he is nothing but a left-wing Nazi.

These are the same sort of linguistic deceits and semantic masks which are inherent in Osama bin Laden's pseudo-religious language of "Jihadi martyrdom" -- which is at heart a mirror image of Castro's neo-Leninist language of "liberation theology."

In this context, there is a tight moral equivalence between UBL's murderous (and now dead) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq and Castro's equally ruthless (and equally dead) torturer and executioner, Ernesto "Che" Guevera, in 1960s Cuba and Bolivia.

It is no surprise that these two messianic America haters and their acolytes of deceit and death enjoy such affinity. Clearly, they both subscribe to V.I. Lenin's cynical postulation that

"We find our greatest success to the extent that we inculcate Marxism as a kind of religion. Religious men and women are easy to convert and win, and will easily accept our thinking if we wrap it up in a kind of religious terminology."

Back to Fascist Fidel

Returning to Fascist Fidel himself, and to the surprise of many "progressives" in his fan club, here is a man who, in his youth, idolized both the racist Adolf Hitler and the ego-maniacal Italian socialist dictator Benito Mussolini and who is now entering into an equally unholy alliance with bin Laden's and Ayman al-Zawahiri's Islamo-fascist Left.

This should make any true liberal retch in revulsion. Castro's life-long tendencies toward policies reminiscent of both Hitler and Lenin include:

• Castro's Racism -- Although his nation's population is almost 70% black, Castro's inner circle has remained almost entirely white, a fact that many African American liberal leaders can conveniently ignore.
• Castro's Anti-Semitism -- From a pre-Castro Jewish community of over 5000, all but about 300 have fled Fidel's vicious persecution. In addition, both his historic and current collaboration with a wide variety of anti-Jewish terrorist groups (including Hamas, Hizballah, Egyptian-Jihad and even al Qaeda) define him as an anti-Semitic dictator of the first order.
• Castro's Homophobia -- As documented by celebrated Cuban exile writer Reinaldo Arenas, Castro has repeatedly herded homosexuals into brutal penal colonies. Prominent gay columnist Andrew Sullivan comments: "It staggers me how people who consider themselves 'liberal' and 'enlightened' could suck up to a man who dragooned homosexuals into concentration camps...."
• Castro's Sexism -- A womanizer in the earlier part of his 45 years in power, a still chauvinistic Fidel Castro has virtually excluded women from his Politburo (Cabinet) and from the Central Committee. As it is with Cuban Blacks, the only women elevated to the Castro inner circle have been powerless "tokens" at best.
• Castro's Imperialism -- In shameless service to the former Soviet Union, Castro once had over 70,000 "liberation forces" spread across the world, helping add colonies to what President Reagan so correctly called "The Evil Empire." Today, he conspires with Colombia's FARC guerrillas and with al Qaeda's suicide mass murderers, and continues his efforts to transform a formerly peaceful and democratic Venezuela (now "CubaZuela") into an aggressive dictatorship in the Cuban model.
• Castro's Human Rights Violations -- The record here is painfully clear. Almost five decades of his and brother Raul's jackboot repression have trampled the Cuban people's freedoms of press, speech, information, assembly, habeas corpus, artistic expression, independent unionism, emigration, judicial due process, privacy, property, multi-party political options, religious education, capital investment, and peaceful protest -- all in the name of "social justice," of course.

Those naïve souls who excuse this brutal record by citing Cuba's grassroots literacy program and broad-based (but rudimentary) health services should recall that two of Nazi Germany's favorite bragging points involved the education of "Hitler Youth" and the physical fitness of the German people -- all the better to serve the "Thousand Year Reich," of course.

As Dr. Enrique Canton and Dr. Sergio de Paz of the Florida-based Commission of Studies for the Freedom of Cuba have observed: "... education and health are used in the island-prison as implacable instruments of ideological, mental and psychological control of the unfortunate citizens."

Likely Meanings of "Post-Fidel" -- and of "Post-Osama"

Having clearly established what Fascist Fidel's soulless, "Socialism or Death" dictatorship is all about, we should more clearly define what a post-Fidel Cuba would be like.

Unfortunately, "post-Fidel" does not mean post-communist, or even post-Castro. Upon the old tyrant's long-overdue demise, power will pass automatically to thuggish brother Raul Castro's in-place communist infrastructure -- the Politburo, Central Committee, KGB-designed secret police and so-called "People's Army."

Tragically for the oppressed Cuban people, their post-Fidel Cuba will remain old, ugly, racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, homophobic, poverty-stricken, devoid of civil liberties and now complicit in all variety of terrorism. As the French say, "Le plus ça change, le plus c'est la meme chose."

Its long-awaited "newness" will be akin to what World War II Germany might have become if NAZI power had passed from a charismatic and eccentric Adolf Hitler to his diabolic Gestapo chief, Heinrich Himler. It would have been different in style and tempo but equally evil -- National Socialism without the loud-mouthed, ego-maniacal "charm" of its Maximum Leader.

Much the same can be expected of a post-Osama world, as well. Once this tiresome, cave-dwelling "Death to America" bin Laden is finally dispatched, many echoes of his genocidal terrorism -- "Hirabah" in Arabic and "war against society" in English -- will still be around to remind us of what the al Qaeda Apostasy and its plainly satanic killing machine (which today targets all Christians, all Jews and all Muslims who happen to disagree) were all about.

Unfortunately, such ruthless, personality-driven, pseudo-religious movements just do not seem to die with the evildoers who built them.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Jim Guirard is a writer, speaker, and counterterrorism strategist, as well as former Chief of Staff to US Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long. His new TrueSpeak Institute is devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-history in public discourse.

Contact Jim Guirard at Justcauses@aol.com or 703-768-0957