Fidel Castro is Dead

[moonshine]

What's with all the love in this thread?
Glance it over and it might appear that the better half of the people in here had their possessions taken and their dear self tortured and shot to death by Fidel personally.

Disgusting arrogance.
Kudos to all with a brain and ability to use it.

PS History lesson

• 
  Cuba: One of the first countries to offer aid, Cuba offered to send 1,586 doctors and 26 tons of medicine. This aid was rejected by the State Department.[18] Also, before the 2006 World Baseball Classic, Cuba said they would donate their share of the winnings to Katrina victims to ensure the United States embargo against Cuba was not violated. However, after the tournament, the U.S. government refused to allow the donation.

 

[Tom-D]

A confession, I was station at NAAS Anderws AFB 1961-4 the mail to the PO box for Get-mo was delivered from Andrews. by a C-119 every Wed. and Friday.
When we enlisted had leave on the books we could take leave and do a week in Havana. I did this several times, you couldn't spend $20 all week. one hell of a liberty port.
Kinder and gentler times.

 

[kkoran]

Under whose law? An American military installation IS American soil, just like American embassies are on foreign soil, and vice versa. The prisoners were sent to Gitmo to remain "out of sight and out of mind."

Not true.

 

[Perezhr]

What's with all the love in this thread?
Glance it over and it might appear that the better half of the people in here had their possessions taken and their dear self tortured and shot to death by Fidel personally.

Disgusting arrogance.
Kudos to all with a brain and ability to use it.

PS History lesson

• 
  Cuba: One of the first countries to offer aid, Cuba offered to send 1,586 doctors and 26 tons of medicine. This aid was rejected by the State Department.[18] Also, before the 2006 World Baseball Classic, Cuba said they would donate their share of the winnings to Katrina victims to ensure the United States embargo against Cuba was not violated. However, after the tournament, the U.S. government refused to allow the donation.

Well, for some of us here and for many thousands of Cubans that is exactly what happened. If you opposed Fidel you were rounded up and put in front of a firing squad or in jail for 30 years. Regarding the offer to send Cuban doctors to "help" let me educate you. Fidel has doctor mills in Cuban that turn out thousands of very low quality doctors. Any RN here in the states is much more capable and has received better education and training. Part of the training these "doctors" get is communist indoctrination and how to "educate" your patients to help them see how they have been oppressed by their government and much better they would be under A Marxist system. Fidel would have loved to inject some of these "doctors" in low income areas of the US amongst people that are already receptive to the idea that their bad situation is entirely the fault of the government.

 

[flyingron]

Last time we used battleships was during the Spanish-American war and what did we get out of that? Cuba! And we gave that back.

 

[weilke]

What's with all the love in this thread?
Glance it over and it might appear that the better half of the people in here had their possessions taken and their dear self tortured and shot to death by Fidel personally.

Disgusting arrogance.
Kudos to all with a brain and ability to use it.

PS History lesson

• 
  Cuba: One of the first countries to offer aid, Cuba offered to send 1,586 doctors and 26 tons of medicine. This aid was rejected by the State Department.[18] Also, before the 2006 World Baseball Classic, Cuba said they would donate their share of the winnings to Katrina victims to ensure the United States embargo against Cuba was not violated. However, after the tournament, the U.S. government refused to allow the donation.

The fact that you believe this to be true is a testament to the quality of Castros propaganda machine.

 

[GRG55]

Last time we used battleships was during the Spanish-American war and what did we get out of that? Cuba! And we gave that back.

?? None in WWII?

And how about the New Jersey off Vietnam in the late 1960s?

 

[mscard88]

Wikipedia:

All four Iowa ships were decommissioned in the early 1990s, making them the last battleships to see active service. USS Iowa and USS Wisconsin were maintained to a standard where they could be rapidly returned to service as fire support vessels, pending the development of a superior fire support vessel. These last two battleships were finally stricken from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register in 2006.[85][86][87] The Military Balance and Russian Foreign Military Review states the U.S. Navy listed one battleship in the reserve (Naval Inactive Fleet/Reserve 2nd Turn) in 2010.[88][89] The Military Balance states the U.S. Navy listed no battleships in the reserve in 2014.[90] The U.S. Marine Corps believes that the current naval surface fire support gun and missile programs will not be able to provide adequate fire support for an amphibious assault or onshore operations.[91][92]

 

[35 AoA]

If I'm not mistaken, we used BB's in Lebanon as well as during Desert Storm prior to their re-de-commissioning.

 

[flyingron]

That was a line from Moss Hart's play "You Can't Take It With You" written in 1936.

Arguably you can say we also got Puerto Rico out of the S-A war and didn't really give it back.

 

[mscard88]

If I'm not mistaken, we used BB's in Lebanon as well as during Desert Storm prior to their re-de-commissioning.

Yup, Wikipedia again:

As part of Navy Secretary John F. Lehman's effort to build a 600-ship Navy in the 1980s, and in response to the commissioning of Kirov by the Soviet Union, the United States recommissioned all four Iowa-class battleships. On several occasions, battleships were support ships in carrier battle groups, or led their own battleship battle group. These were modernized to carry Tomahawk missiles, with New Jersey seeing action bombarding Lebanon in 1983 and 1984, while Missouri and Wisconsin fired their 16 inch (406 mm) guns at land targets and launched missiles during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Wisconsin served as the TLAM strike commander for the Persian Gulf, directing the sequence of launches that marked the opening of Desert Storm, firing a total of 24 TLAMs during the first two days of the campaign. The primary threat to the battleships were Iraqi shore based surface-to-surface missiles; Missouri was targeted by two Iraqi Silkworm missiles, with one missing and another being intercepted by the British destroyer HMS Gloucester.[84]

 

[denverpilot]

The Phalanx gun turrets and missile launching modernizations are clearly visible aboard USS Missouri if you tour her in Pearl Harbor nowadays.

 

[GRG55]

Yup, Wikipedia again:

As part of Navy Secretary John F. Lehman's effort to build a 600-ship Navy in the 1980s, and in response to the commissioning of Kirov by the Soviet Union, the United States recommissioned all four Iowa-class battleships. On several occasions, battleships were support ships in carrier battle groups, or led their own battleship battle group. These were modernized to carry Tomahawk missiles, with New Jersey seeing action bombarding Lebanon in 1983 and 1984, while Missouri and Wisconsin fired their 16 inch (406 mm) guns at land targets and launched missiles during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Wisconsin served as the TLAM strike commander for the Persian Gulf, directing the sequence of launches that marked the opening of Desert Storm, firing a total of 24 TLAMs during the first two days of the campaign. The primary threat to the battleships were Iraqi shore based surface-to-surface missiles; Missouri was targeted by two Iraqi Silkworm missiles, with one missing and another being intercepted by the British destroyer HMS Gloucester.[84]

I expect the Tomahawks were a little easier on the hull and the men compared to those impressive 9-gun salvos that drove the ship sideways in the water.

 

[moonshine]

Well, for some of us here and for many thousands of Cubans that is exactly what happened. If you opposed Fidel you were rounded up and put in front of a firing squad or in jail for 30 years. Regarding the offer to send Cuban doctors to "help" let me educate you. Fidel has doctor mills in Cuban that turn out thousands of very low quality doctors. Any RN here in the states is much more capable and has received better education and training. Part of the training these "doctors" get is communist indoctrination and how to "educate" your patients to help them see how they have been oppressed by their government and much better they would be under A Marxist system. Fidel would have loved to inject some of these "doctors" in low income areas of the US amongst people that are already receptive to the idea that their bad situation is entirely the fault of the government.

I looked up the award paperwork for my grandfather few years back, since he never told any warstories. his most cherished one said "For skillfully operating his platoon to take hill number whatever and personally killing four enemy soldiers in close combat". He was 16 at the time, lied about his age to get in, made sergeant at 16 and master sergeant at 17.
To me he is hero. To the families of those he killed probably not, not that I care. After all, that particular fight happened in northern Poland and eneny soldiers happened to be German. To you he's probably another evil commie, but again, not that I care.
World isn't black and white.
Your statement about the quality of doctors is laughable at best. Doctors with the most toys != best doctors and from my experience doctors here in the US are very far from the best I have seen in the world, including the "backwards eastern europe" ones.
Believe what you will, but don't expect everyone in the world to believe the same because you don't hold the license for the absolute truth.

 

[Tom-D]

That was a line from Moss Hart's play "You Can't Take It With You" written in 1936.

Arguably you can say we also got Puerto Rico out of the S-A war and didn't really give it back.

Too bad we (the US) didn't make all the territories we gained from that war states. the world map we would see today would be really different. had we done that after WW2 would really change the world today.

 

[denverpilot]

I looked up the award paperwork for my grandfather few years back, since he never told any warstories. his most cherished one said "For skillfully operating his platoon to take hill number whatever and personally killing four enemy soldiers in close combat". He was 16 at the time, lied about his age to get in, made sergeant at 16 and master sergeant at 17.
To me he is hero. To the families of those he killed probably not, not that I care. After all, that particular fight happened in northern Poland and eneny soldiers happened to be German. To you he's probably another evil commie, but again, not that I care.
World isn't black and white.
Your statement about the quality of doctors is laughable at best. Doctors with the most toys != best doctors and from my experience doctors here in the US are very far from the best I have seen in the world, including the "backwards eastern europe" ones.
Believe what you will, but don't expect everyone in the world to believe the same because you don't hold the license for the absolute truth.

That's a great story, but didn't refute anything that he brought up.

 

[moonshine]

It does
- last I checked, Fidel overthrew a US-installed dictator Batista. I don't remember any Cuba-installed dictators on US soil.
- Cubans in the US are entitled to hate Fidel, same way as many immigrants from the USSR hate everything Russian, Swedish immigrants hate socialism for high taxes back in Sweden etc. That's fine, doesn't make them right and everyone else wrong. doesn't make the opposite true either.
- Go check out Canadian, European and Russian tourists in Cuba. Lack of Americans doesn't automatically make the place an abandoned desert. Spoke to an Aeroflot Airbus driver last month, he's been going there for vacations for years, just opened up couple of businesses and plans to retire there. If something isn't US it doesn't mean it's a hell hole by default.
- on the doctors - I quite specifically disagreed on the level of experience and education of those. No offence, but I personally found the local US offering substandard even if possessing all the coolest toys.
I knew a guy a few years back. Ghana orphan of the civil war, Cuba took him and lots like him in, grew up in one of those "work-the-fields-and-study" orphanages, became a doctor, moved to the US later, successful offices in Chicago and Tampa, lots of charity work in the Spanish speaking neighborhoods. Damn, someone should have reported him, he is probably indoctrinating all kinds of propaganda into people.
Propaganda - many people here erroneously assume you don't have it. Big fat Ha.

 

[Cooter]

I looked up the award paperwork for my grandfather few years back, since he never told any warstories. his most cherished one said "For skillfully operating his platoon to take hill number whatever and personally killing four enemy soldiers in close combat". He was 16 at the time, lied about his age to get in, made sergeant at 16 and master sergeant at 17.
To me he is hero. To the families of those he killed probably not, not that I care. After all, that particular fight happened in northern Poland and eneny soldiers happened to be German. To you he's probably another evil commie, but again, not that I care.
World isn't black and white.
Your statement about the quality of doctors is laughable at best. Doctors with the most toys != best doctors and from my experience doctors here in the US are very far from the best I have seen in the world, including the "backwards eastern europe" ones.
Believe what you will, but don't expect everyone in the world to believe the same because you don't hold the license for the absolute truth.

Your grandfather fought to facilitate the advance of wickedness. Whatever his reasoning and motives, there was a good side and bad side in that war. What happened to the Polish people is horrific. Fortunately for us and many others, his side lost.

 

[flyingron]

- last I checked, Fidel overthrew a US-installed dictator Batista

Calling Batista "US installed" is a bit of an exaggeration. Cuba's leadership was in turmoil for most of the twentieth century. Many of the Cuban presidents were "elected" by coup. While Batista initially overthrew Machado with some assistance of the US Ambassador Sumner Welles who while Machado was formally denouncing the US negotiated for Machado to exit gracefully. Batista served in a variety of forms before of leadership before he finally left the country for the US, coming back in the 50's. Not so much the US Government backing him this time but other US interests both legitimate (agribusiness plus some other areas) and organized crime. By the Kennedy administration, the US government had incentive to protect those US interests.

 

[Lindberg]

It does
- last I checked, Fidel overthrew a US-installed dictator Batista. I don't remember any Cuba-installed dictators on US soil.
- Cubans in the US are entitled to hate Fidel, same way as many immigrants from the USSR hate everything Russian, Swedish immigrants hate socialism for high taxes back in Sweden etc. That's fine, doesn't make them right and everyone else wrong. doesn't make the opposite true either.
- Go check out Canadian, European and Russian tourists in Cuba. Lack of Americans doesn't automatically make the place an abandoned desert. Spoke to an Aeroflot Airbus driver last month, he's been going there for vacations for years, just opened up couple of businesses and plans to retire there. If something isn't US it doesn't mean it's a hell hole by default.
- on the doctors - I quite specifically disagreed on the level of experience and education of those. No offence, but I personally found the local US offering substandard even if possessing all the coolest toys.
I knew a guy a few years back. Ghana orphan of the civil war, Cuba took him and lots like him in, grew up in one of those "work-the-fields-and-study" orphanages, became a doctor, moved to the US later, successful offices in Chicago and Tampa, lots of charity work in the Spanish speaking neighborhoods. Damn, someone should have reported him, he is probably indoctrinating all kinds of propaganda into people.
Propaganda - many people here erroneously assume you don't have it. Big fat Ha.

Your moral relativism is showing. There are good guys and bad guys, even when there are two sides.

 

[Lindberg]

Some folks might want to review their history to understand the role the US played in creating the political and economic environment that gave rise to Castro as well as other such leaders around the world. We help to create them then we ostracize them and then are stunned when they become our enemies.

How did we "help create" Castro? Your suggestion is we wanted him there and then changed our minds. Even when he claimed to not be a communist, he was still a fanatical dictator. His plan for the first 100 day? Kill about 400 of his closest friends and political enemies. I guess for the blame-America-first crowd, we're somehow responsible for that.

 

[Lindberg]

Once Cuba gets a taste for capitalism, democracy wont be far behind. This will be a HUGE boom. Cubans are educated, healthy, hard workers and poor. That place is gonna change FAST!

I'm not sure if you are being facticious, but Fidel hasn't been running Cuba for quite some time.

And the US embargo has never been what prevented Cubans from experiencing capitalism or democracy because most of the rest of the world trades with Cuba.

Cubans still live under despotic rule, and we're not going to change that from the outside.

 

[moonshine]

Your grandfather fought to facilitate the advance of wickedness. Whatever his reasoning and motives, there was a good side and bad side in that war. What happened to the Polish people is horrific. Fortunately for us and many others, his side lost.

Not sure where you get your logic from, but thankfully his side won and extinguished the fires in the concentration camps in Poland. The spread of the European values didn't quite work out for the 3rd Reich last I checked.

 

[Cooter]

Not sure where you get your logic from, but thankfully his side won and extinguished the fires in the concentration camps in Poland. The spread of the European values didn't quite work out for the 3rd Reich last I checked.

.
I misread your post to say he was German. But you don't say what he was, was he Russian? If so, he may have been on the winning side in one sense but the rest of my comment applies. The Polish people were mistreated by both Armies.

 

[Pilawt]

If something isn't US it doesn't mean it's a hell hole by default.

That explains the flotilla of rickety boats and rafts carrying desperate refugees across 90 miles of shark-infested water to get to Cuba.

 

[moonshine]

.
I misread your post to say he was German. But you don't say what he was, was he Russian? If so, he may have been on the winning side in one sense but the rest of my comment applies. The Polish people were mistreated by both Armies.

Sorry about that then. Yes, Russian.

 

[moonshine]

That explains the flotilla of rickety boats and rafts carrying desperate refugees across 90 miles of shark-infested water to get to Cuba.

Compare the number of boats from Cuba to FL with those going across the Middeteranian from the "Arab Spring" countries

My big point is, I bet most of the posters are
A. Unaffected by Castro
B. Gather all of their info from the very one-sided news
E.g., who has ever heard of this
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jul/02/cuba-chernobyl-health-children?0p19G=c

 

[PaulS]

Compare the number of boats from Cuba to FL with those going across the Middeteranian from the "Arab Spring" countries

My big point is, I bet most of the posters are
A. Unaffected by Castro
B. Gather all of their info from the very one-sided news
E.g., who has ever heard of this
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jul/02/cuba-chernobyl-health-children?0p19G=c

There are many Cuban refugees all over the states, they are not hard to find, especially in Florida. Pull one of them aside and ask what it was/is like and you might change your tune. Castro was a prick and a killer, his brother is just as bad.

 

[moonshine]

There are many Cuban refugees all over the states, they are not hard to find, especially in Florida. Pull one of them aside and ask what it was/is like and you might change your tune. Castro was a prick and a killer, his brother is just as bad.

I fly for a guy who's one. hates Castro, family had to uproot and move. they were against Castro, his uncle was in the air force fighting the rebels etc.
What's your point? Did loyalists love US unconditionally after the Independence War? were they supposed to?

 

[moonshine]

PS As a Russian in the US I know many, many, many people from over there who hate Russia with passion and prey for its quick demise in a nuclear cloud. Does that make all of their stories true?

 

[denverpilot]

It does
- last I checked, Fidel overthrew a US-installed dictator Batista. I don't remember any Cuba-installed dictators on US soil.
- Cubans in the US are entitled to hate Fidel, same way as many immigrants from the USSR hate everything Russian, Swedish immigrants hate socialism for high taxes back in Sweden etc. That's fine, doesn't make them right and everyone else wrong. doesn't make the opposite true either.
- Go check out Canadian, European and Russian tourists in Cuba. Lack of Americans doesn't automatically make the place an abandoned desert. Spoke to an Aeroflot Airbus driver last month, he's been going there for vacations for years, just opened up couple of businesses and plans to retire there. If something isn't US it doesn't mean it's a hell hole by default.
- on the doctors - I quite specifically disagreed on the level of experience and education of those. No offence, but I personally found the local US offering substandard even if possessing all the coolest toys.
I knew a guy a few years back. Ghana orphan of the civil war, Cuba took him and lots like him in, grew up in one of those "work-the-fields-and-study" orphanages, became a doctor, moved to the US later, successful offices in Chicago and Tampa, lots of charity work in the Spanish speaking neighborhoods. Damn, someone should have reported him, he is probably indoctrinating all kinds of propaganda into people.
Propaganda - many people here erroneously assume you don't have it. Big fat Ha.

I still see nothing that refuses his opinion, just a large list of your own opinions, and only the one about doctors that specifically addresses anything he said.

 

[Perezhr]

It does
- last I checked, Fidel overthrew a US-installed dictator Batista. I don't remember any Cuba-installed dictators on US soil.
- Cubans in the US are entitled to hate Fidel, same way as many immigrants from the USSR hate everything Russian, Swedish immigrants hate socialism for high taxes back in Sweden etc. That's fine, doesn't make them right and everyone else wrong. doesn't make the opposite true either.
- Go check out Canadian, European and Russian tourists in Cuba. Lack of Americans doesn't automatically make the place an abandoned desert. Spoke to an Aeroflot Airbus driver last month, he's been going there for vacations for years, just opened up couple of businesses and plans to retire there. If something isn't US it doesn't mean it's a hell hole by default.
- on the doctors - I quite specifically disagreed on the level of experience and education of those. No offence, but I personally found the local US offering substandard even if possessing all the coolest toys.
I knew a guy a few years back. Ghana orphan of the civil war, Cuba took him and lots like him in, grew up in one of those "work-the-fields-and-study" orphanages, became a doctor, moved to the US later, successful offices in Chicago and Tampa, lots of charity work in the Spanish speaking neighborhoods. Damn, someone should have reported him, he is probably indoctrinating all kinds of propaganda into people.
Propaganda - many people here erroneously assume you don't have it. Big fat Ha.

So you knew a guy once that "worked-the-field-an-study" program. I supposed you now know all about those programs. I grew up watching my brother and sister going to those "work-and-study" labor programs or better said, labor camps. It was compulsory for every high school student to go work the fields for the good of the mother land. During the summer they would disappear for nearly 3 months. It was very patriotic and all except for the fact you had no choice, and your parents better not complain or be branded as counterrevolutionaries and picked up in the middle of the night. I actually have family in Cuba and KNOW first hand their daily experiences and struggles surviving a repressive government. Regarding your doctor friend, I have not doubt that some good doctors are trained, but that is the exception and not the rule.

 

[Pilawt]

Some generalities are valid. One is that if the guns of the border guards are pointed inward at their fellow citizens to keep them there, that's a country I want nothing to do with.

 

[weilke]

- on the doctors - I quite specifically disagreed on the level of experience and education of those. No offence, but I personally found the local US offering substandard even if possessing all the coolest toys.

Very few 'Cuban doctors' manage to obtain medical licensure in the US, Canada or the UK while physicians trained in other countries routinely manage to do so. It is not an issue of 'toys', it is one of training and education. 'Cuban doctors' are for the most part what is referred to as 'health workers' in other third world countries.

 

[James331]

Very few 'Cuban doctors' manage to obtain medical licensure in the US, Canada or the UK while physicians trained in other countries routinely manage to do so. It is not an issue of 'toys', it is one of training and education. 'Cuban doctors' are for the most part what is referred to as 'health workers' in other third world countries.

I'm sure politics has had zero influence in that lol

Last I checked there were a few Cuban made drugs we were trying to bring over here.

As I said before, a couple times, ain't a perfect country but try not to chug too much of the US gov Kool-Aid

 

[weilke]

I'm sure politics has had zero influence in that lol

You pass the exam, you get the license. No politics involved.

Everyone has been bending over backwards to get the Cubans licensed yet they frequently don't succeed.

 

[Perezhr]

Reading some of these post again, and similar post in other media that have a positive view of Fidel almost always also have a very negative view of the United States. It is not coincidence at all, but to a great degree a certain level of anti-Americanism. They view Fidel as the enemy of my enemy must be my friend and are perfectly willing to ignore the fact that this man has murdered thousands of his own citizens to enslave a nation, but hey, if he hates America he must be ok. It is the same type of self-loathing displayed by many on the far left that consider America and its capitalist system the root of all evil, but inexplicably felt that Fidel was the embodiment of all that is just and fair. I always found it difficult to understand some of the Hollywood types that battered the US government for its abuses and the following week were down in Havana shaking hands with the great Fidel Castro....WTF....really??? It would certainly make for an interesting psychological study.

 

[Tarheelpilot]

I can't believe anyone can argue there is good side to Castro.

 

[Fearless Tower]

I can't believe anyone can argue there is good side to Castro.

This is POA.

You could say the sky is blue and someone would eventually come along with a counterpoint.

 

[mscard88]

You pass the exam, you get the license. No politics involved.

Everyone has been bending over backwards to get the Cubans licensed yet they frequently don't succeed.

C'mon you know James doesn't acknowledged facts or admit he is wrong.