Ask Auntie Pinko
January 4, 2002

Dear Auntie Pinko,

We are so concerned with dictators and terrorism these days (for good reason, of course), yet we have one within spitting distance of the United States in the form of Fidel Castro in Cuba.

What are your thoughts on Castro, and why has the United States let him run a Communist dictatorship for 40 years?

Derek, Miami, FL

Dear Derek,

In general, Auntie Pinko has little use and less tolerance for totalitarian dictators, regardless of which side of the political spectrum they claim to represent. This is not to say that I don't applaud many of the things that Mr. Castro has accomplished for the Cuban people.

The Batista regime which Mr. Castro's revolution displaced was as brutal and totalitarian an oligarchic kleptocracy as the 20th century ever saw, and for many people the revolution produced a considerable improvement in their living conditions. Mr. Castro brought literacy and health care to his country on a scale that hasn't been matched in many capitalist societies, too.

But Mr. Castro has had more than forty years to bring his reforms into the political sphere, to implement the mechanisms of self-governance and political and ideological freedom among his people, and thus far cannot be said to have made any noticeably enthusiastic efforts in that direction.

The press is still state-controlled, people with dissenting opinions can expect the harshest treatment, and the economic circumstances concomitant with over-control and over-centralization contribute to squalid living conditions for far too many Cuban citizens. No, Mr. Castro doesn't make Auntie Pinko's hit parade.

Hindsight is always 20/20, of course. But one of the most heartbreaking aspects of Cuba's political evolution is the haunting question "Did the United States contribute to the tragedy of totalitarianism there?" Our backing of the oppressive Batista regime certainly helped to provoke the revolution, but that's not the only chance we squandered.

In the early days of Mr. Castro's revolution, he made it clear to the United States that he would have preferred friendly relations. Alas, the paranoia of the cold war precluded us from accepting his government and establishing normal relations with Cuba.

Perhaps, had we done so those many years ago, there never would have been a Bay of Pigs, Mr. Castro's suspicion of the US might not have hardened into paranoia, and a slow liberalization and democratization of Cuba might be well established by now.

We'll never know.

As to your question regarding why the United States has "let him" run his government, that answer, too, lies in the fetid roots of our cold war paranoia. Rejected by the United States, Mr. Castro turned to his most natural ideological ally, the world's other nuclear superpower at the time - the USSR.

It was a logical move. Cuba is a tiny country, with few resources and a small population. Mr. Castro knew perfectly well that his government would never survive a full-scale US attempt to dislodge him by military means. So he needed a Big Brother of sufficient power and aggressiveness to send the stakes for any such venture skyrocketing. For thirty years, the Nuclear Standoff protected him.

But why, when the Soviet Union collapsed, did the US not rush in with tanks and warplanes and thousands of ground troops and "liberate" Cuba? Do you really have to ask that, Derek? It would be like Arnold Schwarzenegger beating up a pre-schooler. Not even the most die-hard GOP powerbrokers can delude themselves that such an act would do the United States any good in the geopolitical arena.

But thanks for asking Auntie Pinko!