From a speech by Jimmy Carter at the University of Havana on May 14, 2002 which was broadcast throughout Castro’s islandwide fiefdom and trumpeted worldwide by all “news” agencies with Havana bureaus:

My nation is hardly perfect in human rights. A very large number of our citizens are incarcerated in prison, and there is little doubt that the death penalty is imposed most harshly on those who are poor, black, or mentally ill. For more than a quarter century, we have struggled unsuccessfully to guarantee the basic right of universal health care for our people. …but Cuba has superb systems of health care and universal education.

Thus did a former President of the United States prostrate himself before a regime that jailed and tortured political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin’s and murdered (in absolute numbers) more political prisoners in its first three years in power (out of a population of 6.4 million) than Hitler’s murdered in its first six years (out of a population of 70 million.) Not to mention that Pres. Carter’s host insulted his nation as “a vulture preying on humanity!” and came within a hair of nuking it.

There’s more: (more…)

“A foreign reporter — preferably American — was much more valuable to us at that time (1957) than any military victory,” wrote Ernesto “Che” Guevara in his diaries. “Much more valuable than rural recruits for our guerrilla force, were American media recruits to export our propaganda.”

“We cannot for a second abandon propaganda. Propaganda is vital — propaganda is the heart of all struggles,” said Fidel Castro in a letter to a revolutionary colleague in 1954.

“In all essentials Castro’s battle for Cuba was a public relations campaign fought in New York and Washington.” — British historian Hugh Thomas

Fought and handily won, I might add. (more…)