Tristan,

Your equivocation, your post-truth whining cannot excuse Castro.

There is no "balanced" view of his career: he was a mass murderer. There is no logical way to offset the dead against his health and education programs, even if one accepts your propaganda that he had positive achievements in those areas. The dead don't have the luxury of left wing philosophising.

Geoff,

I'm not a Hillary Clinton fan. She was a catastrophe as Secretary of State - just ask the families of the diplomatic staff killed in Benghazi. I suspect that Donald Trump's gentle treatment of her since the election is because he realises she has been/is close to a mental break down. At the very least she'd have been the first overtly corrupt president of the US.

Having said that, I'm not sure that she or the US can be blamed for the destruction of Libya. That seems to have been the wish of the Libyans, who murdered Gaddafi at their first opportunity.

Calwest, you still have nothing to say about US client regimes in the region during the Cold War. I asked for you to consider what happened in Nicaragua, EL Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina. But you have nothing to say. You may see it as 'equivocating' to say 'there was a good side' to Castro's government. But you literally have nothing to say at all about what else was going on in the region during the Cold War. We're talking US foreign policy and US client regimes who 'disappeared' people, used death squads, imprisoned and tortured people, utterly ran roughshod over human and liberal rights. And failed to deliver prosperity as well.

I accept Castro committed transgressions against large numbers of his own people ; even despite having overwhelming popular support. I accept these were violations of human, liberal and democratic rights. But when I ask you to apply the same standards to others - including the US itself - you have nothing to say. Those kind of silences are the stuff of historic revisionism. So many people knock Castro and his legacy in the name of human rights - but Cold War crimes are 'remove from history' to validate the narrative that "liberal democracy won" ; that it was as simple as "democracy winning over totalitarianism". It was a hell of a lot more complex than that.

" you still have nothing to say about US client regimes in the region during the Cold War."

They were bad.

What I want to know is how their activities somehow excuse Castro from killing his own people? Perhaps you might like to ponder an answer to that Tristan.

The point is that I accept Castro had his bad side ; I refer to his failings ; But this has to be viewed in context. The point is that much of the mass media is condemning Castro - but has nothing to say about the US and its client states during the Cold War. I am trying to give a balanced appraisal. But sometimes silence is as good as approval. When we condemn Castro but have nothing to say about the US and its client states we are aiding the prevalent historical revisionism.

Tristan,

For left wingers like you, cultural relativity is a way of life.

Castro was a monster. There is no "balance", no "context" that makes OK the mass murdering.

End of story.

Those promoting and participating in the abortion industry demonstrate similar characteristics to Castro. That is why the left feel a kinship. with the mass murderer.