For those of us who remember Cuba under Batista and the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the success of Castro since then has been spectacular. Castro was feted world wide as the saviour of Cuba. The only losers at that time were the big corporations, criminal organisations and the gamblers of Havana. Castro started out to look after the downtrodden little people of Cuba and has continued to do just that ever since. He has not set himself up in luxury at the expense of his people like so many others in other developing countries have done. If he is a despot it is because his people love him. Unfortunately he has brought hardship on his people by resisting US oppression but the shame for this lies with the US not with Castro. Is the aim of democracy to help the people or to help big corporations?

if you read books like "Terminate With Extreme Prejudice" by Richard Belfield which describes how the CIA overthrew the fledgling democracy in Guatemala in 1948 you can understand why Fidel Castro was a far better deal for Cubans than the Mafia. Belfield claims that most assassinations in the last 50 years have been committed by the CIA against trade union leaders although he devotes a chapter each to the detail of the big name political killings.

A sober companion piece is
"Why do people hate America?" by Ziaddin Sardar and Merryl Davies which lists a few of the United States interventions in other countries affairs.

I would also recommend watching the TV program "30 Days" dealing with "Living on Minimum Wage" in Detroit, Michigan and remember that the working poor are the largest growing class in the USA and their conditions are coming soon to Australians as WorkChoices.

I also remember Batista and the corruption and crime that flourished under his regime.
I also remember the lies surrounding US invasion of Granada and the phoney attempts to involve Cuba.

Cuba is certainly not perfect but the idea that Cuba can spare a disproportionately high number of trained Doctors and medical personnel to be involved in humanitarian ventures around the world shows the effectiveness of their social and educational policies.

When you consider they have been working under a severe economic embargo for the last forty-odd years, they have done remarkably well.

The smartest thing Castro did (for Cuba) was to empty his prisons and asylums and send the inmates to the USA as refugees, thus returning the remnants of organised crime back to it's source.

As Usual reporting lies and trash.. leave it to the american media to promote propaganda for the cuban government. the Media is in the business of alternating castor’s poor image, Promoting false information, spewing lies after lies. While every other country in the Western Hemisphere moved towards democracy, Cuba has remained a one-party state under Dictator Fidel Castro, who held power without free elections from 1959 until health problems forced him to step aside in 2006. Castro's communist regime has executed hundreds of political opponents and driven tens of thousands more into exile; hundreds of dissidents today languish in Cuban prisons. This is the reality about Cuba not the sugar coated crap those leftist network moguls are trying to brainwash you with. Yet liberals in the U.S. media have gravely failed to condemn this abusive monster. They don’t really cover the things that they need to be covered. They don’t do an analysis of the Cuban situation. They play into the Cuban government’s game.If you believe cuba have the best health system I sell you the Brooklyn brigde.. Don't be an ignorant ass. Your article is a lie and you are misinform

http://cubaspeaks.blogspot.com/

Another worthy contribution on Cuba Tim, Thanks for a well constructed contribution to intelligent debate.
I am afraid though that the same rightwing ideologues are repeating themselves as they did in your earlier piece on Cuba : see the URL
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=3243
I fail to see the value in my repeating what I have already said when anyone who is interested can cut and paste the URL into their browser.
What I can add is that the 200 Cuban doctors working throughout East Timor are deeply appreciated by the Maubere people who have never known such a health program. Of course the US Administration are absolutely paranoid that Cuba should get such accolades when they have been trying for almost 50 years to overthrow Castro's Government and continue to assert that he is a Dictator and only America is a 'democracy' Tim poses the right questions and answers to that furphy.

Jajaja that's funny cuban doctors are slave of the cuban government obviously you clearly don't know nothing about cuba or your little friend tim...Ignorance is Bliss