Sadly you try to argue but you lack historical knowledge about Latin America during the cold war. So please, either don't read this (cause its long) and never say any comment on the subject again, because you obviously don't know what you're talking about, or read it and I hope you learn a thing or two.
Pinochet was by FAR more repressive than Castro. Tenths or hundreds of thousand people were killed by the military under the reign of Pinochet. Social inequity was rampant, the country had a poor education system, a poor health system, hell a poor everything except for the elite upper class. If you wonder why there has been so many deaths under his regime, well it's because people were sick of eating shit but everytime they stood up they were shot cold and couldn't organize a revolution.
In Cuba however, the revolution worked. Like other latino fascist dictatorships at the time, Baptista's regime was pure despotism. Among Cubans there was the very rich and very few landowners and the very poor workers. American Mafia and Corporations controlled Havana, sanctionned by Baptista to make huge profits on the back of the people. After the revolution Castro nationalized every private property the US had in the country, redistributed the land equally and kicked out the mafia and all american businessmen. The immediate effects of this was a general increase in the level of life and happyness of the population. the longer term effects include an effective education system and such social advantages. The rich landowners (who used to be very repressive themselves towards the land workers) lost everything and fled to miami. Later they came back to take their power back, trained and equipped by the CIA, but lost for good.
As you can see (or so I hope) the Cuban revolution was actually a good thing AT THE TIME (increased the level of life of the average citizen).
Cuba has the second highest life expectance in latin america at 75, and one of the highest litteracy rate in the world despite the US led embargo that literally kills civilians since the USSR collapsed and couldn't trade with Cuba anymore.
I do agree that the emprisonning of dissidents speaking against castro sucks BUT it's nothing compared to the previous governments. Actually, without the embargo on Cuba, I believe that it would be one of, if not the "best" latino-american country to live in. Because without the embargo, the country can trade, therefore gets richer, therefore the average citizen is richer, social advantages are more efficient (better health care, for exemple) etc, wich leads to less unhappy people, more happy people, thus less dissidents and less repression.
As for Che...Che Guevara was a revolutionnarist fighting for social equities in latin america and has nothing to do with any torture or repression. His goal in life was to overthrow the opression. He died in the Bolivian jungle only a couple years after the Cuban revolution was won and only served a couple years in politics as the minister of industry. He is partly responsible for the agriculture reform that helped many cubans to get out of their shithole.
The first time I agreed with a conservative (that wasn't John McCain)!
