Cuba Libre
by Fidel Castro

I grew up wealthy on my father’s ranch in Cuba and could have spent my life as a landowning attorney who stole from the poor and grew even richer. Instead, as a very young man, I vowed to overthrow Fulgencio Batista, the dictator known as The Cretin who along with Yanqui gangsters turned Cuba into a network of casinos and brothels. I first attacked the government at age twenty-six but traitors helped federal troops kill most of my men and I ended up in prison and everyone said I would be executed after my trial. If I’d been Batista, I certainly would’ve made sure to kill Castro. Instead, he worried that I might be too popular to kill, despite his personal conviction that I could never threaten his regime, and I served less than two years in prison.

Several years later, in 1959, after building a powerful force from a small group of bearded revolutionaries in the mountains, my troops bushwacked Batista’s mercenaries, winning many battles before marching into Havana, and I vowed that I would spend the rest of my life fighting Yanqui imperialists who would again ravage our country if Cubans let them. Believe me, I was a different kind of leader, blessed with charisma, bravery, and good luck. And as such I regret that I couldn’t have had a larger and richer nation to lead. Venezuela, with all that oil and land, would have been wonderful, and so would even larger and oil-richer Iran.

It’s also too bad that Venezuela and Iran never enjoyed my command. Imagine, I am the stalwart leader who fought off Eisenhower and Kennedy and generations of other presidents who countless times tried to assassinate me, but they couldn’t. “No one will ever get me,” I told a beautiful young woman who’d been sent to seduce and then kill me. I took away her pistol and ordered, “Get back in bed.”

I respect the late Hugo Chavez and the kidnapped Nicolas Maduro, though they lacked my political gifts and survival instincts. The United States would never have tried to conquer Venezuela or Iran if I’d been the leader of a large population armed by petrodollars and generous Soviet backers. Even after the Iron Curtain crumbled, I could have made Venezuela a regional power. I would’ve acquired nuclear weapons, a natural scientific extension of my internationally respected literary and medical programs, and the Yanquis wouldn’t have dreamed of trying to abduct me in my pajamas.

The same principles apply to Iran. I would’ve ruled forever. The Shah had vast oil reserves and military aid not only from the United States but Israel. I could have soothed our allies for generations, portraying myself as the enemy of their ultimate adversary, the Soviet Union. And I wouldn’t have had the Shah’s internal problems. He stole billions from his people and preferred speaking French and English more than Persian. He alienated Iranians I could have charmed. The Shah of Iran didn’t understand his arrogance and avarice hurt him more than any foreign army. Indeed, there were no foreign armies threatening Iran. And now look what is confronting the Islamic Republic: the very United States and Israel who, in about ten days, have destroyed much of Iran’s military capabilities and killed dozens of its leaders.

And what are the Yanquis doing now, in addition to destroying the Middle East and dominating Venezuela? They’re bragging about how Cuba is next. They wouldn’t be planning an easy victory if I still ruled our island fortress. I’d be tuning up my nuclear weapons, and even without them, I, Fidel Castro, would improvise ways to survive and counterattack. Saddam Hussein, Muamar Gaddafi, and Ali Khamenei didn’t have my magic nor did they have my luck. Granted, I was lucky to be magical, and the Yanquis are lucky they won’t have to deal with me. Marco Rubio is also damn lucky in that regard.

George Thomas Clark on Amazon