Cuba

Let's talk about some actual violations of human rights:

Three years after the harshest crackdown on dissent in decades, human-rights conditions in Cuba have deteriorated as authorities intensify a campaign to disrupt and intimidate the island's small opposition movement, according to dissidents, diplomats and political analysts.
...

The attacks intensified after a speech by Castro last July in which he denounced opposition activists as U.S. government lackeys and praised supporters who two weeks earlier disrupted a dissident protest in Havana.

"The people, angrier than before over such shameless acts of treason, intervened with patriotic fervor and didn't allow a single mercenary to move," Castro said. "This is what will happen however many times as necessary when traitors and mercenaries go a millimeter beyond the point that our revolutionary people ... are prepared to permit."

But Sanchez and other activists say Cuban state security agents direct the pro-government attacks, which often occur in front of the homes or meeting places of dissidents, and participants include police dressed in civilian clothes.

Sanchez said the aim of the attacks is to "increase the political repression" without significantly increasing the number of political prisoners. "Why don't they want to increase the number of political prisoners?" he asked. "Because outside, in other countries, there has been a lot of criticism."

Surprisingly, there's little press coverage on this.  If there's criticism to be made of "violations" at Guantanamo, why not this too?  There seems to be a romantic fascination with Cuba's leaders for some reason.  One doesn't have to look hard to note the popularity of Che Guevara; his likeness adornes mugs, hoodies, lighters, key chains, wallets, baseball caps, toques, bandannas, tank tops, club shirts, couture bags, denim jeans, herbal tea, and, of course, T-shirts with the photograph taken by Alberto Korda of the socialist in his beret during the early years of the revolution (dubbed "the most famous photograph in the world and a symbol of the 20th century" [1]).  Yet many would reject Guevara if they knew his actual past. 

Guevara was entranced with other people's deaths: "hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine." This hatred and ideological violence was a corner stone for Guevara following the revolution.  While merciless during the revolution, the "cold-blooded killing machine" would show the full extent of his rigor after the collapse of the Batista regime when Castro put Guevara in charge of La Cabaña prison.  In what was eerily reminiscint of Lavrenty Beria, Guevara would oversee the darkest days of the revolution.  It is unknown how many people were killed at La Cabaña.  Some figures range from 200, to 400, to over 500.  At Guevara's capture, he was confronted by a CIA agent about "the two thousand or so" executions he had been a part of during his lifetime.[2]

In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, Argentina had the second-highest growth rate in the world.  By the 1890s, the real income of Argentine workers was more than that of Swiss, German, and French workers.  By 1928, that country was ranked twelfth of nations with the highest per-capita GDP.  This achievement would be ruined by later generations, but all took place in part because of Juan Bautista Alberdi.  Like Guevara, he liked to travel, opposed a tyrant, got the chance to influence a revolutionary leader in power (Justo José de Urquiza), and represented the new government on world tours and died abroad.  However, Alberdi never killed a fly.  His book became the foundation of the Constitution of 1853 that limited government, opened trade, encouraged immigration, and secured property rights.  He didn't involve himself in the affairs of other nations and opposed Argentina's war against Paraguay.  His likeness doesn't adorn Mike Tyson's abdomen. [3]

Che Guevara, who did so much (or so little?) to destroy capitalism is now a capitalist brand (see Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter's Nation of Rebels).  It often seems that followers of a cult tend to not know the historical truth of the one they follow.  Many of the post-communist admirers of Guevara don't know the past but cling to a myth, except some young Argentines who have come up with the best expression: "Tengo una remera del Che y no sé por qué," or "I have a Che T-shirt and I don't know why."

What does all this talk of Che have to do with the story noted above?  The point is that people overlook things, sometimes for a political reason.  If one is going to ridicule America for supposed abuses then one must also denounce Castro for violations that are much more serious.  The political implications of not doing so would be disasterous.  Christina Aguilera may be bad to listen to, but not a single person has died at the hands of our soldiers at Guantanamo Bay.  The same cannot be said of the Castro regime.

[1] Maryland Institute of Art, referenced at BBC News,"Che Guevara photographer dies", 26 May 2001.
[2] Alvaro Vargas Llosa, "The Killing Machine," in The New Republic, July 11 & 18 2005, pp. 25-30.
[3] Alvaro Vargas Llosa, "The Killing Machine," in The New Republic, July 11 & 18 2005, pp. 25-30.