I love Che Guevara, I saw a great documentary on the Discovery Times

[Melodybe]

Channel, I was very surprised to see such a fair and honest look at the man. His love for the people fueled everything he did. I didn't know about Castro's involvement in his death and now I have a real reason to think that Castro is one evil SOB.

I am asking for a Che T-Shirt for Christmas and I cannot wait for the Motorcycle Diaries to come out.

If their are any DUers that don't know anything about Che Guevara, you should definitely look him up. He was a violent but beautiful person, and love for the oppressed peoples of South America inspired everything that he did.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Minstrel Boy]

2. Do you know they don't?

Or are you assuming they're dumbasses for wearing the shirt?

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bridget Burke]

9. Can't you convince them to wear a Reagan shirt?

After all, he was The Great Communicator.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[southpaw]

15. You can buy Che shirts at Spencer...

Hanging right there with the tie-dyes, smart-assed-one-liner and Metallica t-shirts. Most of the mallrats who wear Che shirts probably think it's Benecio DelToro's face they're sporting.

[Pig_Latin_Lover]

6. Mike Tyson has a Che tattoo

While I don't want to underestimate Tyson, he seems rather intellectually incurious. I can't see him fully understanding what Che was all about.

[Minstrel Boy]

3. "Castro's involvement in his death"

Sorry - huh?

[htuttle]

4. I think I've seen the same show twice now

And I have no idea what she's talking about.

:shrug:

[Melodybe]

10. One of Che's men was talking about how Castro had promised them

troops and weapons when they got to Boliva, when they got there they had almost nothing. His friend said that Che's harsh criticisms of the Russian government and Krustev had brought a wedge between he and Castro. However the CIA was also involved, somehow.

I'm not sure who was behind Che's murder, the Russians, Castro, or the CIA, considering all three had to gain from Guevara's death, I won't trust any of them.

[Minstrel Boy]

13. Che was hunted by the CIA

The CIA's Felix Rodriguez was on the assassination squad.

Rodriguez is a lifelong Bush family buddy, going way back to the Bay of Pigs, and is mixed up in the Bush family business of assassination, drug running and money laundering. He's also a Bush elector for the state of Florida.

I wrote about "Che and Felix" on my blog a few months ago:
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/10/che-and-felix.html

There were differences between Che and Fidel, but to say Fidel had a hand in his death is absurd.

[ArkDem]

23. Who is this Krustev fellow?

[el_gato]

7. Motorcycle Diaries was a great movie!

[el_gato]

8. the Castro thing was a claim by a CIA man

The spook admitted that the CIA had a hand in killing him but
he claimed Castro set him up. I don't make a habit of believing
anything coming from CIA types.

[Melodybe]

12. I actually felt compelled to believe his soldier, one of the few that

had followed him from Cuba, to the Congo, to Boliva. He said it was Castro and Russia.

[Minstrel Boy]

11. A great Che documentary is "The Bolivian Diary"

Released in '96. I don't think it's on DVD yet.

Tells the story of his final campaign, chiefly in his own words.

[imenja]

16. I prefer Salvador Allende

I admire his commitment to socialism and democracy. Chile, of course, had different options from Cuba. Chile had an open electoral process (before the US backed coup of 1973) so that a socialist electoral victory could be achieved. Batista presided over a level of corruption that meant an electoral road wasn't possible.
Che didn't succeed in Bolivia because his ideology and strategy didn't fit with the circumstances and ethnic make up of Bolivia.
Obviously the CIA didn't help either.

[imenja]

17. documents not yet released ...

My understanding is that we don't yet have documentary evidence definitely linking the CIA or Castro to Che's murder.
I, however, had a former CIA agent in my class (I teach Latin American history though I don't research in this particular area) and I told the students the conventional wisdom was that the CIA had killed Che, but that we didn't have clear documentary evidence (as in the case of Allende and many others). When I asked the CIA agent if he knew whether the CIA had done it, his response was "that information is classified." Everyone laughed. We knew what it meant.
I don't know about the Castro connection. It's hard for me to imagine the CIA working with Castro at that point, but he might well have known about it and failed to inform Che.

[Minstrel Boy]

18. Look at this picture:

Do you know who these people are?

On the right is Che, captured in Bolivia, about to be executed.

On the left is Felix Rodriguez, Cuan-American, CIA agent, "advisor" to the Bolivian forces hunting Che. Rodriguez was coordinating the efforts on the ground using CIA intel to track Che's movements.

He still has Che's wristwatch as a trophy of the kill.

And as I said above, Rodriguez is a Bush family friend and elector for the state of Florida.

The CIA killed Che.

[imenja]

19. Argentine forensic anthropology team

The Argentine forensic anthropology team that excavated his body found it exactly as they had been told it would be by witness who said Che had been killed by the CIA.
I believe you are right, but as historian I have the obligation to tell my students precisely what the state of the documentary evidence on a given charge is. We talk about endless incidents of US intervention, support for torture, and other malfeasance in Latin America. There is extensive documentary evidence---most from the US government itself--to support all of that. The Che documents haven't been released yet, as far as I know. They will be in the future, though Bush has lengthened the time government documents can be sealed. He did so right after taking office in 2001, just in time to protect the misdeeds of his father's presidency being made public.

[Xenus Sister]

20. "Violent but beautiful person" --- Does not compute

Oxymoron alert!


Still, I loved the movie The Motorcycle Diaries, if only for the scenery and Gael Garcia Bernal.

[Melodybe]

21. I cannot wait to watch the MotorCycle Diaries, Che believed

in power to the people, and he never asked those below him to do something that he was not willing to do himself, whether it be fighting for revolution or farming sugar. He really was one of the most complete human beings that has ever lived.

Che believed in Marx's ideas that the people must ingage in violent revolution. I personally choose to fight peacefully, MLK style, but Che himself said that everything he did was out of love for oppressed people everywhere.

So although I disagree that revolution must be bloody, I still think that he was a beautiful person.

[hlthe2b]

22. He was a flawed man/leader at a time when all around him were far more

flawed--clearly.

I don't discount the positives in Che Guevara's life and aims, but I do think the truth is less the saint and more the human with all the human foibles that implies....

Just a gentle admonishment for those who see only the romantic idealist...