Aww, He's So Cute When He Tortures Dissidents

K-Lo on Fidel:

He could be your grampy.

That's the image many Westerners have of Fidel Castro. Oliver Stone has called the dictator "one of the Earth's wisest people." Other media moguls, actors and intellectuals have traveled to Havana to pay homage and make small talk about cigars.

Hollywood's affection for Fidel makes him as chic as a Che Guevara T-shirt (a hot item with the U.S. college set). Che, by the way, despite his current Motorcycle Diaries stud-icon status, was Castro's executioner in the younger days of the Castro regime — a thug who would do the despot's dirty work.

But don't try to sell that harmless-old-revolutionary spin to a Cuban. Fidel Castro is no cuddly papa to those who know his brutality all too well. A recent Freedom House tally declared Cuba's government as one of the most repressive on the planet.

As Florida Republican congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart once said, "For the life of me, I just don't know how Castro can seem cute after 40 years of torturing people." Castro not only tortures and executes, he also holds a special disdain for blacks and gays, which is why much of Cuba's dissident movement is black.

When the people of Cuba are at last free, what will they think of those who fetishized their oppressor?

We know already, don't we?

Just ask the Iraqis. Or the Afghanis. Or the Czechs.