Dear Starchild;
Maybe that's why Amazon books grouped Che's Guerilla Warfare with Zedong Mao On Guerilla Warfare for a discount package. Then the two could be compared. One a real guerilla fighter and the other a wannabe against a so - so army. Obviously Che did not have to do a 1,000 mile march even if it was against the corrupt Kuomintang Army of the uncorruptible Chiang Kai-Shek and his uncorruptible war lords.
It's always easy to win "battles" when you're fighting paper tigers. But as Bush will never learn when you go up against terrorists, insurgents, freedom fighters and religious fanatics you will never win the hearts and minds of the people. Especially when you use massive firepower to destroy whole cities in an attempt to destroy the enemies base of operations. All those nasty civilian casualties conveniently explained away as collateral damage.
Ron Getty
SF Libertarian
I haven't read Che Guevara's "Guerilla Warfare." But according to an
extremely unflattering June 2002 article by Humberto Fontova, the real
Che was not much of a guerilla fighter. This article was the
cover-story of the San Francisco Herald paper last April, and it's also
online at http://www.futurodecuba.org/The%20Real%20Che%20Guevara.htm .
Here's part of it...
<<< Starchild >>>
Statistically speaking, a nocturnal stroll through Central Park
offers more
peril than Castro�s rebels faced from the dreaded army of the beastly
Fulgencio Batista. According to Bethel, the U.S. embassy was a little
skeptical about all the battlefield bloodshed and heroics and
investigated.
They ran down every reliable lead and eyewitness account of what the
New York
Times called a "bloody civil war with thousands dead in single battles!�
They found that in the countryside, in those two years of "ferocious�
battles, the total casualties on BOTH sides actually ran to 182. New
Orleans
has an annual murder rate DOUBLE that.
Alas, the Viet Cong took their lessons from guerrilla leaders who � get
this, Che groupies � actually fought in a guerrilla war. Yes, where
people
shoot back and everything. Che eventually tried his hand at this
novelty and
... well. We saw what happened. He was run out of Africa with his tail
between his legs in months. Then in Bolivia he and his merry band of
bumblers
was betrayed, encircled and decimated in short order.
Dissed by Mao
Real guerrillas had Che�s number. Mao refused to see him when he
visited
China. He had him cool his heels in a reception room for two hours, then
stood him up. He knew.
Che the Lionhearted�s image is still ubiquitous on college campuses.
But in
the wrong places. He belongs in the marketing, PR, advertising �and
especially - psychology departments. His lessons and history are
fascinating
and valuable, but only in light of Sigmund Freud or P.T. Barnum. One
born
every minute, Mr. Barnum? If only you�d lived to see the Che phenomenon.
Actually, 10 are born every second.
Here�s a "guerilla hero� who in real life never fought in a guerilla
war.
When he finally brushed up against one, he was routed.
Che excelled in one thing: mass murder of defenseless men. He was a
Stalinist to the core, a plodding bureaucrat and a calm, cold-blooded
-but
again, never in actual battle � killer. And there was an actual method
to
this murderous madness.
Recall that in 1940 Stalin�s commissars rounded up the Polish officer
corps,
herded them into the Katyn Forest and slaughtered them to a man. Stalin
didn�t want any Polish contras messing up his plans. These officers
would
have led them. So his men dug a huge mass grave and lined up the Polish
officers. The Russian pistol barrels went up against the back of the
neck:
POW! ... Thump. Fifteen thousand shots later the deed was done and the
dirt
replaced. Any contra problem was nipped in the bud.
Che followed suit in Cuba. As a communist flunkie in Guatemala he�d
seen the
Guatemalan officer corps rise up against the communist Arbenz
government in
'54. (And you pinko professors please stifle the noise about Arbenz as
harmless "social democrat� and "nationalist� victimized by the fiendish
United Fruit Co., OK? When ousted, Arbenz sought refuge in
Czechoslovakia,
not Sweden.)
Beloved Mass Murderer
Anyway, Che didn�t want a repeat in Cuba.. Upon entering Havana in
January
59 he started rounding up all Army officers. Then - FUEGO!! - his firing
squads got busy � real busy. By his own count, Che sent 2,500 men to
"the
wall.�
The "Cuban Katyn � I call this slaughter. The reds called these
executed men
"war criminals� and the Beltway press naturally parroted the charge.
Nothing
new here.
The New York Times� (Pulitzer-winning, no less) reporter Walter
Duranty had
parroted Stalin and Beria�s charges against the victims of the 1930s
show
trials, too. Later, they, along with Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy and Tip
O�Neill,
labeled Nicaragua�s contra�s "war criminals.� But today Nicaragua is
free
because of them.
Che�s true legacy is simply one of terror and murder. That dreaded
midnight
knock. Wives and daughters screaming in rage and panic as Che�s goons
drag
off their dads and husbands - that�s the real Che�s legacy.
Desperate crowds of weeping daughters and shrieking mothers clubbed
with
rifle butts outside La Cabana as Che�s firing squads murder their dads
and
sons inside - that�s the real Che legacy.
Thousands of heroes yelling "Viva Cuba Libre !� and "Viva Christo Rey
!�
before firing squads of murderous drunks whom they�d have stomped in
open
battle - that�s the real Che legacy.
Secret graves and crude boxes with the bullet-riddled corpses
delivered to
ashen-faced loved ones - that�s the real Che legacy.
And let�s not forget the craven, "Don�t shoot! I�m Che . I�m worth
more to
you live than dead!� (Then why didn�t he save his last bullet for
himself?)
Perhaps the defiant yells of the men he murdered actually affected Che
the
Lionhearted?
By 1960 he started ordering that his victims� mouths be taped shut.
Perhaps
there was a trace of human emotion in this icy dolt after all? Genuine
bravery and defiance unnerved him.
When the wheels of justice finally turned, Che was revealed as
unworthy to
carry his victims' slop buckets. He learned nothing from their bravery.
He
could only beg for his life. So yes, the craven request when cornered in
Bolivia is also the real Che legacy.