“The Washington Post published a gasp-inducing headline for the ages Sunday, describing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as an "austere religious scholar. The headline read: "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48." (Fox News, Oct 27.)
But the WaPo quickly caved to the outrage from almost all American quarters and changed the headline to read “extremist leader of Islamic State," while issuing a groveling apology:
"Regarding our al-Baghdadi obituary, the headline should never have read that way and we changed it quickly," Washington Post Vice President of Communications Kristine Coratti Kelly whimpered to Fox News.
Among the civilized world’s many charges against the murderous terrorist al-Baghdadi was his filming of murders.
Well, it was some murderous terrorists right on our doorstep who pioneered political murder videos for media dissemination—and over half a century ago. (Warning! graphic)
Al-Baghdadi and his disgusting terror/murder organization known as ISIS also tortured and murdered American citizens (among citizens of many other nations.)
Well, here’s what Fidel Castro and Che Guevara’s terror/murder organization did to (U.S. citizen and family man) Howard Anderson who resisted the theft of his filling stations and Jeep dealership by Castro’s gunmen in 1960. First the show trial:
“Death to the American!” screamed Howard Anderson’s communist prosecutor at his farce of a trial on April 17, 1961. “The prosecutor was a madman!” says a Swiss diplomat who witnessed the trial, “leaping on tables, shrieking, pointing, as Mr. Anderson simply glared back.”
Then the torture and murder: “In one final session of torture, Castro’s agents drained Howard Anderson’s body of blood before sending him to his death at the firing squad.”
Two days after his “trial,” Howard Anderson refused a blindfold, to glare at his executioners. Medically he was probably in shock at the time from the blood-draining. “Fuego!” The bullets shattered Howard Anderson’s body at dawn on April 19, 1961.
“In one week during 1964 we counted 400 firing squad blasts from our cells," recalled former Cuban political prisoner and freedom-fighter Roberto Martin Perez to this writer. On April 7, 1967 The Organization of American States Human Rights Commission (no less!) issued a detailed report on an overlooked facet of Castro and Che Guevara’s much-lauded “health-care":
"On May 27 1966 from six in the morning to nightfall political prisoners were executed continuously by firing squad in Havana's La Cabana prison. One hundred and sixty-six men were executed that day and each had 5 pints of blood extracted prior to being shot.
"Extracting this amount of blood often produces cerebral anemia and unconsciousness so that many had to be carried to the execution wall on stretchers. The corpses were then transported by truck to a mass grave in a cemetery outside the city of Marianao. On that day, the truck required seven trips to deliver all the corpses. On 13th street in Havana's Vedado district, Soviet medical personnel have established a blood bank where this blood is transported and stored. This blood is sold at fifty U.S. dollars per pint to the Republic of North Viet Nam."
Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro's theft of their humble family farm.
On Christmas Eve 1961, Juana Diaz spat in the face of the executioners who were binding and gagging her. They'd found her guilty of feeding and hiding "bandits" (Cuban rednecks who took up arms to fight Castro and Che's theft of their family farms. Farm collectivization was no more voluntary in Cuba than in the Ukraine. (And Cuba's kulaks had guns—at first anyway. Then the Kennedy-Khrushchev pact left them helpless against Soviet tanks and flame- throwers.) When the blast from that firing squad demolished her face and torso Juana Diaz was six months pregnant.
So rabid was their penchant for the murder and torture of prized Americans that the Castro brothers sent their salivating murder/torture specialists across vast oceans to sate their sadism. According to the book Honor Bound: “the tortures of U.S. POWs by Castro’s agents were the worst sieges of torture any American withstood in Hanoi.”
You see, amigos: In 1967 the Castro regime –unable to get their hands on any defenseless Americans to torture and murder at home– sent several of their top torturers to North Vietnam, where defenseless Americans were abundantly available. Testimony during Congressional hearings titled, “The Cuban Torture Program; Torture of American Prisoners by Cuban Agents” held on November 1999 provide some of the harrowing details.
The communists titled their torture program “the Cuba Project,” and it took place during ‘67-‘68 primarily at the Cu Loc POW camp (also known as “The Zoo”) on the southwestern edge of Hanoi. In brief, this “Cuba Project” was a Joseph Mengelese experiment run by Cuban military “interrogation specialists” to determine how much physical and psychological agony a human can endure before cracking.
For their experiment the Castroites chose 20 American POWs. One died: Lieutenant Colonel Earl Cobeil, an Air Force F-105 pilot. His death came slowly, in agonizing stages, under torture. Upon learning his Castroite Cuban affiliation, the American POWs nicknamed Cobeil’s Cuban torturer, “Fidel.”
“Earl Cobeil was a complete physical disaster when we saw him,” testified another fellow POW, Col. Jack Bomar. “He had been tortured for days and days and days. His hands were almost severed from the manacles. He had bamboo in his shins. All kinds of welts up and down all over; his face was bloody. Then the Cuban torturer again began to beat him with a fan belt.”
Granted, the Washington Post was no slouch in their (original) gushing description of murder/torture specialist al-Baghdadi. But in light of all the murders and tortures mentioned above (along with many, MANY more which bandwidth constraints prevent from cataloguing in this setting) here’s what some of the Washington Post’s friends and colleagues in the media and punditry had to say regarding another dead bearded murderer/torturer:
“Fidel Castro could have been Cuba’s Elvis!”— Dan Rather
“Fidel Castro is one hell of a guy! You people would like him!”(Ted Turner to a capacity crowd at Harvard Law School during a speech in 1997.)
“Castro has brought very high literacy and great health-care to his country. His personal magnetism is powerful, his presence is commanding!”(Barbara Walters.)
“Viva Fidel! Viva Che!” (Two-time candidate for the Democrat presidential nomination Jesse Jackson, bellowing while arm in arm with Fidel Castro himself in 1984.
“Fidel Castro is very shy and sensitive. I frankly like him and regard him as a friend.” (Democrat presidential candidate, Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, and “Conscience of the Democrat party,” George McGovern.)
“Fidel Castro provided Cubans with superb systems of health care and universal education…We greeted each other as old friends.” (Former President of the United States and official "Elder Statesman” of the Democrat party, Jimmy Carter.)
“Fidel Castro is old-fashioned, courtly—even paternal, a thoroughly fascinating figure!” (Andrea Mitchell.)