Last week I posted about an Ohio judge who barred state executions. The judge had posters of both Barack Obama and Che Guevara on the wall behind his desk.

This made me curious about Che. I’d known he was a mass murderer but little more. So I eventually found my way to this 2005 piece from FrontpageMag.com. The article is long and heavily footnoted, yet makes fascinating reading. Some highlights:

  • Che was a psycho who rose through the ranks to become one of Fidel comandantes because of his willingness to execute prisoners, some as young as 14. He creeped out many of his contemporaries.
  • The history of the Cuban revolution, with Fidel and Che winning heroic guerilla battles against the Batista army is mostly bunk. Much of it was bilge fed to a gullible New York Times. (Which also did similar favors for Stalin.)
  • Che was also a knucklehead who bungled most things he touched
  • The Bay of Pigs featured 1400 civilian volunteers against 51,000 trained Cuban army equipped with Soviet weapons, and it took the Cubans three days to win.
  • Che was a Fidel’s patsy. When he outlived his usefulness to Castro, Fidel had him dispatched to his death.
  • At the time of the Cuban revolution, Cuban’s enjoyed higher per capita income than citizens of Austria and Japan.

Here’s one excerpt:

A Cuban gentleman named Pierre San Martin was among those jailed by Che Guevara in the early months of the Cuban Revolution. In an El Nuevo Herald article from December 28, 1997 San Martin recalled the horrors: “Thirteen of us were crammed into a cell. Sixteen of us would stand while the other sixteen tried to sleep on the cold filthy floor. We took shifts that way. Dozens were led from the cells to the firing squad daily. The volleys kept us awake. We felt that any one of those minutes would be our last.  One morning the horrible sound of that rusty steel door swinging open startled us awake and Che’s guards shoved a new prisoner into our cell. He was a boy, maybe 14 years old. His face was bruised and smeared with blood. “What did you do?” We asked horrified. “I tried to defend my papa,” gasped the bloodied boy. “But they sent him to the firing squad.” 

Soon Che’s guards returned. The rusty steel door opened and they yanked the boy out of the cell. “We all rushed to the cell’s window that faced the execution pit,” recalls Mr. San Martin. “We simply couldn’t believe they’d murder him.  “Then we spotted him, strutting around the blood-drenched execution yard with his hands on his waist and barking orders–Che Guevara himself. ‘Kneel down!’ Che barked at the boy. “Assassins!” we screamed from our window.  

“I said: KNEEL DOWN!” Che barked again.   The boy stared Che resolutely in the face. “If you’re going to kill me,” he yelled, “you’ll have to do it while I’m standing! Men die standing!” “Murderers!” the men yelled desperately from their cells. “Then we saw Che unholstering his pistol. He put the barrel to the back of the boys neck and blasted. The shot almost decapitated the young boy. 

“We erupted…’Murderers!–Assassins!’” His murder finished, Che finally looked up at us, pointed his pistol, and emptied his clip in our direction. Several of us were wounded by his shots.”

Read the piece. And be sure to get the t-shirt and poster.