Book Review: 'Exposing the Real Che Guevara'

This essay is also published at NeoConstant, a blog I write for.

Humberto Fontova has written a must read book: Exposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him. Fontova himself was born in Cuba. Luckily, his family was able to leave Cuba and escape Communism, though his father was detained on the day they were scheduled to leave. Fontova, his mother, and siblings had to leave his father behind to get out. Fontova's father later was able to get to Miami and reunite with his family. Though everything worked out for the Fontova family, things didn't work out for thousands of other families, due to a man named Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

Che Guevara is revered as a hero nowadays. All of us have seen those people sporting the Che shirts and other ridiculous Che paraphernalia. (Jonah Goldberg reports in his book Liberal Fascism having seen a Che onesie for a baby--luckily he, unlike most people, knows the truth about Che and likens it to a "Himmler sippy cup"--see pg 194.) But this man, Che Guevara, is not some rebel who fought for equality and rights for the poor. He is not someone that anyone in their right mind should idolize. Che Guevara was a murderer, simple as that. He had countless thousands of Cubans executed. And yet, in a cruel twist of fate, somehow this criminal is remembered in such a good light.

Che was a Communist in the purest sense of the word. He wanted everyone else to live poorly, while he, a top member in the Communist Party, lived in a mansion that he stole from its rightful owner. He tolerated no dissent: anyone who criticized him or those in power was more often than not arrested, tortured, and executed by a firing squad, all without a proper trial. And age or gender did not matter: Che had no qualms about executing women and children as well as men.

Che was not only violent, he was stupid. He had little military experience, despite the lies propagated by the left that he was an excellent guerrilla warrior. He knew nothing about fighting--before a battle, he actually managed to shoot himself in the head with his own pistol. Unfortunately, the wound was not fatal or damaging. He later proved his military ineptness in Congo and as a commander of a guerrilla force in Bolivia. He himself admitted to close associates that he was not knowledgeable militarily. He was also a coward: he surrendered in Bolivia with his pistol fully loaded, begging his captors not to kill him.

Che finally faced justice on October 9, 1967. He had been captured in Bolivia a few days earlier and the soldiers received orders to execute him. In an excellent turn of events, Che was shot without having a trial, just as he had ordered so many thousands of innocent people to their deaths. I cannot think of a more excellent example of poetic justice: this murderer who executed so many people without a fair trial meeting his end in a similar manner.

It is time we stopped revering a criminal. I would argue that Che's crimes ought to be characterized as crimes against humanity and their perpetrator treated as such: a murderous criminal. You wouldn't buy something glorifying Hitler, Himmler, or Heydrich, would you? No one decent would speak about these men in a complimentary way, either. Che is as bad as any of those three men--it's time for us to force the left to face the facts about Che Guevara.