It seems as if Castro’s death allows us to continue with the fiction that he was somehow uniquely bad, just as we continued the Embargo as if Cuba was really worse than any number of countries we befriended because we saw advantage, or even dictatorships we actively supported because ‘it was in our national interest’.

A ruthless brutal dictator, but that hardly makes him unique. No, he had the misfortune to rule an island 90 miles away, that was small enough that we could do nicely without trading with them. It didn’t really pose any threat, at least not after 1962. We could embargo Cuba and suffer not a bit. So we did.

And now that he’s dead, everyone can piss on his grave with impunity, much as they couldn’t do with lots of other dead dictators whose countries were more valuable to us. It’s kind of unseemly.