Castro’s Cuba

It’s tragically amusing how Jorge Castaneda (“A Last Act of Valor for Fidel,” Commentary, Nov. 12) credits Castro with “advances in education, health and dignity,” referring to Castro’s revolution’s “achievements.”

The Castro achievement was in creating a client state of a U.S. enemy, ensuring barrels of money and goods. This function was the wobbly foundation for the benign societal effects for Cuba, hardly a result of Castro’s economic genius.

Sadly for him and for his people, the foundation has crumbled away as the Soviet disunion finds it has no need for clients such as Cuba and, lo, has discovered it can’t afford them. The Soviet withdrawal reveals the true cause behind the effect.

The phenomenon of giving credit where it’s not due doesn’t only apply on foreign shores. Here at home, too many Americans still buy the Republican credo that Reaganomics produced the longest cycle of “growth.” Losing our Soviet enemy, however, has allowed us to focus on the borrowing that supported Ronald Reagan’s economic policies. More and more Americans are finally understanding that, in actuality, the Republican credit for growth is the grandest deficit in our history.

When will analysts get cause and effect right?

JAKE ANGELIN

Los Angeles