One leader was always a thorn in the side of the U.S. However, instead of taking advantage of the moment, the U.S. thought he would fade away: Fidel Castro. In the early 1990s, Cuba lost billions of dollars annually because of the demise of the Soviet Union. Cuba was in tough shape.

The U.S. assumed that Cuba would implode and Fidel would be gone. Then, U.S. speculators would take over the country and a new financial bonanza would be created just south of the U.S. mainland.

Fairy tales are for kids.

Neither Fidel Castro nor his countrypeople listened to the dire U.S. predictions about the fall of their homeland, despite Cuban land and buildings being traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The country implemented wind farms to help alleviate energy shortages. Hundreds of thousands of bicycles made their way to the island from China. Cuba was changing its ways to adapt to a new time.

By the mid-1990s, the U.S. was obsessed with getting rid of Saddam Hussein. South America was firmly in the U.S. camp as most governments worked hand-in-hand with their northern superpower neighbor. The only thorn in the side of the U.S., Nicaragua, had been squashed by the U.S. and it became one more brick in the U.S. Latin American wall.

The fixation on Saddam Hussein hurt the U.S. immensely. While Iraq was under a deadly embargo and the U.S. was plotting Saddam’s overthrow, Fidel Castro became the recipient of admirers from Latin America. Two, in particular, came back to haunt the U.S.

An ex-convict from Venezuela and a coca farmer from Bolivia are unlikely candidates for U.S. adversaries. However, the formerly-imprisoned Venezuelan is now the president of his country and the farmer is Bolivia’s president-elect.

Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are now undertaking the re-structuring of South American politics. Chavez has a track record and Morales, on the day after his election, called himself, "America’s worst nightmare." Both were guided by Fidel Castro’s philosophies and were mentored by him in how to implement social programs.

In the past two years, Chavez and Castro have combined to create programs for the poor, ill of health, literacy, and senior well-being that have taken South America by storm. Most of the countries in South America have benefited greatly from the programs and they are beginning to implement their own agendas for the needed social changes that would never have come about without Fidel Castro’s ongoing work.

Since his election, Morales has visited his Cuban mentor. Chavez is a regular visitor to Havana. Morales has invited both to his inauguration.

Now, Fidel Castro is being talked about in the U.S. again. The 79-year-old leader, who still gives eight-hour speeches and works around the clock, is like the Energizer bunny: he keeps going, and going, and going.

Looking toward the future, the U.S. government has created a commission to deal with Cuba after Fidel’s death (possibly assassination).It’s always nice for America to decide the fate of people of other countries, but Fidel was not amused by the benevolent U.S. offer. According to Al-Jazeera News of December 24, 2005:

Fidel Castro, the Cuban president, has dismissed Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. secretary of state, as a mad woman deserving of pity.

His comments came in response to a meeting that Rice held this week with a U.S. government commission intended to prepare for a "democratic transition" in Cuba after Castro.

"I am going to tell you that I think about this famous commission: they are a group of shit-eaters who do not deserve the world’s respect," Castro told the Cuban parliament.

"In this context, it does not matter if it was the mad woman who talks of transition — it is a circus, they are completely depraved, they should be pitied."

At an age when most people have been retired for a decade and a half, Fidel Castro is undergoing his finest moment. His relentless work over the decades for social programs now is spreading throughout South America. All while the U.S. ignored the area while hunting Saddam.

Cuba, with its newly-found allies, will opposed a U.S.-led "democratic transition." They only have to look eastward at the new "democratic" Iraq to see the results of what the U.S. calls "democracy-building."