You're understating your case re: Cuba here. Having had many rounds debating with CANF loons at the NYTimes BB site, I can tell you there are quite a few points they don't wish to acknowledge:
Highest teachers per capita of any nation in the world- Highest doctors per 1000 citizens in the world
- Lowest infant mortality rates of any Latin American country - on a par with America
In addition, Cuba sent troops to Namibia to defend the democratically elected Marxist government there which was under attack by its neighbor South Africa. As a result, it was Cuba which negotiated terms of peace in Namibia after inflicting a series of defeats on the South African army. This in turn increased pressures on the De Klerk government and contributed to the fall of apartheid. Nelson Mandela at an ANC conference last Fall greeted Castro as "My good friend."
Cuba also treated more children who were victims of the Chernobyl disaster than any other country in the world (13,000) dispite the privations inflicted upon them by the US embargo.
The end of Soviet subsidies to Cuba was announced in 1986 and completed in 1989. So for the past decade Cuba has maintained its relatively high standards of living (especially when compared to its Caribean neighbors Haiti and the Dominican Republic: neither of which is under an embargo and in fact receive substantial US aid).
Go to my political links page at www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/senate/1071/polinks.html and click on the Infonation link for comparative UN statistical data on all nations of the world.
