Yup, Chief, it's pragmatism, that's all. The USA (like all countries) is concerned about strategic resources, trade, marketing, and military positioning. Who the USA makes a friend or trades with has absolutely nothing to do with how democratic or undemocratic that country is. The USA does business with China because China is the world's number one source of cheap, well-made, manufactured goods. It makes no difference whether China is a dictatorship or not.

When something pragmatic happens that is NOT in the financial interests of the USA (such as Castro nationalizing the sugar industry and throwing out the casinos and whorehouses), THEN the US media will focus on specific "moral" issues in order to demonize Castro, but those moral issues will have nothing really to do with it. (Castro was far less immoral than Batista...)

Likewise, Saddam's immorality and brutality had nothing to do with the US government's war on Iraq. It was done for pragmatic reasons alone, and clothed in moral rhetoric to get ordinary people onside.

The USA is similar to other big powers in this respect, it just happens to be the biggest right now, that's all.

- LH