How to refute an argument

[Colombia]

Alright there is this person I know who calls Guevara a mass murderer because of his part in the war trials. Now I have brought up information from Anderson's book on Guevara yet he calls the book "Cuban Propaganda." What I need help in is that if any of you have any .ORG sources that show Guevara not to be a mass murderer, can you please post the source here. Also please if you can let the website have no communist sympathies. Thank you.

[FatFreeMilk]

Well there is no denying he did kill a lot of people so no matter what that is going to be "proof" that he was a mass murderer in this kid's eyes.

It's seems obvious that you're not going to get very far trying to argue with somebody that considers Anderson's book "Cuban propoganda" anyways.

[Colombia]

Does anyone have anything that might help me though?

[Sabrina]

Well, Colombia, it's hard to just pick this one thing and try to refute it with something that specifically says he wasn't a mass murderer. What I would do is basically advise your friend that the Revolution was (and still is) a war and the people that Che executed all received their sentence after trials that were in fact held right after the Revolution. He was not the only one deciding who would die, it was a joint decision by the representatives of the Revolution. With the Revolution being a war, these trials were basically dealing with war criminals (you know, kinda like what Bush is now, a war criminal). As such, once the trial proved that the person was a war criminal, they received sentences accordingly and the ones that got the death sentence were obviously the worst ones. By the way, Fidel himself pointed out that Cuba is not the only country to have the death sentence (just look at the US, oh yes Texas in particular).

What I would suggest is to tell your friend to show YOU some kind of information that is not counterrevolutionary propaganda that states that he was a mass murderer. I am on my fifth book on Che and his writings and I haven't come across that description even once. By the way how is it that he justifies calling Anderson's book Cuban propaganda? Where are his sources anyway? I hope that helps. :)

[Rockfan]

He must have a political idol who has sentence people to death. And why don'y you just say he was carrying out orders. If a officer in Iraq was told to kill someone he would.