"on a par with" ? Yet again this ignores the significant differences between what was being supported in THESE cases (I'm not suggesting, of course, that the Soviets never supported repressive regimes, they did - but they also tended to support a variety of liberation movements - whatever their motives - as Stockwell said). In the US support case, as you noted in your diary:

40% of the US covert military aid went to the bloodthirsty Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, who is "credited" with killing more Afganis than the Russians themselves.  He also, with Abdul Rasul Sayaf, set up the Terrorist training camps which attracted thousands of of Arab volunteers, including a wealthy young engineer named Osama bin Laden.  

The Soviets were supporting Castro who, while far from perfect, hardly compares to "bloodthirsty" thugs like Hekmatyar and has improved the general standards of education - for GIRLS and boys, health system, etc. to levels Afghans and especially women can only dream of. And all the time the US has done its best to destroy the Castro regime - not because of its imperfections, but, as Chomsky puts it, due to "fear of a good example". US governments were right to fear it, and now happily we can see more South American countries beginning to follow its example and fortunately the US is no longer able to crush so easily such liberation movements, as it did by supporting brutal dictators and their death squads - who would ensure that US corporations could go on milking those countries.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.