The last time I saw pictures of a man in need of a haircut being so memorably displayed as a trophy of the
American empire it was Che Guevara, stretched out dead on a table in a schoolhouse in La Higuera, a little village in the
Bolivian mountains. In those edgier days, in late 1967, the Bolivian Army wanted him dead, the quicker the better, though
the CIA wanted him alive for interrogation in Panama.
After a last chat with the CIA's man, Felix Rodriguez, George Bush Sr.'s pal, a Bolivian sergeant called Jaime
Terran shot him in the throat, and Rodriguez got to keep his watch. They chopped off Guevara's hands for later, checking to
make sure the ID was correct. Years later, his skeleton, sans hands, was located and flown back to Havana for proper
burial.
"It is better this way," Guevara told Rodriguez at the end. "I should never have been captured alive," showing
that even the bravest weaken at times. At the moment of his capture by the Bolivian army unit, a wounded Guevara had
identified himself, telling the soldiers he was Che and worth more to them alive than dead.