America - A Haven for Terrorists

Luis Posada Carriles is a free man this evening.  

God bless America.  

This should make the Elian freaks happy, but no one else.

Mr. Carriles must be a "Freedom Fighter," one would think. But, no, he is a terrorist.  Apparently, he wanted to overthrow Fidel by killing 73 innocent people on an airliner (among other deeds).  

It's funny, but I seem to remember The Commander Guy saying:

We will make no distinction between the terrorists...and those who harbor them.

So, any minute now, I expect the U.S. Airforce to bomb Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore and Oakland.  I'll feel bad for the loss of life, but the bombs are supposed to be "smart" these days, so I'm sure no innocents will die.  And besides, it's not like the the landscape would change in any noticeable way.

On the bright side, after the bombing, I expect schools and hospitals would be built, the national guard would provide emergency food and shelter, there would be massive infrastructure projects totaling hundreds of billions of dollars with a focus on putting Americans back to work, and Republicans would support every bit of it, out of their undying sense of patriotism.

•  I'm shocked.

  Shocked I tell you, that terrorists find harbor within our exceptional shores.

  by HarveyMilk on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:23:11 PM PDT

  •  The shining city on the hill?

    LOL

    by mariachi mama on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:42:52 PM PDT

    •  Well, it is.

      Especially if you're a right-wing terrorist from Latin America.

      by HarveyMilk on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:46:23 PM PDT

    •  That would be

      the shining drug cartel's citadel on the hill...

      by Simplify on Tue May 08, 2007 at 09:29:48 PM PDT

•  My diary on this

  Good old boys can't get a break

  Sick, sick, sick, America.  

  by mariachi mama on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:27:29 PM PDT

•  I had very mixed feelings about trying ...

  ...Posada for immigration fraud when he should be tried for terrorism. As I noted April 20 in Posada: "Estoy muy contento." Me? Not so much:

  A vengeful person would suggest that perhaps Señor Posada should spend an indefinite period of time there in a permanently lit cell, shackled to the floor, listening to high-decibel rap music instead of the boleros of his youth. Vengeance, however, isn’t justice. And justice is what the old terrorist’s victims cry out for. We are, in a sense, all of us his victims. Victims of a government that is itself above the law, that uses the "war on terror" as just more fuel for its spin machine, all but abandoning the hunt for some terrorists, while all but publicly embracing some others.

  Given the number of people who cross the Mexican border illegally every year, it is ridiculous to be trying Luis Posada Carriles for illegally entering the United States. Especially since it’s already been decided by the same federal judiciary that has released him on bail that he can’t be deported either to Cuba or Venezuela – the two countries whose citizens suffered the most from his actions – because he might be tortured there. The ironies pile sky-high.

  Another course of action remains. Release all the files on Posada and ship them and him to The Hague for trial under the crimes against humanity section of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. That would be justice. And that will happen when pigs fly. Because, as Kevin Jon Heller of the blog Opinio Juris has pointed out to me, nobody can be tried under the Rome Statute for anything that took place before it became international law in 2002.

  So, most likely, Posada will settle down in Miami, with or without his electronic tracking bracelet, drinking piña coladas or peach daiquiris for the rest of his life. Perhaps he can drive over and play dominoes with his pal in Operation Condor, Orlando Bosch, the murderer and terrorist pardoned by George H.W. Bush in 1990.

  by Meteor Blades on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:29:55 PM PDT

  •  Good old Orlando Bosch

    How could I have forgotten?  Another dirt bag to benefit from the Bush crime family.

    Bosch and Carriles.  What special men these are. A lesser man than me might say that the law has done all it will do....

    by HarveyMilk on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:33:39 PM PDT

    •  Not just the bush crime family

      You can't pin this on them.

      It's the American attitude, through many administrations, both republican and democratic.

      by mariachi mama on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:37:31 PM PDT

      •  True Enough

        But we should remember that Bosch and Carriles got their passes under Bushes.

        by HarveyMilk on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:39:24 PM PDT

      •  Contra/Cocaine

        Posada Corrilles got an earlier pass from the Dem controlled Congress when Kerry's investigation was buried in the late '80s.

        by ben masel on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:43:24 PM PDT

        •  Really?

          I'm not familiar with that.  I'd be interested to learn more.

          by HarveyMilk on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:45:49 PM PDT

          •  Kerry Committee Report

            http://www.thememoryhole.org/...

            by ben masel on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:53:36 PM PDT

            •  Thanks (n/t)

              by HarveyMilk on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:55:30 PM PDT

            •  Thanks, Ben nt

              by mariachi mama on Tue May 08, 2007 at 09:01:17 PM PDT

          •  And my May, 1987 article

            Originally published in Zenger, "The Nation's Underground Newspaper

            Contra Cocaine Story
            Mission Impeachable, Congress to Probe

            by ben masel on Tue May 08, 2007 at 09:03:14 PM PDT

            •  Relevent section

              THE FAT LADY SINGS

              Up to this point we have a complicat ed story with many missing pieces. But on October 5th, 1986 the connecting pieces, well, sort of fell out of the sky, in the person of our old friend, the FAT LADY, shot down over Nicaragua. after Barry's death, the plane had apparently reverted to Southern Air Transport, and was back to work bringing supplies to the Contras.

              One member of her crew, mercenary Eugene Hasenfus survived to talk. On the body of the pilot, William Cooper, was found the business card of Robert Owen. The co-pilot, Wallace Sawyer Jr. had a notebook with the names of 34 CIA operatives. Another card has a number written on the back... which proves to be number of the Swiss bank account containing th $12 million profits from the Iran arms sale.

              Hassefus revelations prove even worse. He identifies as commanders of the supply operation two Cuban exiles with long histories in the CIA, Ramon Medina and Max Gomez, both of whom [ c1inbn~d to be friends of Vie. President Bush.

              Hasenfus also identified the operation's safe house in El Salvador. The Salvadoran telephone released records showing numerous calls to Oliver North at the White House (202-395-3345). to Vice President Bush's National Security Advisor Donald Gregg, to Southern Air, and to the Stanford Technology Trading Corp., a Virginia front run by retired Air Force General Richard~ Secord, whose name cropped up in accounts of US assistance to Southeast Asian heroin operations during the Vietnam war.

              Medina then turned out to be an alias used by Luis Posada Carilles, escaped from a Venezuelan prison, to which he had been sentenced for the 1976 bombing of a Cubana airliner fatek to 70 people, including the Cuban fencing team. Posada is also suspected as an accomplice in the 1976 Washington DC killing of former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Leteier. Gregg is a former CIA Station Chief in Saigon and South Korea, where he served with Secord and Singlaub.

              Perhaps the Iranian arms deals were seen as a way to wean the Contras from the cocaine business. perhaps the operation continued. Did the orders to silence Barry Seal come from Ochoas, finally indicted in abstentia last week, or from a nervous White House? Seal's Baton Rouge attorney told the Voice "All the federal government had to do to kill Barry Seal, was to do nothinh. Then let mischief work its will." Who knew what when? If we accept President Reagan's claims of innocence  on the Iranian money transfer we are left with the fact that this kind of decision had to have been made at some level higher than North and Poindexter. Keeprng m mmd that the Vice President chairs the National Security Council, once directed the CIA, and that his close aide was in steady contact with the Ccci-  u~ cornraandps and suppliers, it is logical to conclude that Bush was probably given oversight responsibilities for all the dirtier aspects of theContra War.

              Wanna hear the end of the story? Both Special Committees look like damage control, claiming no wish to harm the presidency or national security apparatus. The Hughes subcommittee in the House looks like the best bet to see the matter to its logical conclusion, impeachment of both President and Vice  President Write or call your Representative to demand that the Hughes investigation proceed.  Charges include Harbouring a Fugitive (Terrorist Posada), Obstruction of Justice (should get Meese), of course the arms deals and ripoffs, and at the center of it all, the waging of an illegal War.

              by ben masel on Tue May 08, 2007 at 09:08:01 PM PDT

  •  Robert Gates

    Rios Montt is making a comeback in Guatemala. Ollie North is making a fortune commenting on Fox  and personal opinions. God bless America.

    by mariachi mama on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:41:30 PM PDT

  •  Why not Syria?

    Especially since it’s already been decided by the same federal judiciary that has released him on bail that he can’t be deported either to Cuba or Venezuela – the two countries whose citizens suffered the most from his actions – because he might be tortured there.

    So why not send him to Syria? Something about the way they conduct torture has the approval of the Bush administration.

    by Judge Moonbox on Wed May 09, 2007 at 06:25:38 AM PDT

•  I feel your pain ! We all must suffer

  equally and interminably over this friggin bush perversion of all that was once the American system of truth and justice. Damn, I still cant believe that we allowed this group of sub-humans to do this to our contry. Did we enable this bush ongoing nightmare and will future pesidents be given bush carte blanch to further erode the constitution ? My confidence has been irrepairably shaken...bush-rove-chaney just keep on giving..Sad

  by Johnny Rapture on Tue May 08, 2007 at 08:36:15 PM PDT

•  Harboring a terrorist is not the same as

  a terrorist living somewhere in your country for a time without you know it.  It is not the same as a Government knowlingly and willingly allowing a terrorist to live in the country it represents.  Of course, making such a distinction tends to deny the blood-thirsty neo-cons their justification for starting another war.  

  "No distinction," they say?  It appears that the Bush Administration bit off a little more than it could chew with that one.  Overthrowing governments and occupying countrys as you rebuild them turned out to be harder than no one in the country but the Bush Administration thought it would be.  Now the whole world knows this, and they know that we know this as well.  They won't be much afraid for a long time.

  by james richardson on Tue May 08, 2007 at 10:20:24 PM PDT