Superlative
Senior Member
- Mar 13, 2007
- 1,382
- 109
- 48
April 30, 2007
On a sunny October afternoon in 1976, a bomb hidden in a tube of Colgate toothpaste brought down a Cubana Airlines plane off the coast of Barbados, killing all 73 people on board. The attack remains the worst of its kind in Latin American history - and earlier this month a court in New Orleans allowed the man widely suspected of masterminding the atrocity to go free.
It's not the first time Luis Posada Carriles, a frail 79-year-old Venezuelan of Cuban origin, has appeared to have gotten away with murder. The CIA-trained anti-Castro dissident, recently described by the LA Times as "the Zacarias Moussaoui of Havana and Caracas", bribed his way out of a Venezuelan jail in 1985 while awaiting trial for planning the Cubana attack.
He was imprisoned in Panama for his part in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, but soon received a pardon. And he has yet to face charges for his role in a lethal bombing spree that targeted Havana tourist haunts in the 1990., despite boasting to journalists that he helped to orchestrate the attacks.
When Posada was arrested two years ago in Miami, it looked as though his luck might have run out. But in a bizarre display of hypocrisy and political cowardice, the Bush administration has so far declined to either detain him or try him on terror charges;
Venezuela's repeated requests for his extradition under a 1922 treaty between the two countries have been ignored. Instead, Posada is to be tried, laughably, on a count of lying to immigration officials. A judge ruled that Posada posed no flight risk, so he was bailed, issued with an ankle-tag, and sent back to his wife's home in Miami to await trial.
The Justice Department argues that Posada's release on bail was simply due process. "We can't just unilaterally order a person to be held," a spokesman said. Except, of course, that they can: the Patriot Act expressly allows for the detention of suspected terrorists.
The problem is that, despite warnings from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office that Posada had a "long history of criminal activity and violence in which innocent civilians were killed" and that his "release from detention would pose a danger to both the community and the national security of the United States", the Justice Department has so far declined either to admit that Posada is a terrorist or to make any real effort to detain him as a security threat..................
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ben_whitford/2007/04/double_standards.html
OK the article may be biased, whatever.
It raises a good question, Is the CIA trained terrorist enemy of a US enemy a US friend?
If he is a terrorist, and the US is fighting terrorism is this fair?
Why isnt he in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib? Cause he has no secrets?
Since when does the US not "just unilaterally order a person to be held"?
Does this only apply to Iraqi's?
On a sunny October afternoon in 1976, a bomb hidden in a tube of Colgate toothpaste brought down a Cubana Airlines plane off the coast of Barbados, killing all 73 people on board. The attack remains the worst of its kind in Latin American history - and earlier this month a court in New Orleans allowed the man widely suspected of masterminding the atrocity to go free.
It's not the first time Luis Posada Carriles, a frail 79-year-old Venezuelan of Cuban origin, has appeared to have gotten away with murder. The CIA-trained anti-Castro dissident, recently described by the LA Times as "the Zacarias Moussaoui of Havana and Caracas", bribed his way out of a Venezuelan jail in 1985 while awaiting trial for planning the Cubana attack.
He was imprisoned in Panama for his part in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, but soon received a pardon. And he has yet to face charges for his role in a lethal bombing spree that targeted Havana tourist haunts in the 1990., despite boasting to journalists that he helped to orchestrate the attacks.
When Posada was arrested two years ago in Miami, it looked as though his luck might have run out. But in a bizarre display of hypocrisy and political cowardice, the Bush administration has so far declined to either detain him or try him on terror charges;
Venezuela's repeated requests for his extradition under a 1922 treaty between the two countries have been ignored. Instead, Posada is to be tried, laughably, on a count of lying to immigration officials. A judge ruled that Posada posed no flight risk, so he was bailed, issued with an ankle-tag, and sent back to his wife's home in Miami to await trial.
The Justice Department argues that Posada's release on bail was simply due process. "We can't just unilaterally order a person to be held," a spokesman said. Except, of course, that they can: the Patriot Act expressly allows for the detention of suspected terrorists.
The problem is that, despite warnings from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office that Posada had a "long history of criminal activity and violence in which innocent civilians were killed" and that his "release from detention would pose a danger to both the community and the national security of the United States", the Justice Department has so far declined either to admit that Posada is a terrorist or to make any real effort to detain him as a security threat..................
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ben_whitford/2007/04/double_standards.html
OK the article may be biased, whatever.
It raises a good question, Is the CIA trained terrorist enemy of a US enemy a US friend?
If he is a terrorist, and the US is fighting terrorism is this fair?
Why isnt he in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib? Cause he has no secrets?
Since when does the US not "just unilaterally order a person to be held"?
Does this only apply to Iraqi's?
sorry.
