What to do with Carriles

[Mavdog]

Some call him a terrorist for his indiscriminate casualties, some (mostly Cuban exiles) see him as a freedom fighter. A Bush appointee, Otto Reich, was instrumental in getting him out of a Venezuelan prison (he was in there for blowing up a Cuban airplane) and is certainly lobbying Bush to grant political asylum.
What will George W do? A terrorist is a terrorist no matter which side, aren't they?
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U.S. Detains Cuban Linked to 1976 Bombing
By ADRIAN SAINZ, Associated Press Writer

Under growing international pressure, U.S. authorities Tuesday seized a Cuban exile accused by Fidel Castro's government of masterminding a 1976 airliner bombing that killed 73 people. He had been seeking asylum in the United States.

Luis Posada Carriles, a 77-year-old former CIA operative and Venezuelan security official, was taken into custody by U.S. immigration authorities, the Homeland Security Department said in a statement.

The department did not say what it planned to do with Posada, who is wanted by Venezuela and Cuba. But it said that generally, the U.S. government does not return people to Cuba or to countries acting on Cuba's behalf. The department said it has 48 hours to determine his immigration status.

Posada escaped from prison in Venezuela in 1985 while awaiting a prosecutor's appeal of his second acquittal in the bombing of a Cuban jetliner near Barbados. His whereabouts had been unknown until he surfaced in Miami in March and sent word that he was seeking asylum.

The request brought protests from Cuba and put the United States in an awkward position, given the war against terror.

Earlier Tuesday, before he was taken into custody, Posada told reporters he was willing to abandon his asylum request and leave the United States for another country.

"If my petition for political asylum created any problem to the government of the United States, I am ready to reconsider my petition," he said. "My only objective is to fight for the freedom of my country."

U.S. officials seized Posada soon after he emerged from about two months in hiding and granted interviews to TV stations and The Miami Herald.

Castro has demanded Posada's arrest by U.S. authorities for his alleged role in the airliner bombing and other anti-Castro violence. That demand was echoed by thousands in protests in Havana on Tuesday.

Venezuela recently approved an extradition request, and Castro has made numerous televised speeches calling Posada a terrorist and accusing the United States of a double standard on terror. The United States and Venezuela have an extradition treaty.

"The majority of Americans would never be in favor of harboring a terrorist," said Wayne Smith, a former U.S. envoy to Cuba who now heads the Cuba program at the Washington-based Center for International Policy. If the United States were to grant asylum, Smith added, "we will be seen as hypocrites and as being against terrorism only when is suits our purposes."

Posada and three others were pardoned last August by Panama's president for their role in an alleged assassination plot in 2000 against Castro during a conference in Panama. Posada was also connected to a series of 1997 bombings of tourists sites in Cuba, one of which killed an Italian tourist.

In an interview in Tuesday's Herald, Posada denied any involvement in the airliner bombing but refused to confirm or deny involvement in other attacks, telling the newspaper: "Let's leave it to history."

"I feel that I've committed many errors, more than most people," he said. "But I've always believed in rebellion, in the armed struggle. I believe more and more every day that we will triumph against Castro. Victory will be ours."

He has said he entered the United States through Mexico and came to Miami on a bus.

[Chiwas]

"The majority of Americans would never be in favor of harboring a terrorist," said Wayne Smith.

99.9999% wouldn't be in favor, I guess.

[capitalcity]

an enemy of my enemy is a friend to me.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: capitalcity
an enemy of my enemy is a friend to me.

falacious reasoning

No, we should only have friends who adhere to the civilized behavour we want to be associated with, and a terrorist is a terrorist no matter which side of the political spectrum they follow.

the US protecting a person who is guilty of murdering civilians puts us in the same boat as Saddam Hussein, who we accused of protecting terrorist. or Mullah Omar. or Assad.

get the picture? it's not pretty.

[FishForLunch]

Didnt he get arrested in Miami? I doubt they will send him back to Cuba. Hope he rots in jail over here

[Chiwas]

The Posada File

Peter Kornbluh

A declassified dossier on Luis Posada can be found on the archive's website (http://www.nsarchive.org).
The CIA document, stamped Secret, is dated June 22, 1976, and titled "Possible Plans of Cuban Exile Extremists to blow up a Cubana airliner." A "usually reliable" source, described as a "businessman with close ties to the Cuban exile community," reports that an extremist group led by an anti-Castro terrorist named Orlando Bosch "plans to place a bomb on a Cubana airline flight traveling between Panama and Havana." The source says that the original plan for the attack called for two bombs to be placed on Cubana flight 467 on June 21. (This did not take place.) This intelligence report is disseminated to multiple US agencies, including the FAA, but there is no indication any action is taken, or that a warning is provided to Cuban authorities.

Less than four months later, on October 6, two bombs explode on Cubana Flight 455, which has just taken off from Barbados. The plane is carrying seventy-three people, including Cuba's teenage fencing team and eleven Guyanese citizens, most of them students on their way to Havana to attend medical school. All aboard perish when the plane crashes into the sea. A CIA source subsequently reports that sometime around the last week of September, another renowned anti-Castro exile in Caracas, Luis Posada Carriles, was overheard stating: "We are going to hit a Cuban airliner."

This past March, Posada sneaked into the United States using a false passport and requested political asylum. Despite repeated demands for his arrest and extradition to Venezuela, where the crime was planned, US authorities made no move until May 17. Homeland Security officials finally detained him after he gave an interview to the Miami Herald in which he discussed the relative ease with which he'd been able to move around Florida and then held a press conference.

The international community is now waiting to see what the Bush Administration will do with him now. Posada's case not only forces the question of whether, in the opinion of Washington, there are "good" terrorists and "bad" ones but also refocuses attention on the cozy relationships that existed in the 1970s between violent anti-Castro Cubans and US intelligence. Declassified documents raise issues about what kind of advance warnings the CIA and FBI had about the attack on Flight 455 and what actions they took--or failed to take--to stop it.

Shortly after the bombing, the Castro government accused the CIA of "directly" participating in the atrocity. Not only were the leaders of the likely responsible exile group, CORU, known to have past ties to the agency but the name and phone number of the FBI legal attaché (Legat) in Caracas, Joseph Leo, was found among papers of one of the two Venezuelans arrested in Barbados and charged with placing the bombs on the plane.

On October 8, 1976, two days after the bombing, Leo filed a teletype to FBI headquarters in which he admitted multiple contacts in the two years leading up to the bombing with one of the bombers, Hernan Ricardo, whom he described as a photojournalist passing intelligence on Cuban Embassy officials to the FBI "in the personal service of Luis Posada." During one meeting, "Ricardo suggested Legat might wish to make some suggestions regarding courses of action that might be taken against the Cuban Embassy in Caracas by an anti-Castro group of which he formed part," Leo wrote. His response, Leo claimed, had been to tell Ricardo that this was not part of the function of his office, and that in any event he "abhorred terrorist activities."

Just tapping Ricardo's phone might have revealed the entire terrorist plot against the plane. But no such investigation was contemplated, let alone undertaken. Instead, when Ricardo returned to Leo's office at the end of September and asked for an expedited US visa, Leo took his application. In reviewing Ricardo's passport, Leo noted that Ricardo had been in Trinidad on September 1--the day the Guyanese consulate in Port-of-Spain had been bombed--"and wondered in view of Ricardo's association with Luis Posada, if his presence there during that period was coincidence." Yet when Ricardo returned October 1 with a letter signed by Posada attesting to his employment in Caracas, Leo raised no concerns with the vice consul, and the visa was provided. The last thing Leo remembers Ricardo saying was that "he might also be visiting Barbados" on this trip.

These CIA and FBI documents are part of a massive file on Posada and the Cubana plane bombing, which has been only partly declassified. What is available so far does not indicate that the United States covertly orchestrated or supported the attack. But the files do indicate that the close ties between CIA and FBI officials and allies inside the Cuban exile movement enabled the bombing to go forward--despite ample intelligence that, if acted upon, could have prevented it. When the entire file is made public, as it should and must be, the degree of US responsibility will be more apparent. Now that the Bush Administration has detained Posada, how that information is used, as well as what happens to Posada, will say much about whether those cozy ties of the past have survived into the post-9/11 present.

[Evilmav2]

Ridiculous articles like this help me to understand how Che Guevara t-shirts continue to be worn on college campuses and disreputable San Francisco side-streets. Viva la Revolution! Lets send this poor, luckless, 77 year old boat person back to Cuba so that the 'terrorist' can be publically executed in high style by Castro's criminal henchmen, and maybe, just maybe, the New York Times will be nice enough to acknowledge the lack of United States 'hypocrisy' with a 30 word article on the 8th page of that discredited rag.

Personally, I hope that the good Mr. Luis Posada Carriles will be able to live out his retirement years in Miami in peace, and will futhermore have an opportunity to both celebrate the fast approaching death of the murderous letch Castro (I know I will be celebrating on that day), and perhaps someday be able to return to his native isle without hazarding any reprisal for his past 'terrorist' actions, at the hands of the murderously criminal, communist Cuban regime (assuming said regime is hopefully dumped to it's rightful place, discarded atop the dustheap of history, once the bearded, murdering, letch is dead)...

[Epitome22]

Originally posted by: FishForLunch
Didnt he get arrested in Miami? I doubt they will send him back to Cuba. Hope he rots in jail over here

Agreed. A Terrorist is a terrorist, let this guy rot in OUR jails.

[kingrex]

It is impossible to be a politician and a moral absolutist as well. Being a politician forces you to compromise, but the key is to pick and choose those moments.

Is this guy worth it?

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: Evilmav2
Ridiculous articles like this help me to understand how Che Guevara t-shirts continue to be worn on college campuses and disreputable San Francisco side-streets. Viva la Revolution! Lets send this poor, luckless, 77 year old boat person back to Cuba so that the 'terrorist' can be publically executed in high style by Castro's criminal henchmen, and maybe, just maybe, the New York Times will be nice enough to acknowledge the lack of United States 'hypocrisy' with a 30 word article on the 8th page of that discredited rag.

Personally, I hope that the good Mr. Luis Posada Carriles will be able to live out his retirement years in Miami in peace, and will futhermore have an opportunity to both celebrate the fast approaching death of the murderous letch Castro (I know I will be celebrating on that day), and perhaps someday be able to return to his native isle without hazarding any reprisal for his past 'terrorist' actions, at the hands of the murderously criminal, communist Cuban regime (assuming said regime is hopefully dumped to it's rightful place, discarded atop the dustheap of history, once the bearded, murdering, letch is dead)...

so many mistruths, so little time...

Posada is not "poor" as he has been on the payroll of not only our country but also is the beneficiary of largess from the cuban-american community that seems to value their political message more than their honour.

he is not "luckless" as he has been responsible for the murder of dozens if not hundreds of innocent civilians without being held accountable for those transgressions and in fact has gone on trial twice and avoided being held liable for those criminal acts.

he is not a "boat person" as he has been protected by nefarious governmental organizations and allowed to walk into the US from Mexico and was transported cross country to Miami.

and most certainly this murdering criminal is not "good".

No, holding amoral vermin like Posada up to be fighting for anything remotely resembling the good side of the battle perverts the very ideals that our country stands for. He is no better than that totalitarian force he professes to fight, and in a very clear case of irony has lived his life with a morality so similar to Fidel he could be pictured in a thesaurus as a synonym.

Let him rot in prison, which quite frankly is a better end to his murderous life than he deserves.

[kingrex]

Originally posted by: Mavdog
Let him rot in prison, which quite frankly is a better end to his murderous life than he deserves.

Yeah, but do you like him or not? [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img]

[Mavdog]

U.S. Rejects Venezuelan Request on Posada

WASHINGTON (May 27) - The Bush administration on Friday rejected Venezuela's request for the arrest of Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles so he can be returned to the South American country for trial.

Posada, a foe of Cuban President Fidel Castro, is wanted by Venezuelan authorities for his alleged role in the bombing of a Cuban passenger plane in 1976 that killed 73 people. The United States and Venezuela have had a strained relationship recently, with disagreements including the U.S. war in Iraq and Venezuela's decision to buy Russian assault rifles.

Earlier this month, Venezuela asked the United States to arrest Posada as an initial step toward his eventual extradition there. Days after the request was received, U.S. authorities detained Posada on their own and charged him with illegal entry into the United States.

Posada, who secretly entered the United States in March, is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge on June 13.

The Venezuelan Embassy said Friday it would proceed with a formal request for Posada's extradition despite the U.S. denial.

In Cuba, Castro criticized the United States' decision. "What brazenness, what insolence, after so many months of saying nothing," Castro said Friday in a televised appearance

The Justice Department ruled that the Venezuelan arrest request "did not include any statement of the evidence against the accused required for the issuance of an arrest warrant in the United States," an administration official said.

The official, asking not to be identified, said the Venezuelan request made no mention of the widely reported acquittal of Posada by a military tribunal in Venezuela in a prior proceeding.

In addition, he said the request did not explain the legal effect such an acquittal may have under Venezuelan law.

The official added that despite the reported acquittal, Posada was incarcerated in Venezuela from 1976 until 1985 before escaping.