US Against Terrorism

US Against Terrorism
Well, Most Terrorism
Saul Landau
Pacifica Radio Commentary, 2 February 2001

Like most people, I felt outraged and scared when I read
about the December 21, 1988 bombing of Pan Am 107 as it over-flew
Lockerbie Scotland. 270 people died. This week, Scottish judges convicted
one Libyan intelligence officer for potting the deed. Another Libyan
defendant was acquitted. Legal observers found little to support the
guilty verdict other than heavy US pressure.

Key witnesses including a Libyan turncoat gave conflicting testimony on Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi's identity in purchasing explosive parts and about his presence in the Malta airport, where he
supposedly placed the deadly device on the jetliner.

The United States, assuming a posture of pious righteousness, will
continue to maintain sanctions on Libya and insist that it pay damages to the families of the victims.

In Tripoli, Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi shouted to hell with
America. Qaddafi asked rhetorically when will the US pay the damages
it owes to Libyan families killed, referring to the victims who died
in 1986 when President Reagan ordered three squadrons of F111s to
assassinate Qddafi by bombing his homes. One of Qddafi s daughters died in that raid.

Reagan claimed he was retaliating for Libya's alleged role in the
bombing of a Berlin disco in which two US servicemen died. This
bombing-counter-bombing and then trial syndrome could become a you
started it-no-you started it affair.

Let's agree: terrorism stinks. Let's also be consistent.

The United States should extend its concern to the victims of the October, 1976
bombing of a Cuban passenger plan over Barbados. 73 people died. One of those accused in that terrorist act had been
or actually was? - a CIA agent at the time.

Cuban exile, Luis Posada Carriles, charged with plotting the
terrorism over Barbados, is now in a Panamanian jail on charges of
conspiring to assassinate Fidel Castro who was in Panama for a heads of
state meeting late last year. Panamanian police found explosives in
Posada's rental car, with his fingerprints on it. Posada had escaped from
a Venezuelan prison where he was being held in connection with the
airliner bombing. Then, in the mid 1980s, US Colonel Oliver North invited
the fugitive Posada to come to El Salvador where he could help supply the
Nicaraguan Contras. North's civilian buddy, Cuban exile leader Jorge Mas
Canosa, according to North's notebooks, paid $50 thousand to bribe the
Venezuelan guards at the prison where Posada had been held.

Orlando Bosch, the other Cuban exile implicated in the bombing
of the Cuban jetliner, now resides in Miami. President George Bush the
first allowed him to return to the United States despite his long record
of terrorist activities.

If we re serious about terrorism, let s at least take an even
handed view. Does a terrorist need to have a first name of Ahmad or
Muammar or a bin before his last name before he rates with US
authorities as a serious threat? Or have US authorities not pursued
the Cubana bombing because some of our national security folk may have
done something naughty in connection with that act of air terrorism?

Copyright 2001 Pacifica Radio Network