Posada’s presence epitomizes the double standard

Posada’s presence epitomizes the double standard
Saul Landau
Progreso Weekly, 2 February 2006

The logic of the terrorism war game led me to conclude (Progreso Weekly September 22, 2005) that Osama bin Laden had engaged an attention-starved, geriatric Cuban exile named Luis Posada Carriles to help him undermine the credibility of George W. Bush. Recent events surrounding the possible release of Posada affirm my assessment.

In 1976, already the Hemisphere’s leading terrorist, Posada with Orlando Bosch plotted the bombing of a Cuban airliner over Barbados. They both claimed that this act represented war against the Castro regime. Seventy-three civilian passengers and crew members died.

Police quickly nabbed Posada’s henchman, who then ratted on their bosses. Bosch and Posada went to jail and trial. Posada escaped when friends from Miami paid someone in Venezuela before the court had decided on his case. He then went to El Salvador and worked for U.S. Lt. Col. Oliver North in his effort to supply the Contras with material to use in a terrorist war against Nicaragua. The war time Presidents, Ronald Reagan and in 1989 George W. Bush (41), were using terrorist tactics against the Nicaraguan government. A man like Posada fit right in with their plans.

Over four decades, he masterminded – with CIA help – assassination plots against Fidel Castro in Cuba, Chile and Venezuela. In 1997, he developed a plan to sabotage the Cuban tourism industry by hiring agents to detonate bombs at hotels. In one of the explosions, an Italian tourist died.

Posada said he had no regrets. In 1998, when a New York Times reporter asked him if he felt badly about the death of the Italian, Posada responded: "I sleep like a baby."

In 2000, Panamanian authorities caught Posada and three other would-be assassins with explosives in their rented car just before Fidel Castro was to speak at the University of Panama. A Panamanian court convicted him, but rich Miami cohorts "influenced" Panama’s president Mireya Moscoso. With $4 million in her overseas account, she pardoned him and his fellow plotters just before leaving office in 2004.

Terrorists seem to need friends with money who can buy corrupt officials.

Posada then availed himself of a friend’s yacht and showed up in Miami in March 2005. The supposedly highly tuned anti-terrorist net strung by Homeland Security evidently failed to ensnare him. He walked the streets of Miami until his high profile presence caught the attention of the mass media. Then, Bush Administration officials gently arrested him, on charges of illegal entry.

A judge ruled that the government could not extradite him to Venezuela, which asked for him to face trial anew in the 1976 airline bombing case. Posada remains a Venezuelan citizen.

Supposedly, Posada would be tortured if he returned, although Posada’s lawyers offered no evidence that Venezuela practiced torture. Indeed, the facts show the opposite. But the U.S. government did not object. So, what to do with Posada? The government still says it wants to deport him, but, having ruled out Venezuela and of course "Communist Cuba," they have yet to find a country to take him.

This debacle should bring about roars of laughter from Osama bin Laden’s cave in the remote mountains of Afghanistan. The skinny fanatic can even use this in one of his periodic missiles to the world’s media to show that Bush’s bravado rhetoric masks a powder puff opponent who coddles terrorists. (Old Joe McCarthy accused the State Department of "coddling Communists.")

Bush might retaliate by calling Osama more names and threatening to "really get ‘em this time," especially if the NSA wiretaps more American phones and the United States remains mired in Iraq. Bush’s swagger has given Osama the legitimizing publicity he needs: "We’re gonna smoke ‘em out," promised Bush.

"Promise ‘em anything," smirks Karl Rove, "and screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke."

Thanks to the Bush approach of elevating Osama to the super top enemy position, the lean meanzealot knows that when he releases his periodic audio and video tapes through Al Jazeera, he possesses the necessary prestige to gull the public into thinking that he actually runs a highly efficient terror organization from a mountain cave.

Picture Osama’s well-trained goats descending rocky trails to deliver coded messages in Arabic and Urdu to Al Qaeda’s number 2 man in Peshawar. Over four years, the United States has killed dozens of number 2 men and made it hard to identify the real number two. The enigmatic al Zarqawi, who shuttles between Falluja, Iraq and other places in the Middle East – does he have a private jet? – is kind of number one and a half.

Has the "George and Osama Show" converted a serious subject into a cruel media joke, one where lots of people die in the action? In this ongoing series, Posada has taken the role of doubt-caster. His soft treatment by the Bush Administration casts doubt on Bush’s seriousness as an anti-terrorist. Posada has implicitly dared Bush to deport or charge him for mass murder. Such a posture makes it difficult for Bush’s media handlers to claim consistency for the President in dealing with terrorists. Posada’s presence as an uncharged bomber and assassin epitomizes the double standard.

Until Posada showed up uninvited in Florida last March, Bush did not have to show his anti-terrorist credentials. Now, when his script writers fill presidential speeches with the "t" word to justify torture, kidnapping and illegal eavesdropping, the shadow of Posada walking the Miami streets looms in the picture. Bush keeps repeating: "I’m a war time president" to justify his extension of powers. But what has the war time president done about a major terrorist in our midst?

"Bring ‘em on," Bush challenged the terrorists. Posada may have taken him literally and come to the United States in response. "Here I am," he virtually announced less than a year ago. In fact, he suspected that Bush preferred to do the fighting abroad and even there to refer the tough jobs to the men and women in the U.S. military. They, after all, and not himself, Cheney or Rumsfeld, were far better qualified to die or get wounded.

Since the mass media accept without question this theater of the absurd scenario, the war against terrorism will endure as long as Bush or Osama – or whoever replaces them – decide to keep it going. Congress did not declare war because terrorism has no defined state boundary, no real leader or clear structure. But the Bushies have elaborated a scary rhetoric that they use to justify shredding the Magna Carta and subsequent documents, like the Bill of Rights.

Indeed, Bush and Osama set a standard for the rest of the world. In mid January, French President Chirac tried to meet that ideal by threatening that France would nuke its terrorist attacker. He didn’t indicate which country planned to attack France. Nor did the media speculate.

The media also ignored the implications of Bush’s denial of Venezuela’s extradition request for Posada. In doing so, he jeopardized several extradition treaties on which he supposedly counts heavily in his war on terrorism. Indeed, using the Posada case as precedent, other countries could follow the U.S. example and refuse U.S. extradition requests and declare that well known terrorists simply entered their country illegally.

The Miami media may soon report that Posada was seen limping along Miami’s streets. As immigration lawyer Jose Pertierra explains, "If an undocumented immigrant cannot be deported within a reasonable period, he must be set free." But, Pertierra advises, terrorists "are exempt from this rule. This is why the government has carefully avoided using the word ‘terrorist’ in the Posada Carriles case."

Clearly, Osama understands these legal wrinkles. Indeed, he may well feel more secure should he decide to visit neighboring Pakistan. Given the amount of strife caused by a recent U.S. bombing in that country deigned to kill Osama’s newest numbers two through six men, the lanky zealot might well convince Pakistani President Musharraf to refuse to extradite him and, as Pertierra suggests, have him get off with a slap on the wrist for "crossing the border illegally." In that U.S. attack, several Pakistani children died.

Posada’s case makes the terror game more bizarre. Other Cuban exiles, who still vow to assassinate Castro as they wait in their proctologists’ offices, will hail the return of the ancient assassin. "Viva la muerte," these codgers will shout as they shakily raise their rum glasses to toast their life long dream. Others will even take to the streets and shout threats from their walkers at those who demand that Bush send Posada to face trial in Venezuela for his mass murder.

Meanwhile, Osama and George will continue to play "terror," the new game in which the world itself becomes the board and characters like Posada are simply pawns, or symbolic pieces, like those in the old Monopoly game.