DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: hnumpah on October 05, 2006, 05:05:44 PM
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By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA (Reuters) - "We have an explosion. We are descending immediately. We have fire on board!" the co-pilot of the Cuban airliner radioed the Barbados control tower before his crippled DC-8 plunged into the Caribbean sea on October 6, 1976.
The recording of Tomas Rodriguez's last words is repeatedly played on Cuban TV 30 years later as a reminder of what Cuba says was an act of terrorism that the United States, applying double standards, prefers to sweep under the carpet.
Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative and one of the two anti-Castro Cuban exiles accused of plotting the bomb attack from Caracas, has been held in Texas since May, 2005 for illegally sneaking into the United States.
But Havana expects the man it labels "Latin America's bin Laden" to soon walk free because he has become a political hot potato for the Bush administration.
A Texas magistrate has recommended that he be released because he had not been designated a terrorist and cannot be held indefinitely on immigration charges. The U.S. Justice Department has yet to respond.
Meanwhile, the United States denied his extradition to Venezuela, Cuba's ideological ally, because it said he might face torture. He escaped from a jail there in 1985 while on trial for his role in the plane bombing that killed all 73 people aboard, including the junior Cuban fencing team.
Cuba's communist government is angry that U.S. authorities have held Posada merely on immigration charges and not linked him to a trail of violence that includes deadly bomb blasts in Havana hotels and assassination plots against Fidel Castro.
"The Bush administration wants to avoid a trial at all costs because someone will ask about the role of the CIA, and its director in 1976 was George Bush Sr," said Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly.
Alarcon said in an interview this week that declassified U.S. documents show the Central Intelligence Agency had prior knowledge of a plan by Posada and fellow anti-Castro militant Orlando Bosch to "hit" a Cuban civilian airliner.
Cuba and Venezuela accuse the United States of using double standards in the Posada case, given Washington's declared war on global terrorism since the September 11 attacks.
Alarcon said Washington tried to protect the 79-year-old Posada from Cuban and Venezuelan justice by having him deported to a third country.
But no other country was willing to give him asylum if he were deported, leading to the recommendation by a U.S. magistrate in El Paso, Texas, on September 11 that Posada, a naturalized Venezuelan, be released.
"PATRIOT" or "TERRORIST"?
Posada, who was trained as a sniper and explosives expert by the CIA for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to topple Castro in 1961, has denied involvement in planting the suitcase bomb that ripped through Cubana flight 455.
In 1998 Posada told the New York Times he planned bomb attacks on Havana tourist spots that killed an Italian in 1997. He recalled a time when Cubans working for the CIA were viewed as "patriots" and acts of sabotage were not called terrorism.
"The CIA recruited, trained, financed and eventually unleashed him (Posada) on the world," said Peter Kornbluh, senior researcher at the National Security Archives, a public interest group located at George Washington University that obtained the declassified CIA documents on the plane bombing plot.
"Posada is a litmus test for President Bush's declaration that no nation can be allowed to harbor terrorists," Kornbluh said.
The ambiguous U.S. treatment to date of the Posada case has given Cuba fodder for anti-U.S. tirades and posters on Havana's Malecon seafront depict Bush and Posada as blood-thirsty Draculas.
"I can't believe this self-confessed terrorist will walk the streets of Miami a free man," Eliana Alfonso, whose father died on the airplane, said in Havana.
"We suffered like the families of those who died in the Twin Tower attacks," she said.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-10-05T182706Z_01_N05184431_RTRUKOC_0_US-CUBA-BOMBING.xml&src=rss
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What is the evidence against him?
If it is substantial then we might ought to apply the label of terrorist to him and run his extradition through the corts.
Bombing an airliner like that ought to be considered an act of war , unless we are going to be at war we ought to discourage it.
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<<Meanwhile, the United States denied his extradition to Venezuela, Cuba's ideological ally, because it said he might face torture.>>
That's HILARIOUS. Why don't they have him "rendered" to Uzbekistan, then?
<<"We suffered like the families of those who died in the Twin Tower attacks," she said. >>
No. That's wrong, see? You suffered in Cuba. THEY suffered in New York.
<<What is the evidence against him?>>
Geeze, I dunno. What's the evidence against those poor buggers in Guantanamo?
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There doesn't need to be evidence in the case of a POW who is not charged with a crime.
But for us to hand a man to Cuba there ought to be some evidence.
If there is some evidence then we sould go on and extradite him to the country where the crime was committed.
This crime is just a crime if one guy did it , if it is done with US government approval it is more like an act of war.
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<<There doesn't need to be evidence in the case of a POW who is not charged with a crime.>>
They're not POWS, remember?
<<But for us to hand a man to Cuba there ought to be some evidence.>>
What about his admission to the New York Times reporter that he participated in the hotel bombing that killed an Italian tourist, isn't that "some evidence?"
<<If there is some evidence then we sould go on and extradite him to the country where the crime was committed.>>
That would be Cuba, where he killed the Italian tourist, or Venezuela, where the plane he bombed took off from (and where he escaped from jail while awaiting trial.)
<<This crime is just a crime if one guy did it , if it is done with US government approval it is more like an act of war.>>
Of course that's only because the USA, being a naturally virtuous country, couldn't approve or commit a criminal act. If for example the WTC attacks had been done with the advance approval of the Afghan government, now that would be a crime.
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I just gotta say, on re-reading my last post, it is just INCREDIBLE how full of shit Americans are. Do they believe the world is too fucking stupid to see this?
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<<This crime is just a crime if one guy did it , if it is done with US government approval it is more like an act of war.>>
Of course that's only because the USA, being a naturally virtuous country, couldn't approve or commit a criminal act. If for example the WTC attacks had been done with the advance approval of the Afghan government, now that would be a crime.
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I consider an act of war to be more serious than a crime , if this guy is guilty our approval would not lessen his guilt as much as it would make us all share it.
We cannot hand a felon over with no evidence , but once the evidence is made availible it ought to be taken seriously , anything less than real discouragement for acts of terror is just wrong .
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<<We cannot hand a felon over with no evidence , but once the evidence is made availible it ought to be taken seriously , anything less than real discouragement for acts of terror is just wrong .>>
As it happens, plane, the evidence is there, but for political reasons your government will do nothing to discourage this particular act of terror, and although that is "just wrong," it is just one wrong out of thousands that your government has committed and persists in committing.
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I do not know the quality of the evidence , but the evidence is the stuff.
Acts of terrorism have to be discouraged or we might as well just join "them".
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<<Acts of terrorism have to be discouraged or we might as well just join "them".>>
Sometimes I think you are so close to getting it.
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There doesn't need to be evidence in the case of a POW who is not charged with a crime.
But for us to hand a man to Cuba there ought to be some evidence.
If there is some evidence then we sould go on and extradite him to the country where the crime was committed.
This crime is just a crime if one guy did it , if it is done with US government approval it is more like an act of war.
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DId you read what you just typed?
"But for us to hand a man to Cuba there ought to be some evidence."
Jesus.
Take me now. No don't, not til after the election dammit.
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<<Acts of terrorism have to be discouraged or we might as well just join "them".>>
Sometimes I think you are so close to getting it.
Ha...
I never think this about you.
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"But for us to hand a man to Cuba there ought to be some evidence."
Or Cuba could do the heavy lifting themselves and go and get him. Think they will?
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Or Cuba could do the heavy lifting themselves and go and get him. Think they will?
Why should they have to 'go and get him'? He is already in custody here; they are, as we would in similar circumstances, asking for his extradition.
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DId you read what you just typed?
"But for us to hand a man to Cuba there ought to be some evidence."
Jesus.
Take me now. No don't, not til after the election dammit.
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If you know what the evidence is , you are ahead of me , I do not know who saw him plant the bomb , I don't know where they found his fingerprint.
Has Cuba ever given over someone we wanted?
I don't know , just asking.
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"If you know what the evidence is , you are ahead of me , I do not know who saw him plant the bomb , I don't know where they found his fingerprint.
Has Cuba ever given over someone we wanted?
I don't know , just asking."
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No, I don't know. Do we now have to recreate every trial of every foreign citizen here before we hand them over to countries we have extradition treaties with? Are there no sovereign countries that we recognize? Help me out here. Has the legal landscape changed ALL THAT DRASTICALLY IN 6 SHORT YEARS?
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"Do we now have to recreate every trial of every foreign citizen here before we hand them over to countries we have extradition treaties with?"
We don't like due process anymore?
" Has the legal landscape changed ALL THAT DRASTICALLY IN 6 SHORT YEARS?"
I do not know what change you are talking about , someone who is being extradited can fight it in court since Washington was President.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,851913,00.html
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,851913,00.html
I am not clear from that , whether due process was violated or not.
Some of the people that Castro has killed as terrorists were dropping jugs of water onto people dieing of thirst in the ocean.
The evidence in each case is important .
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<<Some of the people that Castro has killed as terrorists were dropping jugs of water onto people dieing of thirst in the ocean.>>
They weren't in international waters, they were shot down when they invaded Cuban airspace. Cuba has the right to defend its airspace. They have been attacked by terrorists before and they are correct to remain vigilant. The US, I am sure, would protect itself the same way - - or have you forgotten the Iranian civilian airliner that the US shot down during the Iran-Iraq war?
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<<Some of the people that Castro has killed as terrorists were dropping jugs of water onto people dieing of thirst in the ocean.>>
They weren't in international waters, they were shot down when they invaded Cuban airspace. Cuba has the right to defend its airspace. They have been attacked by terrorists before and they are correct to remain vigilant. The US, I am sure, would protect itself the same way - - or have you forgotten the Iranian civilian airliner that the US shot down during the Iran-Iraq war?
No, I remember that very regrettable event,or the Columbians shootdown of a Christian missionary because of mistaken identity, but I do not see much simularity. The Cubans who were shooting knew what they were shooting , and knew that they were harmless.
This incident would be something like haveing Cindy Sheehan shot, she is uncomplementary to the president but not harmfull and she is not hard to recognise.
Cubas right to defend its airspace should not include killing people it knows are harmless.