Huge Scandal: Bush Government Protecting Top International Terrorist!

[Itsthetruth]

CounterPunch
April 19, 2005

An Exclusive CounterPunch Interview with Ricardo Alarcon About One of the World's Most Wanted Terrorists
"Is Posada Still Working for the White House?"
By JEAN-GUY ALLARD
Jean-Guy Allard is a Canadian journalist living in Havana, Cuba.

Havana, Cuba

"While Mr Posada was reappearing in the US, the US Government did thousands of arrests of persons that had entered the country illegally. But they did not arrest Mr Posada!" said Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, President of Cuba's Parliament. And he then added: "He was really lucky or is he still working for the White House? Or is he again being protected by the second generation of Bushes?"

In an hour and a half long exclusive interview for COUNTERPUNCH, given in the meeting room of the National Assembly administrative building, on 42th Street, in Havana's Playa neighbourhood, Alarcon resumed the grievances of the Cuban authorities in relation with the presence of Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in US territory.

Liberated on August 26 from a Panama jail where he was detained for an assassination attempt on President Fidel Castro, Posada entered illegally the US, one month ago, arriving from Islas Mujeres, Mexico, on a boat owned by Miami businessman Santiago Alvarez, also denounced by Cuba as a terrorist.

Cuban President Fidel Castro gave several consecutive speeches, at Havana's Convention Center, since a little more than one week now, on the presence in the US of Cuban-American terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. You participated in these meetings, giving an exposé of Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch implication in the 1976 explosion of a Cuban airliner in Barbados. The American mainstream media were somewhat reticent, apparently, to publish the full details of Cuba's accusations, would you tell us about this.

To read the entire statement of Ricardo Alarcon go to:

http://www.counterpunch.org/allard04192005.html

[Itsthetruth]

1. Washington Post Article Exposes The Terrorist Posada

Washington Post
April 17, 2005

Our Man's in Miami. Patriot or Terrorist?
By Ann Louise Bardach

The anti-hero could be Luis Posada Carriles, the fugitive militant, would-be assassin of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and prison escapee who is wanted by Venezuela for the 1976 shootdown of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 civilians. Late last month, a South Florida television station offered a startling exclusive: Posada, last seen in Honduras, had slipped into Miami. Then last Tuesday, Posada's newly retained attorney had the temerity to request asylum for him.

Posada must have thought nobody would be listening. How was it possible that a self-described "warrior" and "militante" -- long a fixture on the U.S. immigration authorities' watch list -- had crossed into the United States with a bogus passport and visa? And is it remotely conceivable that the Bush administration, notwithstanding its purported commitment to the war on terrorism (Rule 1 of U.S. counterterrorism policy: "make no concessions to terrorists and strike no deals"), would consider residency for a notorious paramilitary commando? He has even boasted of orchestrating numerous attacks on both civilian and military targets (including the 1997 bombings of Cuban tourist facilities that killed an Italian vacationer and wounded 11 others) during his 50-year war to topple Castro.

In any other American city, Posada, who is now 77, might have been met by a SWAT team, arrested and deported. But in the peculiar ecosystem of Miami, where hardline anti-Castro politicians control both the radio stations and the ballot boxes, the definition of terrorism is a pliable one: One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. His lawyer made the tortured argument that those who planted bombs in Havana could not be held responsible for innocent victims unless it could be proven that those victims were, in fact, targets. Other supporters have underscored that Posada was once a CIA asset who fought in its ill-fated excursion at the Bay of Pigs, and who played a crucial role in the Iran-contra operations during the Reagan-Bush years.

It is a story of keen interest to me as Posada had granted me an exclusive interview in June 1998. At a safe house and other locations in Aruba, I spent three days tape-recording him for a series of articles that ran in the New York Times. The urbane and chatty Posada said that he had decided to speak with me in order to generate publicity for his bombing campaign of Cuba's tourist industry -- and frighten away tourists. "Castro will never change, never," Posada said. "Our job is to provide inspiration and explosives to the Cuban people."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58297-2005Apr16?language=printer

[enough]

2. Two interesting articles.

Thank you.

[Itsthetruth]

3. Link For Information On "The Cuban Five"

Please circulate the Washington Post article to your e-mail friends, discussion groups, blogs, etc.,

Here's where you can get information on "The Cuban Five" being held in U.S. prisons.

http://www.antiterroristas.cu/index.php?tpl=noticia/anew¬iciaid=2025¬iciafecha=2005-04-18

[FloridaPat]

4. Protecting? They're creating these terrorists. Reagan and Bush 1

brought in Saudi Arabians to train into alQada. They train and funded bin Ladin and his whole gang. They did this going through Pakistan. When alQada finnaly got the Russians out of Afghanistan, the US pulled out and left them on their own. Then came the Taliban.

The US has for decades been training terrorists for South American and other parts of the world where we want things unstable. We are the worst of the lot. We are the real terrorists.

[JohnyCanuck]

5. Very interesting article, but there is one inaccuracy I noticed.

From the technical standpoint, the Commission was established by the civil aviation authorities of Barbados and they invited representatives of other countries, experts that could help. For example, people from the Cuban civil aviation were there, people from Canada because the plane has been built in Canada. Then experts from the company who attended so they could understand the technical details.

Interestingly, the US asked to participate in that investigation: no Americans was killed or suffered damage. The plane was not American. The company that handled the plane was not American, it was not traveling through American territory but they expressed a great interest in participating right at the very beginning. It begun almost immediately after the sabotage.

It is important to stress that because after that, the US would act as if they had no relation whatsoever with this incident and that they didn´t have any obligation to cooperate with this investigation. But at the very beginning they were very interested.

Actually the Cubana airliner which was sabotaged with a bomb just after taking off from Barbados in '76 was a McDonald Douglas DC-8. I am pretty sure that Cubana acquired their DC-8 fleet by buying surplus Air Canada aircraft which would lead to a Canadian connection. However, from what I know it would not be accurate to say the plane was built in Canada. It would have been built by McDonald Douglas in the US with perhaps some components assembled in Canada (I think McDonald Douglas used to build wings at a plant in the Toronto area) and then sold to Air Canada.

I believe the manufacturer, McDonald Douglas, would have a legitimate right to participate in the accident investigation, but I am not sure where it confer any legal right for the US government agencies like the NTSB to participate.

[Itsthetruth]

6. Just A Very Minor Possible Mistake

It probably was built in the United States and purchased from Canada. Of course, as you point out, McDonald Douglas might have made some modifications such as new wings on the plane in Canada before it was sold to Cuba which would explain the comment.

That's a pretty minor detail and really has no impact on the hard facts in this case. I don't think the Bush government will try to justify its harbouring an international terrorist on the grounds that the plane bombed was built in the United States and not Canada!

[JohnyCanuck]

7. I agree

But Allard (the author) appears to use the fact that the plane was supposedly built in Canada to question the motives of the US for initially wanting to take part in the crash investigation. The case against the US government for supporting and offering aid and comfort to these murdering bastards is strong enough that there is no need to add any unnecessary and inaccurate inferences which can be used by the opposition to question his accuracy. It's just a point that should be clarified. In fact I think I will send Allard an email and just ask him to check into this to make sure he has all his ducks lined up in a row. But I basically agree it is a minor point in the overall scheme of things.

Just to clarify the bit about the aircraft wings. The wings would have been assembled in Toronto and then shipped to a plant in the US for the final assembly of the aircraft. I am not even 100% sure they built wings for the DC-8s, but I know they did build the DC-9 wings there.

[Itsthetruth]

8. kick

For people getting off work.