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Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Bush
By Robert Parry
04/22/07 "ICH"
-- -- George W. Bush likes to present the “war on terror” as
a clear-cut moral crusade in which evildoers who kill innocent
civilians must be brought harshly to justice, along with the
leaders of countries that harbor terrorists. There are no grays,
only blacks and whites.
But evenhanded justice is not the true core principle of the
Bush Doctrine. The real consistency is hypocrisy: violence which
Bush favors – no matter how wanton the slaughter of innocents –
is justifiable, while violence that goes against Bush’s
interests – even an insurgency against a foreign military
occupation – must be punished without remorse as “terrorism.”
In other words, if Bush hates the perpetrators, they are
locked up indefinitely without charge and, at his discretion,
can be subjected to “alternative interrogation techniques,” what
most of the world considers torture. The rule of law is out the
window. Wild West hangin' justice is in. Even the ancient fair
trial right of habeas corpus is discarded.
However, when the killers of civilians are on Bush’s side,
they get the full panoply of legal protections – and every
benefit of the doubt. Under this Bush double standard,
therefore, right-wing Cuban terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and
Orlando Bosch, though implicated in a string of murderous
attacks on civilians, get the see-no-evil treatment.
On April 19, the 79-year-old Posada was released on bail from
federal custody for an immigration violation and allowed to fly
to Miami where he will live at home while his case winds its way
through the U.S. courts. Bosch, too, has been allowed to live
out his golden years in south Florida with the help and
protection of the Bush family.
But the evidence in U.S. government files is overwhelming
that Posada and Bosch were the architects of the 1976 mid-air
bombing of a civilian Cubana airliner, killing 73 people,
including young members of the Cuban national fencing team.
Since the conspiracy was hatched in Caracas, Venezuela, where
Posada worked as a Venezuelan intelligence officer, the
Venezuelan government has sought Posada’s extradition. However,
when a Posada friend testified at Posada’s immigration hearing
that Venezuela practices torture, Bush administration lawyers
let the unverified claim go unchallenged, leading the judge to
forbid Posada’s deportation there.
So, the Bush administration, which has subjected its own
terrorism suspects to such practices as painful stress positions
and simulated drowning by “water-boarding,” wasn’t willing to
take the chance that Posada might be abused in Venezuela, even
though there was no real evidence that he would be.
Justifying Terrorism
The Bush administration also took no note a year ago when
Bosch publicly justified the 1976 mid-air bombing. The stunning
TV interview of Bosch by reporter Juan Manuel Cao on Miami’s
Channel 41 was cited in articles on the Internet by José
Pertierra, a lawyer for the Venezuelan government. But Bosch’s
comments caused him no further difficulty. [For Pertierra’s
story, see
Counterpunch, April 11, 2006]
“Did you down that plane in 1976?” Cao asked Bosch.
“If I tell you that I was involved, I will be inculpating
myself,” Bosch answered, “and if I tell you that I did not
participate in that action, you would say that I am lying. I am
therefore not going to answer one thing or the other.”
But when Cao asked Bosch to comment on the civilians who died
when the plane crashed off the coast of Barbados, Bosch
responded, “In a war such as us Cubans who love
liberty wage against the tyrant [Fidel Castro], you have to down
planes, you have to sink ships, you have to be prepared to
attack anything that is within your reach.”
“But don’t you feel a little bit for those who were killed
there, for their families?” Cao asked.
“Who was on board that plane?” Bosch responded. “Four members
of the Communist Party, five North Koreans, five Guyanese.”
[Officials tallies actually put the Guyanese dead at 11.]
Bosch added, “Four members of the Communist Party, chico! Who
was there? Our enemies…”
“And the fencers?” Cao asked about Cuba’s amateur fencing
team that had just won gold, silver and bronze medals at a youth
fencing competition in Caracas. “The young people on board?”
Bosch replied, “I was in Caracas. I saw the young girls on
television. There were six of them. After the end of the
competition, the leader of the six dedicated their triumph to
the tyrant. … She gave a speech filled with praise for the
tyrant.
“We had already agreed in Santo Domingo, that everyone who
comes from Cuba to glorify the tyrant had to run the same risks
as those men and women that fight alongside the tyranny.” [The
comment about Santo Domingo was an apparent reference to a
strategy meeting by a right-wing terrorist organization, CORU,
which took place in the Dominican Republic in 1976.]
“If you ran into the family members who were killed in that
plane, wouldn’t you think it difficult?” Cao asked.
“No, because in the end those who were there had to know that
they were cooperating with the tyranny in Cuba,” Bosch answered.
In an article about Bosch’s remarks, lawyer Pertierra said
the answers “give us a glimpse into the mind of the kind of
terrorist that the United States government harbors and protects
in Miami; terrorists that for the last 47 years have waged a
bloody and ruthless war against the Cuban people.”
CIA Files
Beyond Bosch’s incriminating statements, the evidence of his
and Posada’s guilt is overwhelming. Declassified U.S. documents
show that soon after the Cubana Airlines plane was blown out of
the sky on Oct. 6, 1976, the CIA, then under the direction of
George H.W. Bush, identified Posada and Bosch as the masterminds
of the bombing.
But in fall 1976, Bush’s boss, President Gerald Ford, was in
a tight election battle with Democrat Jimmy Carter and the Ford
administration wanted to keep intelligence scandals out of the
newspapers. So Bush and other officials kept the lid on the
investigations. [For details, see Robert Parry’s
Secrecy &
Privilege.]
Still, inside the U.S. government, the facts were known.
According to a secret CIA cable dated Oct. 14, 1976,
intelligence sources in Venezuela relayed information about the
Cubana Airlines bombing that tied in anti-communist Cuban
extremists Bosch, who had been visiting Venezuela, and Posada,
who then served as a senior officer in Venezuela’s intelligence
agency, DISIP.
The Oct. 14 cable said Bosch arrived in Venezuela in late
September 1976 under the protection of Venezuelan President
Carlos Andres Perez, a close Washington ally who assigned his
intelligence adviser Orlando Garcia “to protect and assist Bosch
during his stay in Venezuela.”
On his arrival, Bosch was met by Garcia and Posada, according
to the report. Later, a fundraising dinner was held in Bosch’s
honor during which Bosch requested cash from the Venezuelan
government in exchange for assurances that Cuban exiles wouldn’t
demonstrate during Andres Perez’s planned trip to the United
Nations.
“A few days following the fund-raising dinner, Posada was
overheard to say that, ‘we are going to hit a Cuban airplane,’
and that ‘Orlando has the details,’” the CIA report said.
“Following the 6 October Cubana Airline crash off the coast
of Barbados, Bosch, Garcia and Posada agreed that it would be
best for Bosch to leave Venezuela. Therefore, on 9 October,
Posada and Garcia escorted Bosch to the Colombian border, where
he crossed into Colombian territory.”
The CIA report was sent to CIA headquarters in Langley,
Virginia, as well as to the FBI and other U.S. intelligence
agencies, according to markings on the cable.
In South America, police began rounding up suspects. Two
Cuban exiles, Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, who got off the
Cubana plane in Barbados, confessed that they had planted the
bomb. They named Bosch and Posada as the architects of the
attack.
A search of Posada’s apartment in Venezuela turned up Cubana
Airlines timetables and other incriminating documents.
Posada and Bosch were charged in Venezuela for the Cubana
Airlines bombing, but the men denied the accusations. The case
soon became a political tug-of-war, since the suspects were in
possession of sensitive Venezuelan government secrets that could
embarrass President Andres Perez.
Lost Interest
After the Reagan-Bush administration took power in Washington
in 1981, the momentum for fully unraveling the mysteries of
anti-communist terrorist plots dissipated. The Cold War trumped
any concern about right-wing terrorism.
In 1985, Posada escaped from a Venezuelan prison, reportedly
with the help of Cuban exiles. In his autobiography, Posada
thanked Miami-based Cuban activist Jorge Mas Canosa for
providing the $25,000 that was used to bribe guards who allowed
Posada to walk out of prison.
Another Cuban exile who aided Posada was former CIA officer
Felix Rodriguez, who was close to then-Vice President George
H.W. Bush and who was overseeing secret supply shipments to the
Nicaraguan contra rebels, a pet project of President Ronald
Reagan.
After fleeing Venezuela, Posada joined Rodriguez in Central
America and was assigned the job of paymaster for pilots in the
White House-run contra-supply operation. When one of the
contra-supply planes was shot down inside Nicaragua in October
1986, Posada was responsible for alerting U.S. officials to the
crisis and then shutting down the operation’s safe houses in El
Salvador.
Even after the exposure of Posada’s role in the contra-supply
operation, the U.S. government made no effort to bring the
accused terrorist to justice.
By the late 1980s, Orlando Bosch also was out of Venezuela’s
jails and back in Miami. But Bosch, who had been implicated in
about 30 violent attacks, was facing possible deportation by
U.S. officials who warned that Washington couldn’t credibly
lecture other countries about terrorism while protecting a
terrorist like Bosch.
But Bosch got lucky. Jeb Bush, then an aspiring Florida
politician, led a lobbying drive to prevent the U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service from expelling Bosch. In 1990, the
lobbying paid dividends when Jeb's dad, President George H.W.
Bush, blocked proceedings against Bosch, letting the
unapologetic terrorist stay in the United States.
In 1992, also during George H.W. Bush’s presidency, the FBI
interviewed Posada about the Iran-Contra scandal for 6 ˝ hours
at the U.S. Embassy in Honduras.
Posada filled in some blanks about the role of Bush’s vice
presidential office in the secret contra operation. According to
a 31-page summary of the FBI interview, Posada said
Bush’s national security adviser, Donald Gregg, was in frequent
contact with Felix Rodriguez.
“Posada … recalls that Rodriguez was always calling Gregg,”
the FBI summary said. “Posada knows this because he’s the one
who paid Rodriguez’ phone bill.” After the interview, the FBI
agents let Posada walk out of the embassy to freedom. [For
details, see Parry’s
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & Project Truth.]
More Attacks
Posada soon returned to his anti-Castro plotting.
In 1994, Posada set out to kill Castro during a trip to
Cartagena, Colombia. Posada and five cohorts reached Cartagena,
but the plan flopped when security cordons prevented the
would-be assassins from getting a clean shot at Castro,
according to a Miami Herald account. [Miami Herald, June 7,
1998]
The Herald also described Posada’s role in a lethal 1997
bombing campaign against popular hotels and restaurants inside
Cuba that killed an Italian tourist. The story cited documentary
evidence that Posada arranged payments to conspirators from
accounts in the United States.
“This afternoon you will receive via Western Union four
transfers of $800 each … from New Jersey,” said one fax signed
by SOLO, a Posada alias.
Posada landed back in jail in 2000 after Cuban intelligence
uncovered a plot to assassinate Castro by planting a bomb at a
meeting the Cuban leader planned with university students in
Panama.
Panamanian authorities arrested Posada and other alleged
co-conspirators in November 2000. In April 2004, they were
sentenced to eight or nine years in prison for endangering
public safety.
Four months after the sentencing, however, lame-duck
Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso – who lives in Key Biscayne,
Florida, and has close ties to the Cuban-American community and
to George W. Bush’s administration – pardoned the convicts.
Despite press reports saying Moscoso had been in contact with
U.S. officials about the pardons, the State Department denied
that it pressured Moscoso to release the Cuban exiles. After the
pardons and just two months before Election 2004, three of
Posada’s co-conspirators – Guillermo Novo Sampol, Pedro Remon
and Gaspar Jimenez – arrived in Miami to a hero’s welcome,
flashing victory signs at their supporters.
While the terrorists celebrated, U.S. authorities watched the
men – also implicated in bombings in New York, New Jersey and
Florida – alight on U.S. soil. As Washington Post writer Marcela
Sanchez noted in a September 2004 article about the Panamanian
pardons, “there is something terribly wrong when the United
States, after Sept. 11 (2001), fails to condemn the pardoning of
terrorists and instead allows them to walk free on U.S.
streets.” [Washington
Post, Sept. 3, 2004]
Posada Arrives
Posada reportedly sneaked into the United States in early
2005 and his presence was an open secret in Miami for weeks
before U.S. authorities did anything. The New York Times summed
up Bush’s dilemma if Posada decided to seek U.S. asylum.
“A grant of asylum could invite charges that the Bush
administration is compromising its principle that no nation
should harbor suspected terrorists,” the Times wrote. “But to
turn Mr. Posada away could provoke political wrath in the
conservative Cuban-American communities of South Florida, deep
sources of support and campaign money for President Bush and his
brother, Jeb.” [NYT, May 9, 2005]
Only after Posada called a news conference to announce his
presence was the Bush administration shamed into arresting him.
But even then, the administration balked at sending Posada back
to Venezuela where the government of Hugo Chavez – unlike some
of its predecessors – was eager to prosecute.
At a U.S. immigration hearing in 2005, Posada’s defense
attorney called as a witness a Posada friend who alleged that
Venezuela’s government practices torture. Bush administration
lawyers didn’t challenge the claim, leading the immigration
judge to bar Posada’s deportation to Venezuela.
Venezuela’s Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez accused the Bush
administration of applying “a cynical double standard” in the
“war on terror.”
“The United States presents itself as a leader against
terrorism, invades countries, restricts the civil rights of
Americans in order to fight terrorism, but when it is about its
own terrorists, it denies that they be tried,” Alvarez said.
As for the claim that Venezuela practices torture, Alvarez
said, “There isn’t a shred of evidence that Posada would be
tortured in Venezuela.” Alvarez added that the claim was
particularly ironic given widespread press accounts that the
Bush administration has abused prisoners at the U.S. military
base in Guatanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Posada-Bosch cases point to one unavoidable and
unpleasant conclusion: that the Bush family regards terrorism –
defined as killing civilians for a political reason – as
justified or at least tolerable in cases when their interests
match those of the terrorists.
Terrorism is only a moral evil to the Bushes when the
violence against civilians clashes with the Bush family’s
interests.
This blatant hypocrisy often has been aided and abetted by
the U.S. news media, which intuitively understands the double
standard and acts accordingly. The U.S. press corps downplays or
ignores cases in which terrorism has connections to U.S.
government officials – and especially to the Bush family.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra
stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His
latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from
Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at www.secrecyandprivilege.com.
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