Political Crossfire Forums

[Richard Owl Mirror]

The Bush Dynasty and the Cuban Criminals
New book reveals links of two presidents and the governor of Florida with exiled hardliners

ORLANDO BOSCH AND ANTI-CASTRO TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS

Bosch was now officially considered a terrorist and a public danger by the Justice Department.
But in August 1989, The New York Times reported that Florida State Sen. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen negotiated Bosch's release with the Bush administration, assisted by Jeb Bush who was Ros-Lehtinen's campaign manager. Jeb Bush was elected governor in 1990 while Ros-Lehtinen went to the US Congress--both with exile-community support.

Orlando Bosch Avila has been a Cuban exile leader since coming to Florida in 1960.

Orlando Bosch ~ From Wikipedia
Quote: Orlando Bosch (also known as Olando Bosch Avila) is a Cuban exile and former CIA-backed criminal, head of CORU organization, which the FBI has described as "an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization". Attorney General Dick Thornburgh called Bosch an "unrepentant terrorist." He has been accused of having taken part in Operation Condor and of a variety of terrorist attacks. Most notably he has admitted, together with another anti-Castro Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, of taking part in the October 6, 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner in which all seventy-three people on board were killed. This bombing would have been decided at the same meeting, attended by Luis Posada Carriles and DINA agent Michael Townley, where Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier's assassination, in Washington, D.C. in 1976, was decided.

Orlando Bosch was in contact with CIA in 1962 and 1963, as the agency itself admitted, as recorded in the National Security Archive


~@~

Now, getting to the actual reason for this post is a news article from today's http://www.washingtonpost.com

In 30-Year-Old Terror Case, a Test for the U.S.
Decision Due on Cuban Exile Suspected in Airliner Blast
Quote: HAVANA -- A quarter-century before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a bomb ripped a gash in a civilian jetliner in the skies off Barbados.

The Cubana Airlines plane plummeted into the Caribbean Sea just before noon on Oct. 6, 1976. All 73 people on board died, including teenage members of Cuba's national fencing team who were returning to Havana after winning gold and silver medals at a tournament in Venezuela.

The attack marked a new era of fear. It was the first act of midair airline terrorism in the Western Hemisphere.

The 30th anniversary of the bombing is Friday, and it coincides with a critical juncture in the case of Luis Posada Carriles, a main suspect in the bombing who has been held on immigration charges in the United States for the past 16 months.

Posada Carriles's legal odyssey has turned into a diplomatic quandary for the Bush administration and a test of the president's post-Sept. 11 credo that nations that harbor terrorists are guilty of terrorism. While the United States does not want to free a terrorism suspect, it is also reluctant to send him to Cuba or Venezuela, countries that not only remain hostile to the Bush administration but that, according to court testimony of a Posada Carriles ally, also might torture him.

Attorneys for the Justice Department must respond by Thursday to a Texas magistrate's recommendation that Posada Carriles be freed by a federal judge because he has not been officially designated a terrorist in the United States and cannot be held indefinitely on immigration charges.

"This is the moment of truth for the Bush administration," said Peter Kornbluh, a senior Cuba analyst with the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research library at George Washington University.

The prospect of freeing Posada Carriles, who is also a suspect in a series of 1997 hotel bombings in Havana that left one Italian tourist dead, has outraged Cuban leaders. Havana is papered with Cuban government posters and billboards invoking President Bush's position on harboring terrorists.

~snip~


Is the United States Government guilty of harboring a known Terrorist?
In my opinion, I would have to say YES.
What should the United States do in regards to this situation?
Two very Powerful Cuban Men have been linked with terrorist acts as well as having close ties with Governor Jeb Bush, President George W Bush and their father ex-President George HW Bush.

These Men are allowed complete freedom of movement in the United States even though they have been determined by Our Government to be terrorists.
Isn't there a bit of double-standard and hypocrisy in all of this?

Do you believe these men should be returned to Cuba for Trial or,
We as a Nation make a distinction that "one man's terrorist is anothers freedom fighter" ?