I Cogitate

President George Bush addresses a joint session of Congress and the American people on September 20, 2001, in part saying the following:

"...Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes.  Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.  It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success.  We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest.  And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism.  Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.  (Applause.)  From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime..."

But then we get a big Bush Administration yawn over this from The Christian Science Monitor. Here is an excerpt:

May 12, 2005

Cuba wants 'terrorist suspect' returned from US
White House appears unsure of how to deal with man accused of masterminding Cuba's '9/11'.
Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
 
"US President George W. Bush has said on more than one occasion during the war on terrorism that "those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves." ABCNews reports that this statement will be put to the test by a case involving Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban who sneaked into the US recently seeking political asylum.
 
The New York Times reported Monday that the Cuban government accuses Mr. Posada of being involved with the bombing of a Cuban passenger jet in 1976. Posada has also admitted to "plotting attacks that damaged tourist spots in Havana and killed an Italian visitor there in 1997," and he is also wanted in Venezuela on terrorism charges.
 
Thirty years ago, a Cuban plane was blown out of the sky off Barbados. All 73 passengers and crew members aboard Cubana Airlines Flight 455 — including Cuba's youthful fencing team — died. The terrorist attack shook Cuba as deeply as 9/11 did the United States. The Cubans have never forgotten or forgiven those they hold responsible, including Posada.
 
But as ABCNews also points out, the case is complicated by Posada's ties to political figures in the US, including his "pre-9/11 ties to Washington" and his allies in Florida's "powerful Cuban-American" community.
 
The privately run, George Washington University based National Security Archives details Posada's extensive career as a CIA- and FBI-trained operative. The Archives reports that Posada had been imprisoned in Venezuela for the '76 bombing, but escaped in '85, when he went to El Salvador "where he worked, using the alias 'Ramon Medina,' on the illegal contra resupply program being run by Lt. Col. Oliver North in the Reagan National Security Council."
 
The Archives also reports that although Posada has been in the US for at least six weeks, the FBI has "has indicated it is not actively searching for him." Posada's lawyer continues to say his client denies all involvement with the bombing.
 
Bosch was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, and denies involvement in the bombing, although on several occasions he has said it was a "legitimate target in the war on Castro."
 
An editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle argues that the US "should deport Posada immediately," and that not doing so "undercuts worldwide respect and support for the war on terrorism, a worthy cause that shouldn't be misused by the likes of Posada..."

A Terrorist Comes Homes To Roost

Jim Lobe

"WASHINGTON, May 12 (IPS) - The sudden and untimely arrival on U.S. territory of a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset and admitted terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, poses an embarrassing challenge to the credibility of the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

Posada, who in an interview with the New York Times seven years ago admitted to organising a wave of bombings in Cuba in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist and injured 11 others, is best known as the prime suspect in the bombing of a Cubana Airlines flight shortly after it took off from Barbados in October 1976.

The incident, in which all 73 crew members and passengers including teenaged members of Cuba's national fencing team were killed, was the first confirmed mid-air terrorist bombing of a commercial airliner.

Then-President George Bush in 1990 pardoned Orlando Bosch, another Cuban exile opposed to President Fidel Castro and implicated in the plot, overruling a strong U.S. Justice Department opinion that called for Bosch's deportation.

Posada, who also worked for the operation supplying ''Contra'' rebels in Central America in the mid-1980s until the Iran-Contra scandal broke open with the downing of one of its planes, was also convicted of conspiring to assassinate Castro during a 2000 visit to Panama. A Panamanian court sentenced him to eight years in prison in 2004 but he was unexpectedly pardoned by outgoing President Mireya Moscosa last September and flew to Honduras.

”This is a real test of (President) George W. Bush's commitment to fighting terrorism,” said Peter Kornbluh, a Latin American specialist at the non-governmental National Security Archive (NSA). This week, the organisation released a series of declassified U.S. documents that detailed Posada's terrorist history and his previous association with the CIA..."

ABBY GOODNOUGH
Published: May 18, 2005
New York Times

MIAMI, May 17 - Immigration officials arrested Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile suspected in a deadly airplane bombing and other attacks, on Tuesday, weeks after he slipped into the United States and shortly after he withdrew an application for political asylum.

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans in Havana Tuesday demanded the U.S. arrest Luis Posada, a Cuban exile sought in the bombing of an airliner.

The Bush administration, which had been mostly silent about Mr. Posada's presence and until Tuesday denied knowing if he was even in the country, faced growing pressure from Cuba and its ally Venezuela to extradite him. Critics had questioned why the United States would not root out a suspected terrorist, even one hailed by Cuban exiles as a freedom fighter against Fidel Castro.

As the Department of Homeland Security detained the 77-year-old Mr. Posada, hundreds of thousands of Cubans in Havana participated in a protest march against him, which Mr. Castro described as "against terrorism and in favor of our people's life and peace." Mr. Castro had furiously accused Mr. Bush of sheltering Mr. Posada, a former Central Intelligence Agency operative, in recent weeks.

Government officials would not discuss why, where or how they arrested Mr. Posada, 77, though on Tuesday night, Russ Knocke, a spokesman for United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said: "Today is the first time there was verifiable information about his presence in the country. We had received leads prior to today, which we pursued, but they ultimately did not go very far."

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