HiddenMysteries: Harsh Criticism on Bush from Domestic Front

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) has used president George W. Bush´s own words to criticize the US administration on its double standard policy on terrorism, according to a paper released in this capital.

After recalling the statement "One who shelters a terrorist, is a terrorist" made at the outset of Bush´s anti-terrorism crusade, the COHA paper says the Administration is harboring perhaps the Western Hemisphere´s most insidious terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles.

The Council goes on to say "the Posada case as well as the Cuban Five represent perhaps a defining moment in which the Bush administration's ideological passions have snuffed out a proper application of justice - an unacceptable sense of ethical values and public rectitude."

The fate of the Cuban Five, whose crimes were negligible compared to Posada's homicides, does not seem to either confuse or disturb Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Thus, the White House will likely have a problem regarding who it denominates as a "terrorist" and who it fetes as a patriot.

The Posada case represents a huge political burden for the White House and its deteriorating relations with Latin America, warns the COHA.

The disposition of the case will now also test the authenticity of the U.S.'s War on Terror, since Posada is responsible for some of the worst pre-9 11 crimes perpetrated in the Western Hemisphere.

Washington's unwillingness to prosecute Posada or facilitate terrorism charges against him brought in other venues, demonstrates that its War on Terror unmistakably involves double standards based on selective indignation, affirms the COHA paper.+

What is the US Government Hiding?, asks COHA. There is no reason to scoff at the notion that the US Attorney's office may be calculatedly sabotaging the Posada case in order to spare the administration an embarrassing outcome brought about by its not applying the full weight of the law against him.

Much of the evidence against Posada has come from declassified FBI and CIA documents, including evidence of Posada's meeting with another notorious terrorist, such as his accomplice and co-conspirator in Caracas, Orlando Bosch.

The Bush administration may be attempting to placate Miami and ease itself out of the Posada affair by attempting to find him a safe haven outside the US, says the in-depth study.

However, to their dismay, upon contacting authorities in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Canada, Panama, El Salvador and Honduras, Bush officials were repeatedly told that they would only facilitate Posada's extradition to Venezuela or Cuba, if such papers were ever filed against him.

The fundamentally biased nature of the current Posada proceedings are highlighted by comparing them to the zealous dynamism displayed by US prosecutors from the same office who were involved in the trial of five Cuban nationals: Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González and René González.

Quoting Areitodigital magazine, the paper sustains "the federal government lied and is still lying. The Five, as everyone knows, were not in Miami to spy against the government of the United States, but to infiltrate the terrorist organizations of the Cuban-American extreme right-wing, which with the full knowledge and protection of the federal government, plans and directs from that city terrorist actions…"

The only real "threat" posed by the Five, agrees COHA, was their monitoring of several extremist Cuban exile groups in Miami like CORU, Alpha 66, Omega 7 and Brothers to the Rescue, all of which were documented for their involvement in attacking Cuban personnel and property, bombing island tourist facilities and illegally dropping pamphlets over Havana and other major urban centers.

The blatant bias of trial judge Joan Lenard against the Cuban Five throughout their Miami proceedings, led to their conviction on all 26 counts, in which the jury deliberated for only four days, affirms COHA.

Notably, a UN Working Group reviewing the case was able to determine that the trial did not take place in a climate of objectivity and impartiality, which is required in order to conclude on the observance of the standards of a fair trial.

The UN report also charges that the Cuban Five were wrongfully held for seventeen months in solitary confinement after their arrest, and that their lawyers were deprived of the opportunity to examine all of the available evidence before the government invoked the Classified Information Protection Act.

On August 9, 2005, after the defense attorneys for the Cuban Five, had appealed this ruling, a three judge panel of the Court of Appeals issued a 93-page reversal of the initial conviction as well as nullified the sentences.

The case of the Cuban Five is going to haunt the Bush presidency because even those opposed to the Havana government have raised concern over the harsh treatment and violation of rights exercised upon the Five.

The Department of Justice's handling of these men has raised a ubiquitous fervor of nationalism profoundly affecting the younger Cuban generation who feel the US has acted on immoral grounds, says the COHA paper.

The alleged US War on Terror lacks consistency and integrity, affirms the analysis.

While a final decision on the fate of the Cuban Five is expected to be reached in the first half of 2007, the US government's single-minded hectoring of the Cuban Five vividly contrasts with the privileged treatment of Posada.

The US continues to harbor Posada, recalls COHA and warns that "if he is not brought to justice on this round, the US, by its own definition, can be identified as safe-haven for "evil-doers," invalidating its own justifications for its War on Terror.

Meanwhile, the lives of the five incarcerated Cubans will continue to be squandered because of the intense ideological and political prejudices that define President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales' way of formulating US policy when it comes to the Cuban issue, or how it uses its criminal justice system for revenge rather than vindication, lashes the COHA paper.

The COHA analysis was prepared by Research Associate Brittany Bond and co-edited by Research Associates Magali Devic, Danielle Ryan, and Eytan Starkman and released on December 27th, 2006.

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Harsh Criticism on Bush from Domestic Front

Sunday, December 31 2006 @ 12:41 PM CST