Wednesday, May 11, 2005



Harbouring terrorists

Following the September 11th attacks, President Bush promised to "pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism". Then he invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taleban regime for providing a safe haven for Osama bin Laden. Now, the US is harbouring a terrorist.

In 1976, Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban-born Venezuelan, bombed a Cuban Airlines jet, killing 73 people. He was arrested in Venezuela, but escaped before being convicted. In the 90's he reportedly carried out a series of bombing attacks on Havana tourist spots. Five years ago, he was arrested in Panama on charges of attempting to kill the visting Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. He was convicted of a lesser charge, then pardoned, leading to a messy diplomatic incident between Panama and Cuba. Mr Carriles has recently entered the US illegally and has now applied for political asylum. The US denies they are harbouring him - but given that their own records show that he is a former CIA asset, that should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

Calls for international cooperation in the "war on terror" are predicated on the idea that terrorists aren't just the enemies of America, but of civilisation. If the US wants this to be anything more than empty rhetoric, its path is clear: it must find Carriles and extradite him to Venezuela to face justice. Otherwise they won't just stand exposed as hypocrites; they'll also be undermining their own ability to fight terrorists around the globe.

5 comments:

You're quite right, but once you've fully accepted how nonsensical, hypocritical and politically-expedient the US/UK anti-terrorist rhetoric is (and there's any amount of evidence in point), it becomes rather hard to bother summoning the required moral outrage anymore.
It's like the US 'war on drugs' which has cost ever-increasing sums to produce ever-increasing levels of drug availability in the US and elsewhere, it's clear that the true intent is anything other than the stated.
It's just most people won't/can't accept the depth of corruption and the degree to which they're cynically lied to and manipulated. because most were weaned on the evil of the nazis and the righteousness of the West, rather than the full moral spectrum on both sides of history.
And the rabid-Right is getting increasingly bold over time as their control over media and political process becomes more deeply entrenched, which is both bizarre and worrying.. I mean Bush, Blair and Howard all demonstrated liars yet getting re-elected? Just how low have do political standards have to drop before people will break out of their apathy?
You just look at the pretzel-bendy logic employed by the Right to defend this stuff and it becomes hardly worth the 1's and 0's to discuss/argue. End rant.
Anyway, my point is: give up the idea that the war on terror can possibly morph into some sort of genuine holy crusade. It's pure cynical made-for-media cover for a strategic resource-grab, and can never be combatted till it's addressed as such.

Posted by Anonymous : 5/12/2005 09:06:00 AM

I am sure the boys over at sirhumphreys.blogspot.com would have something to say about this post, I hope they read it. Although they don't like anything that is negative about the good ole' USA.

Posted by Anonymous : 5/12/2005 11:20:00 AM

anon - The Sir Humphreys-dwellers generally foray out of the communal cave to get their jollies poking things with sticks to enjoy watching them jump, then retreat back into the darkness to snicker amongst themselves.
If an original thought strolled in there by mistake it'd feel about as welcome as Noam Chomski in Tora Bora.

Icehawk - I'm not talking about normalising or accepting any of this, just not wasting time compiling more evidence. If the jury is still hung at this point, it's just not listening.

Posted by Anonymous : 5/12/2005 01:58:00 PM

Still if you are going to be outraged by them not doing something you should be positive if they do do it.

otherwise you are using hypocracy to fight hypocracy.

Posted by Genius : 5/12/2005 06:40:00 PM

If you are as deeply cynical about politics and politicians as I have become then none of this news is really surprising.

The hypocrisy, double standards and mendacity of some western governments has been a fact of life for decades. These things were happening quietly anyway but the so-called 'War on Terror' has merely allowed them to be cloaked in seeming legitimacy.

In fact in the last few years the 'Axis of Idiocy' has become ever more blatant and shameless in the degree to which they will say one thing while doing another.

All it takes is for good men to do nothing...........

Posted by Anonymous : 5/12/2005 07:38:00 PM