Today's
Stories
April 27, 2006
Jose Pertierra
Honor and Injustice:the Case of
the Cuban Five
April 26,2006
Robin Philpot
The Rich Life of Jane Jacobs
Sherry Wolf
Democrats, Their Apologists and Abortion:
the Jig is Up
Pratyush Chandra
Nepal: a Saga of Compromise and Struggle
Joshua Frank
Zig-Zagging Through the War With John
Kerry
Gary
Leupp
The Neo-Cons and Iran: No Negotiations
Bill
Quigley
Katrina: Eight Months Later
April
25, 2006
Paul
Craig Roberts
The World is Uniting Against the Bush Imperium
Linda
S. Heard
Is the US Waging Israel's Wars?: the Prophecy of Oded Yinon
Ralph
Nader
Political Science: Gingrich, "Futurism" and the Abolition
of the OTA
Mike
Whitney
Preparing for the Economic Typhoon
Michael
Donnelly
Lutherans Betray Michigan's Loon Lake Wetlands for Pieces of Silver
Sharon
Smith
Breathing New Life Into May Day
Website
of the Day
SDS Ver. 2
April
24, 2006
Tim
Wise
What Kind of Card is Race?
John
Stanton
Strike Iran, Watch Pakistan and Turkey Fall
Dave
Lindorff
Dangerous Times Ahead
Steve
Shore
Berlusconi Defeated: The Long Wait is Over ... Or Is It?
Amadou
Deme
Hotel Rwanda: Setting the Record Straight
Mickey
Z.
15 Minutes of Radical Fame: America Meets Bill Blum and Ward Churchill
Ralph Nader
Lee
Raymond's Unconscionable Platinum Parachute
Alexander
Cockburn
Obama's Game
Website
of the Day
Too Stupid to Be President?
April
22/23, 2006
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The General, GM and the Stryker
Jeff
Halper
SUMUD vs. Apartheid: the Elections in Palestine and Israel
Jeff
Klein
How to Manufacture a War Criminal: Saddam and Me, a True Story
Thomas
P. Healy
Out Now: an Interview with Anthony Arnove
David
Underhill
Stuck in Mobile with the Rev. Graham Blues Again
Lee
Sustar
"We are Going to Keep Marching": an Interview with Immigrant
Rights Organizer Martín Unzueta
Deb
Reich
The Little Mermaid on Highway Six: Rooting for Ordinary Israelis
to Wake Up
John
Chuckman
America's Gulag: Purge at the CIA
Fred
Gardner
More Suppression of Marijuana Research
Julian
Edney
Can Our Economy Run Without Fear?
Seth
Sandronsky
The GOP and California's Levees
Brynne
Keith-Jennings
The Meddlesome Ambassador Trivelli: Undermining Democracy in Nicaragua
Dave
Lindorff
Where are the Frogs?
Catherine
Ann Cullen and Harry Browne
Springsteen Polishes His Roots: First Impressions of "We Shall
Overcome"
Bill
Pahnelas
Bush Passes the Buck on Soaring Gas Prices
Jim
French
Time to Overhaul US Farm Policy
Ron
Jacobs
"I Know I'm Not Dreaming, Because I Can't Sleep Any More"
David
Krieger
The Courage of Sophie Scholl: Resisting Hitler
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets'
Basement
Buknatski, Engel and Ford
Website
of the Weekend
Eye of the Storm
April
21, 2006
Jonathan
Cook
The Sinister Meaning of Olmert's "Hitkansut":
Deporting Hamas MPs
Lawrence
R. Velvel
Physical Courage, Moral Courage and American
Generals
Evelyn
Pringle
How to Out a CIA Agent
Christopher
Brauchli
The Rich are Different
Pratyush
Chandra
Pure-and-Simple Revolutions in Nepal and Venezuela
Michael
George Smith
This is What a Movement Looks Like
Missy
Comley Beattie
Serving at the Decider's Pleasure
Sarah
Hines
The Bracero Program: 1942-1964
Website
of the Day
Hunger Strike at U. of Miami
April 20, 2006
Chris
Kutalik
As Crisis Deepens, Is Labor Finally
Showing Signs of a Comeback?
Gary Leupp
Cheney, the Neocons and China
Joshua
Frank
Stop the War! Dump the Democrats!
Diane Christian
The Authority to Kill
William
S. Lind
Sweeping Up: the Real Problem Wasn't
the Execution of the War, But the Enterprise Itself
Ramzy
Baroud
A Case for the Palestinan Government
Justin
E.H. Smith
Doctors and Lethal Injection
April 19, 2006
P. Sainath
More Kids? Pay More for Your Water
Norman
Solomon
When Diplomacy Means War: Bait-and-Switch
on Iran
Anthony Papa
When Justice Isn't Blind: Double Standards
for the Rich and Poor in New York
Mike
Ferner
Movement Blues
Stanley Heller
The Massacre at Qana, 10 Years Later:
Still No Justice
Rifundazione
"We Defeated Berlusconi"
Christopher
Reed
Secrets of the Garden of Bliss
Alexander
Cockburn
The Pulitzer Farce
Website of
the Day
Bunker
Busters: the Movie
April 18, 2006
Paul Craig Roberts
How Safe is Your Job?
Eric
Wingerter
Washington Post vs. Venezuela
Juan Santos
What Immigrants Need to Learn from
the Black Civil Rights Movement
Greg
Weiher
The Zarqawi Gambit Revisited
Sam Bahour
Is Hamas Being Forced to Collapse?
Behzad
Yaghmaian
In the Gaze of New Orleans
Website of
the Day
The
FBI and the Jack Anderson Files
April 17, 2006
Kevin Zeese
An Interview with the First Arab-American
Senator: Jim Abourezk on Bush's Lies and the Dems' Complicity
Uri Avnery
Olmert the Fox
Norman Solomon
Why Won't Moveon.Org Oppose the Bombing
of Iran?
John Ross
A Real Day Without Mexicans?
Laila al-Haddad
The Earth is Closing in on Us: Dispatch
from Gaza
Jeffrey Blankfort
A Tale of Two Members of Congress
and the Capitol Hill Police
Website of the Day
Dixie
Chicks: Not Ready to Back Down
April
15 / 16, 2006
Jeffrey
St. Clair
How Star Wars Came to the Arctic
Ralph
Nader
Remembering Rev. William Sloan Coffin
Thaddeus
Hoffmeister
The Ghost of Shinseki: the General Who Was Sent Out to Pasture for
Being Right
Kevin Prosen
/ Dave Zirin
Privilege Meets Protest at Duke
Thomas
P. Healy
Taking Care of What We've Been Given: a Conversation with Wendell
Berry
Kristoffer
Larsson
Are 40 Percent of All Swedes Anti-Semitic?: Anatomy of a Statistical
Flim-Flam
Fred
Gardner
Continuing Medical (Marijuana) Education
Edwin Krales
New York's Katrina: the Hidden Toll of AIDS Among Blacks and the
Poor
Brian
Cloughley
Don't Blitz Iran: Risking the Ultimate Blowback
John Holt
Walking Off Vietnam with Edward Abbey's Surrogate Son
Seth
Sandronsky
What Billionaires Mean By Education Reform: Oprah, Bill Gates and
the Privatization of Public Schools
Rafael Renteria
Making It Plain About New Orleans
Michael
Ortiz Hill
In the Ashes of Lament: an Easter Meditation
William A.
Cook
An Israel Accountability Act
Gideon
Levy
Shooting Nasarin: a Story About a Little Girl
Andrew Wimmer
Stopping the Bush Juggernaut: a New Citizens Campaign
Madis
Senner
Talking Points for Easter Weekend: Jesus Didn't Lie, Mr. Bush
Michael Kuehl
The Sex Police State: Women as "Rapists" and "Pedophiles"?
Mark
Scaramella
When Even God Can't Follow His Own Commandments: the Timeless Scarcasm
of Mark Twain
Nate Mezmer
187 Proof: Living and Dying Hip-Hop
Jesse
Walker
Playlist
Poets' Basement
Engel, Laymon and Subiet
Website
of the Weekend
Pink Serenades Bush
April
14, 2006
Col.
Dan Smith
Candor or Career?: Why Few Top Military Officials
Resign on Principle
Saul Landau
Ho Chi Minh City Moves On Without Regrets
Stan
Cox
The Real Death Tax
Kevin Zeese
Hersh vs. Bush on Iran: Who Would You Believe?
Brian
McKinlay
Bad Times for Bush's Buddies
Howard Meyers
Dwarves, Knives and Freedom: Bush, Jr. is No LBJ
Ishmael
Reed
The Colored Mind Doubles: How the Media Uses Blacks
to Chastize Blacks
Website of
the Day
Asshole: a Film Strip
April
13, 2006
CounterPunch
News Service
Powell's "Bitch"?
Norman
Solomon
The Lobby and the Bulldozer
Stanley Heller
Time to Shake Up the Peace Movement
Jeff
Birkenstein
Bush and Freedom of Speech
Evelyn J.
Pringle
Not So Fast, Mr. Powell
Michael
Donnelly
The Week the Bush Administration Fell Apart
Kamran Matin
Synergism of the Neo-Cons: What's Going On In Iran?
Website
of the Day
"Don't Be Afraid of the Neo-Cons"
April
12, 2006
Vijay Prashad
Resisting Fences
Alan
Maass
The Suicide of Anthony Soltero
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Insane First Strike Policy: If You Don't Want to Get Whacked,
You'd Better Get Your Nation a Nuke ... Fast
Ron
Jacobs
Resistance: the Remedy for Fear
Ramzy Baroud
The Imminent Decline of the American Empire?
Randall
Dodd
How a Wal-Mart Bank will Harm Consumers
Missy Comley
Beattie
The Boy President Who Cried "Wolf!"
P. Sainath
The Corporate Hijack of India's Water
Website of
the Day
"The System is Irretrievably Corrupt"
April
11, 2006
Al
Krebs
Corporate Agriculture's Dirty Little Secret: Immigration
and a History of Greed
Lawrence
R. Velvel
The Gang That Couldn't Leak Straight
Sonia Nettinin
Palestinian Health Care Conditions Under Israeli Occupation
Willliam
S. Lind
The Fourth Plague Hits the Pentagon: Generals as Private Contractors
Robert Ovetz
Endangered Species in a Can: the Disappearance of Big Fish
Pratyush
Chandra
Nepalis Say, "Ya Basta!"
Grant F.
Smith
The Bush Administration's Final Surprise?
Laray
Polk
Loud, Soft, Hard, Quiet: Marching Through Dallas for Immigrant Rights
Francis Boyle
O'Reilly and the Law of the Jungle: How to Beat a Bully on His Home
Turf
José
Pertierra
A Glimpse into the Mindset of Terrorists: Posada Carriles, Orlando
Bosch and the Downing of Cubana Flight 455
Website of
the Day
The Dead Emcee Scrolls
April
10, 2006
Ralph
Nader
Tinhorn Caesar and the Spineless Democrats
Heather Gray
Atlanta and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Uri
Avnery
The Big Wink
Joshua Frank
Big Greens and Beltway Politics: Betting on Losers
Seth
Sandronsky
Immigration and Occupations
Michael Leonardi
The Italian Elections: "Reality is No Longer Important"
Evelyn
Pringle
Did Bush Pull a Fast One on Fitzgerald?
Tom Kerr
FoxNews Does Ward Churchill
Lucinda
Marshall
The Lynching of Cynthia McKinney
Website of
the Day
Brown Berets
April
7 -9, 2006
Alexander
Cockburn
If Only They'd Hissed Barack Obama
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Saga of Magnequench: Outsourcing US Missile
Technology to China
Patrick
Cockburn
The War Gets Grimmer Every Day
David Vest
The Rebuking and Scorning of Cynthia McKinney
Dave
Lindorff
The Impeachment Clock Just Clicked Forward
Gary Leupp
"Ideologies of Hatred:" What Did Condi Mean?
Elaine
Cassel
The Moussaoui Trial: What Kind of Justice is This?
Saul Landau
Vietnam Diary: Hue Without Rules
James
Ridgeway
"This is Betty Ong Calling": a Short Film
Ron Jacobs
Why Iran was Right to Refuse US Money
John
Walsh
Kerry Advocates Iraqization: Too Little, Too Late
Ramzy Baroud
The US Attitude Toward Hamas: Disturbing Parallels with Nicaragua
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush Finds Democracy Has Its Limits
Todd Chretien
What the Pentagon Budget Could Buy for America
Jonathan
Scott
Javelins at the Head of the Monolith
John Bomar
What They're Saying About Bush in Arkansas
Michele
Brand
Iran, the US and the EU
Ronan Sheehan
Remember When the Irish First Met the Chinese?
Mickey
Z.
Let Us Now Praise OIL
Don Monkerud
March of the Bunglers
Michael
Dickinson
The Rich Young Man: a Miracle Play
Website
of the Weekend
The Case Against Israel and Munich: Compare and Contrast
| April
27, 2006
The Case of the Cuban Five
Honor and Injustice
By JOSÉ
PERTIERRA
Last
Valentine’s Day, the Federal Court of Appeals heard oral arguments
concerning one of the greatest injustices in the history of U.S.
jurisprudence. The lives of five innocent men hang in the balance,
awaiting the decision of the 11th Circuit. Although the United Nations
Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions already declared their trial
in Miami unfair and in violation of international law, most Americans
are not familiar with the story of the Cuban Five.
They
are five men of peace who came to this country from Cuba to combat
violence and terror. The men were wrongfully arrested eight years
ago, tried and eventually convicted in Miami for conspiracy to commit
espionage and murder. A Miami Court meted out the maximum prison
terms that the law allows: 1. Gerardo Hernandez received a double
life sentence, 2. Antonio Guerrero was given a single life sentence,
3. Ramon Labañino a life sentence, 4. Fernando Gonzalez a
19 year sentence, and 5. René Gonzalez 15 years.
To
understand their story and their trial, we must reflect on the last
forty-seven years of terrorism that have been launched against the
people of Cuba from the shores of South Florida with the knowledge
and consent of the United States government.
The
extremists in Miami have fought a dirty war against Cuba for over
almost fifty years. With the aid and comfort of the United States,
Cuban-immigrant terrorists specifically target innocent men, women
and children of Cuba in a type of Miami-Jihad against Cuban Communism.
They target Cuban airliners, ships, restaurants, hotels, places
of business—all in an effort to take over the island and shape
it in their own bloody image.
Cuba
puts the number of its victims of terrorism at 3,478 killed and
2,099 wounded. The terrorists also caused significant property damage
which, when added to the damage done to the Cuban economy by the
United States blockade against the island, amount to losses in excess
of $67 billion.
In
the early 1990s Cuba was struggling to jump-start an ailing economy,
after the dramatic disappearance of its principal trading partners:
the Soviet Union and its allies. Desperate for dollars, Cuba broadened
its tourist industry. Looking to cause a chilling effect on the
bourgeoning tourist trade in Cuba, the Miami-based terrorists targeted
Havana’s finest hotels and restaurants. An internationally
known Cuban-émigré terrorist named Luis Posada Carriles
used tens of thousands of dollars obtained from Cuban extremist
groups in Miami to hire Central Americans to take and set bombs
in Cuba. The bombs killed an Italian tourist, Fabio di Celmo, and
wounded several others.
Frustrated
with the FBI´s apparent unwillingness to stop this campaign
of terror, Cuba asked the Five to penetrate the Miami based extremist
organizations and gather information about upcoming terrorist acts
in order to try and derail them before the terrorists could carry
them out. They were able to establish clear, convincing and unequivocal
evidence that implicated leading organizations and individuals living
in Miami as being behind the campaign of terror.
President
Fidel Castro decided to send a personal emissary to Washington to
deliver a hand-written note to President Bill Clinton, asking that
the United States indict and prosecute the terrorists. Castro’s
letter to Clinton said in part, “if you really want to do
so, you can put a stop to this new form of terrorism. It is impossible
to stop this terrorism without United States involvement. . . .
Unless it is stopped now, in the future any country could be victimized
by this new terrorism.”
President
Castro’s personal emissary was none other than Nobel Prize
for Literature Gabriel García Márquez who arrived
in Washington, D.C. on May 1, 1998. President Clinton was out of
town for several days in California, and after waiting him out at
the Hotel Washington for several days, García Márquez
finally met with White House Chief of Staff Mac McLarty on May 6,
1998 and gave him the letter. García Márquez recalls
McLarty´s reaction to the letter: “The terrrorist plot
the letter outlined elicited from McLarty a grunt, from which he
uttered ´this is terrible´. García Márquez
tells that McLarty then repressed a mischievous smile and exclaimed
without interrupting his reading of the letter, ´we have a
common enemy´.”
After
McLarty finished reading, García Márquez asked the
question he had been saving since arriving in Washington, “would
it be possible for the FBI to establish contact with its Cuban counterparts
and begin a war in common against terrorism?” The meeting
in the White House, says García Márquez, lasted fifty
minutes and ended with McLarty looking into his eyes saying “Your
mission was of the highest importance, and you have done your job
very well.” García Márquez committed the phrase
to paper in a letter to Fidel Castro and said: “neither the
personal decency that I possess abundantly, nor the modesty that
I lack permits me to abandon this phrase to the ephemeral glory
of the microphones hidden in the flowerpots.”
In
the wake of the Garcia Marquez visit, the U.S. sent an FBI team
to Cuba a month later to discuss collaboration with Cuba on a “War
On Terror”. Cuba handed over 64 files containing the results
of its investigation into 31 different terrorists’ acts and
plans against the island in the decade of the 90s. Cuba enclosed
details of the terrorist operations, including photographs of the
explosives used. Having learned the lesson taught Woodward and Bernstein
by their famous source “Deep Throat”, Cuba advised the
FBI to “follow the money” if it was to discover the
organizations in Miami who were behind the campaign of terror, and
Cuba handed the FBI 51 files with information relating to the money
trail.
The
mastermind behind the terror campaign of the 90s was Luis Posada
Carriles, who was then living in hiding in Central America and receiving
money from Miami extremist groups. Posada Carriles was wanted in
Venezuela for the cold blooded murder of 73 innocent passengers
aboard a Cuban civilian airliner he downed in 1976 using C-4 explosives.
With the help of influential friends in Miami and Washington, he
escaped from jail in Venezuela while awaiting trial.
The
money trail led directly to the lap of Posada Carriles and passed
through the offices of the terrorist organizations in Miami that
financed him. In 1998, Posada Carriles admitted to the New York
Times of being the mastermind behind the bombing campaign in Cuba
and that the money used to carry out the campaign of terror came
from well known Cuban-immigrant organizations in Miami.
Cuba
handed over to the FBI tapes of 14 telephone conversations of Luis
Posada Carriles with details on the series of bombs that had exploded
in Cuba in the 90s. Cuba also gave the FBI Luis Posada Carriles´
addresses in El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Panamá.
Also tapes of conversations with Central American detainees in Cuba
who admitted Posada Carriles is their boss and had sent them to
Cuba to place explosives in the hotels and restaurants. Finally,
Cuba turned over 60 sets of documents with information about 40
terrorists based in Miami, including their addresses, and evidence
of their ties to terror.
Cuba
then waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. Cuba waited for the
FBI to start arresting terrorists. But instead the FBI arrested
on September 12, 1998, the men now known as the Cuban Five: the
men who had come to Miami to penetrate the Miami exile terrorist
organizations.
According
to El Nuevo Herald, the first persons that were notified of the
arrests of the Cuban Five were Cong. Lincoln Diaz Balart and Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen of Miami.
The
Five were charged with 26 counts of violating federal laws. They
were placed in solitary confinement (in a place called “the
hole”) for the next 17 months, until the start of their trial.
The
Elian González case had stirred up anti-Cuba passions in
Miami during the first several months of the year 2000, and a defense
team concerned about prejudices in the city against their clients
made motions to have the venue changed from Miami-Dade which the
defense called “a basic nucleus of anti-Castro Cuban exiles
where the conditions for a fair trial do not exist.” The motions
to change venue were denied, and the trial took place in Miami in
the fall of 2000. It lasted seven months.
The
Five were not tried for espionage, but for conspiracy to commit
espionage. It is not disputed that the Five didn’t have, didn’t
take and didn’t see a single page of classified government
information. The first thing the prosecutor said to the jury at
the beginning of trial was: “We arrested these five men and
confiscated 20,000 documents from their computers, but ladies and
gentleman of the jury none of these 20,000 documents contain a single
page of classified information.” The lynchpin of the government’s
case on conspiracy to commit espionage was that Antonio Guerrero
worked in a metal shop in the Boca Chica Navy Training Base, a base
that was completely open to the public and that even had a visitor’s
viewing area to allow folks to photograph planes on the runway.
No one even alleged that Antonio Guerrero or any of the Five had
access to any classified information from the base or from anywhere
else.
The
government argued that the Five had agreed to have Tony Guerrero
work in the navy base and that the alleged agreement constituted
a conspiracy to commit espionage.
The
second conspiracy charge was as ridiculous as the first: conspiracy
to commit homicide. The Government alleged that Gerardo Hernández
conspired with Cuban officials to shoot down two aircraft from a
Miami organization called Hermanos al Rescate as they entered Cuban
airspace. The two aircraft had been intercepted by the Cuban Air
Force and all four aboard were killed. No evidence of any agreement
between Gerardo and anyone else regarding the shoot-down was ever
presented. Only a jury in Miami could ever find guilt beyond a reasonable
doubt regarding a conspiracy about which not a single piece of evidence
was presented. The absence of evidence on this charge was so glaring
that the Prosecutor tried to modify the charge but the Court of
Appeals refused to allow it.
The
jury, whose foreman openly admitted during voir dire his dislike
of Fidel Castro, returned guilty verdicts on all 26 counts of a
seven month trial against five defendants in a single day. After
listening to more than 70 witnesses over the course of the trial,
reviewing 119 volumes of transcript plus 15 volumes of pre-trial
testimony and more than 800 exhibits some as long as 40 pages, the
jury took all of one day of deliberation to convict.
After
their convictions, the Five were sent to maximum security prisons
across this country, and two of them have been denied visits from
their wives for the past seven years in violation of U.S. and international
law.
On
August 9, 2005, a Three-Judge Panel of the very conservative Court
of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta published a 93 page decision
that reversed the convictions and sentences, ruling that the Five
did not receive a fair trial in Miami and acknowledging evidence
produced by the defense at trial that revealed terrorist actions
by Miami exile groups against Cuba. The three judges even cited
in a footnote the role of Luis Posada Carriles and correctly referred
to him as a terrorist. They found that “a perfect storm”
of prejudice prevented the Cuban Five from having a fair trial in
Miami.
The
Bush Administration, however, didn’t give up. Through its
Solicitor General, the government made a formal appeal to all 12
judges of the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, and out of apparent deference
to the unusual request from the Department of Justice the Court
of Appeals nullified the three-judge panel decision and agreed to
hear the case en banc. Oral Agreements were heard on February 14,
2006. and we continue to await a verdict from the Court of Appeals,
as the Five continue to languish in prisons throughout the country
far away from their loved ones. They will have spent eight years
in prison unjustly this coming September 12.
Attorney
Leonard Weinglass who represents Antonio Guerrero said recently:
“The Five were not prosecuted because they violated American
law, but because their work exposed those who were. By infiltrating
the terror network that is allowed to exist in Florida they demonstrated
the hypocrisy of America's claimed opposition to terrorism.”
As
the Five were being prosecuted in Miami, the campaign of terror
against Cuba continued. In November 2000, Posada Carriles was arrested
in Panama along with three accomplices before they could carry out
the plan to blow up an auditorium filled with students at the University
of Panamá where Cuban President Fidel Castro was to speak.
The four were convicted by a Panamanian Court, but on August 26,
2004, in one of her last acts as President, Mireya Moscoso pardoned
them in violation of Panamanian law. The three accomplices, all
Cuban-Americans, immediately went to Miami to be given a heroes
welcome. Unable to immediately join them in Miami, because he is
neither a US citizen nor a legal resident, Posada Carriles went
to Honduras to scheme for a way to go where many terrorists love
to live: Miami.
In
March 2005 he finally got his wish. His Cuban-immigrant friends
smuggled him into Miami from the Yucatán peninsula aboard
a yacht called the Santrina in March of last year.
Venezuela
immediately presented a request for his extradition for 73 counts
of first degree murder in relation to the downing of the civilian
aircraft in 1976. Rather than acting on the extradition request,
the United States government is now sheltering him in El Paso, Texas
in violation of important international treaties and conventions,
including one that protects us from terrorism aboard civil aviation
and another one that prosecutes terrorists who use explosives in
commission of their crimes.
The
United States Government is conducting a schizophrenic war on terror,
as it prosecutes those who combat terrorism and save lives, while
it shelters those who commit terrorism and murder, such as Posada
Carriles, Orlando Bosch and so many other terrorists who currently
reside in Miami.
Washington’s
schizophrenia on terror is undetected by the majority of the American
people, because the mainstream media in this country does not care
enough to tell the story.
Should
the American people learn the truth about the Cuban Five, they will
hold the United States government accountable for its responsibility
concerning forty-seven years of terrorism against Cuba, including
the unjust prosecution of the Cuban Five and the equally unjust
sheltering of international terrorists such as Luis Posada Carriles.
Some
in Miami think Cuban immigrant terrorists are patriots. They ignore
that civilized people must abide by rules, even in politics and
war. To target innocent civilians because some would disagree with
their country’s policies is not patriotism. It is murder.
There is no honor in murder.
There
is no honor in prosecuting those who peacefully combat terrorism,
and there is no honor in sheltering terrorists. As long as the Cuban
Five remain behind bars and impunity reigns in Miami, President
Bush’s War on Terror will lack credibility.
There
is no honor in silence. Journalists have a duty to tell the American
people the truth: about the absence of weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq, about the torture of prisoners in Guantanámo and
Abu Ghraib, about the existence of CIA controlled clandestine prisons,
about the government’s illegal domestic surveillance program,
about the bloody history of Miami’s terrorists, and about
the true story of the Cuban Five. It takes a while, but eventually
the truth comes out.
History
will honor the Cuban Five, and justice will soon set them free.
José
Pertierra is an attorney in Washington, D.C. He represents
the government of Venezuela in the extradition case of Luis Posada
Carriles.
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