What
You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter
WHO RULES: THE ISRAEL LOBBY
OR UNCLE SAM?
The answer
at last! Uri Avnery, former Knesset member, assesses the Lobby's
power. "If the Israeli government wanted a law tomorrow
annulling the 10 Commandments, 95 U.S. Senators (at least) would
sign the bill forthwith." But, yes, in the end the dog wags
the tail.Fifty
years ago Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" blew the cobwebs
out of millions of young minds and drove a stake through the
heart of Eisenhower's America. Lenni Brenner remembers Ginsberg
in the East Village.Dr Mengele died in exile, in disguise. Dr Ishii
died rich and recognized, in his own Tokyo home. Christopher
Reed on Japanese WW2 medical tortures and how the U.S. covered
them up.CounterPunch
Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember,
we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition
of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription
to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find
anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition.
Remember contributions are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
State Department
Report Offers No Evidence that Cuba is a "Terrorist State"
By WAYNE S. SMITH
In the case of Cuba, the State Department's
annual report on "State Sponsors of Terrorism," issued
on April 28 of 2006, is a complete dud. It presents not a shred
of evidence to confirm that Cuba is in fact a terrorist state:
nothing!
It says, for example, that:
"Cuba did not attempt to track, block, or seize terrorist
assets, although the authority to do so is contained in Cuba's
Law 93 Against Acts of Terrorism, as well as Instruction 19 of
the Superintendent of the Cuban Central Bank"
But the obvious response to
that is "what assets?" There is no evidence at all
that al-Qaeda or any other foreign terrorist organization has
any assets in Cuba. So, there is nothing to seize. The statement
does make clear, however, that Cuba has laws on the books against
acts of terrorism!
The report goes on to complain
that: "To date, the Cuban government has taken no action
against al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups."
But, again, the charge is a
non sequitur. Neither al-Qaeda nor any other terrorist group
has a presence in Cuba and thus it is not at all clear what "action"
Cuba could take against them.
The report complains further
that: "Cuba did not undertake any counterterrorism efforts
in international or regional fora."
But this is not really true.
Cuba has signed all twelve of the UN's anti-terrorist resolutions.
It also condemned the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and expressed
its solidarity with the American people. Subsequently, the Cuban
government offered to sign a bi-lateral agreement with the United
States to cooperate in the struggle against terrorism. The Bush
administration ignored the offer.
As though grasping for something--anything!--to
say, the report complains that Cuba "maintains friendly
ties with Iran and North Korea." True, but unless there
is some evidence that those ties extend to cooperation in terrorist
activities or planning--and no such evidence is presented --,
they are not pertinent to the question of whether Cuba is or
is not a "terrorist state."
The report repeats its annual
complaint that Cuba permits American fugitives to live in Cuba
and is not responsive to U.S. requests that they be extradited.
There are American fugitives
in Cuba, yes. Most are hijackers who came in the 1970s and have
lived in Cuba since then. There are a number, probably 7 or 8,
wanted for crimes in the United States, and it is true that Cuba
has not responded positively to U.S. requests for their extradition.
But two things must be noted about that. First, the 1904 extradition
treaty is for all practical purposes no longer operative because
the U.S. has not honored a single Cuban request for extradition
since 1959. Second, by and large, the "crimes" committed
in the U.S. had a political background, and Article VI of the
old 1904 treaty excludes the extradition of those whose crimes
had a "political character."
Further, as Robert Muse, an
international lawyer, noted in a report on the matter back in
2004, none of the U.S. fugitives in Cuba provides a basis for
declaring Cuba to be a "state sponsor of terrorism."
Legal authority to make such a designation is found in section
6(j) of the 1979 Export Administration Act, and under that section,
it would have to be demonstrated that the fugitives had committed
"terrorist" acts and that those acts were "international"
in character. Muse states that he has been unable to identify
a single U.S. fugitive in Cuba who meets those twofold criteria.
And so, the fugitives are extraneous to the definition of Cuba
as a "state sponsor of terrorism."[1]
Strangely, the report raises
the case of Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban exile arch-terrorist
charged with the bombing of a Cubana airliner back in 1976 with
the loss of 73 lives, for other terrorist acts in Cuba and for
planning the assassination of Fidel Castro in Panama in the year
2000, under circumstances that could have cost the lives of hundreds.
The report says Cuba demands that he be surrendered to them.
This is inaccurate. It is the government of Venezuela that has
requested his extradition, which the United States, without legal
grounds, has refused. Posada Carriles is being held in custody
in El Paso, Texas. Clearly, he has received preferential treatment
from the U.S. government. Otherwise, he would have been deported
to Venezuela or tried here for his crimes.
Posada Carriles joins a list
of other exile terrorists being sheltered by the U.S. Orlando
Bosch, who also participated in the bombing of the Cubana airliner
back in 1976, is probably the most notorious of these. It would
appear from this report, then, that it is the United States and
not Cuba that is harboring terrorists!
As it does every year, the
report mentions the presence in Cuba of members of the Basque
ETA guerrilla organization, and the Colombian FARC and ELN. In
past years, the State Department had tried to suggest that they
were in Cuba against the wishes of their respective governments
and had sinister objectives, but that suggestion has been shot
down year after year by representatives of the Colombian and
Spanish governments. This year, no such allegations are made.
It is acknowledged that they are living in Cuba legally. Further,
the report states that: "There is no information concerning
terrorist activities of these or other organizations on Cuban
territory.The United States is not aware of specific terrorist
enclaves in the country."
If they are there legally and
are not involved in terrorist activities, then how does their
presence in any way lead to the conclusion that Cuba is a "state
sponsor of terrorism?"
Indeed, how does anything in
this report lead to that conclusion?
[1] See The Center for International
Policy's International Policy Report, "Cuba Should Not be
on the Terrorist List," November 2004, pp.4-5.
Wayne S. Smith is a senior fellow at the Center
for International Policy in Washington, D.C., and a retired
foreign service officer with service in the Soviet Union and
the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.