Bush-Posada - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

piesen · 05-20-2005, 11:12 PM

Now here is the question off the Week
Should we extradite Posada or not …………….I say ohh yea.

I know he has been working with the CIA (thereby the USA) but if you go rogue you loose you license.
What he is accused off happened after he was dismissed from the CIA early 1976. And frankly no matter who you work for, if you have any part in terrorism like downing an aircraft (civilian aircraft) you should be put to the big sleep.
What is yea all opinion??

raveneye · 05-24-2005, 08:10 AM

He should be tried in a court of law, somewhere. Preferably one in working order, which would probably exclude Venezuela in his case. Maybe they should extradite him to Italy, since I think some of his alleged victims were Italian.

roachboy · 05-24-2005, 08:13 AM

raven: could you please hunt up a link or two that might give background for your view of venezeulan courts? i am curious about it.

Lebell · 05-24-2005, 08:59 AM

I would also appreciate some background.

This is not a story I am actively following.

maleficent · 05-24-2005, 09:07 AM

Accusations Against Luis Posada Carriles

The 1976 bombing of a Cubana jetliner that was blown out of the sky off the coast of Barbados, which killed 73 people on board. Venezuelan courts acquitted Posada twice and he escaped from a prison while awaiting a third trial. Posada last week denied involvement in the bombing. Venezuela is seeking his extradition.
A string of hotel bombings in Havana in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist and wounded several others, acts the Cuban government considers Posada's work. Posada took credit for the attacks in a 1998 interview with The New York Times, but during a news conference last week declined to answer questions about the bombings.
An alleged plot to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro in 2000. Panamanian authorities arrested Posada and three Cuban exiles from Miami in Panama during the Ibero-American Summit. A Panamanian court convicted Posada of endangering public safety and falsifying documents, and sentenced him to eight years. But outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso pardoned Posada and the others.

Among other things...

raveneye · 05-24-2005, 09:34 AM

My comment is based mainly on the political situation (enmity between Bush and Chavez, friendship between Chavez and Castro), but there are also a variety of judicial problems that could be cited, besides the corruption in general: Chavez' packing of the Supreme Court in seeming violation of his own constitution; the fact that judges for the most part don't have tenure and can be fired by that packed Supreme Court for making politically incorrect decisions; the fact that Posada was already tried twice in Venezuela and acquitted for the airliner bombing. He escaped (bribed a warden) while the case was under appeal by the government, so presumably (I guess) if he goes back the appeal will go forward and be heard by Chavez' Supreme Court. Or, maybe they would attempt to retry him a third time.

All these things makes it even pretty unlikely (in my opinion) that Posada could ever get something resembling a fair trial in Venezuela. More likely it would be a political circus.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/12/14/venezu9864.htm

raveneye · 05-24-2005, 09:52 AM

. . . I'm in Miami and this is pretty big news here. I got a haircut today in a little local Cuban shop and it's all that everybody was talking about there; there's an interview with Posada in one of the local papers today.

One of Bush's problems is that the Charter of the Organization of American States requires the U.S. to extradite him to Venezuela, it's quite clear (you can find the legal language on their website). Yet there's no way Bush will allow that to happen. Ironically Bush has been attacking Chavez for various violations of that same charter. I think most people (excepting Cubans) think Posada should be extradited, it's just a question of where.

Pacifier · 05-24-2005, 10:59 AM

What is the problem with venezuela? They might be a bit too left for you americans but will he be detained in some sort of Camp X-Ray or what?

piesen · 05-24-2005, 05:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raveneye

One of Bush's problems is that the Charter of the Organization of American States requires the U.S. to extradite him to Venezuela, it's quite clear (you can find the legal language on their website). Yet there's no way Bush will allow that to happen. Ironically Bush has been attacking Chavez for various violations of that same charter. I think most people (excepting Cubans) think Posada should be extradited, it's just a question of where.

Put me strait here Am I not hearing it right.

Did Bush not say?
There is no safe-haven for any terrorists we will hunt you down and we will punish you and we will punish the ones who hides you.
Well I guess they have found a safe-haven the good old US of A as long as you have not done it on US soil.

Of cause since he has been on the CIA’s pay list he just mite know to much for this country to extradite him to a left leaning country since he might talk to much if the US would give him up (since he came here to seek asylum and saying you owe me)

I heard this on NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4659968
Check it out Very interesting about 3.5 min.

host · 05-24-2005, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

I would also appreciate some background.

This is not a story I am actively following.

Lebell, I could have simply and quickly supplied you with a quick synopsis on Posada: <a href="http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/042405.html">The Bush Family's Favorite Terrorist</a>

I elected not to do that because I endeavor to include in all of my posts the links to publications and other sources that are least likely to be impeachable, are MSM, or are of a noncontroversial, humanitarian nature, such as the source for the last quote box in this post:
http://www.nlg.org/about/aboutus.htm

The information that I am presenting here influenced my overall perception of GHW Bush and his sons. I've been aware of this story through the 90's and the "pardon" of Bosch, by GHW via Jeb's influence born out of political expediency at the time it took place, certainly it helped to make me a skeptic regarding the 2000 Florida vote and heightens my view of GWB's hypocrisy as related to his "war on terror" policies, especially domestic policy.

Quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in639051.shtml
Panama Pardons Spur Cuban Outrage

HAVANA, Aug. 27, 2004
(CBS) By CBS News Producer Portia Siegelbaum
...............Just a few hours earlier, Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso was pardoning four Cuban exiles, one of whom collaborated with Pinochet’s secret police.

Guillermo Novo, along with three other Cuban exiles, were arrested in Panama in November 2000 on information provided by Cuban intelligence.

Fidel Castro’s personal security detail had swept the Panamanian capital in advance of the Cuban president’s arrival for an Ibero-American Summit. They provided Panamanian authorities with a surveillance video of four known anti-Castro extremists believed to be plotting to assassinate Castro. The plan, said Cuban security, was to plant explosives at a scheduled meeting between Castro and university students.

Panamanian courts, however, determined there was not enough evidence to sentence the men for attempted murder and instead sentenced Novo and Pedro Remón to seven years each for endangering public safety and Luis Posada Carriles and Gaspar Jiménez to eight years for endangering public safety and falsifying documents.

Cuba protested the court ruling, charging the men had gotten off too easy. Posada Carriles, the most notorious of the four, topped Cuba’s most wanted list..........................

.......................The Cuban government broke relations with Panama just eight hours after the president pardoned “the Hemisphere’s top terrorist”, Posada Carriles, and the other three.

All day Thursday and into Friday morning, Cuba’s state run media broadcast a lengthy government declaration detailing what it called Posada Carriles “terrorist” record in dossiers it has kept over the past four decades.

The declaration accused Moscoso of violating “international treaties against terrorism signed by Panama” and of becoming an “accomplice of terrorism”.

Moscoso told the press that one reason for pardoning the men, just a week before leaving office, was to prevent their being extradited in the future. The President hands over power next Wednesday to Martin Torrijos, son of the late Omar Torrijos, a populist military general, who, like his father, is friendly with Castro.

Havana requested the extradition of the four men. Posada Carriles also faces criminal charges in Venezuela for a possible connection to the 1976 terrorist bombing of a Cuban commercial airliner off Barbados. All 73 persons on board were killed. The flight originated in Venezuela. Posada Carriles, who escaped from a Venezuelan jail while facing charges of planning that bombing, denies involvement.

Havana also charges that he paid a mercenary to bomb a series of Havana hotels and restaurants in 1997, in which an Italian businessman was killed.

In a 1997 interview with the New York Times, Posada Carriles took credit for the hotel explosions. He later retracted the claim, although the newspaper said it had his admission on tape.

The U.S. denies charges in the Cuban and Panamanian media that it brought pressure on Moscoso to grant the pardons.

"This was a decision made by the government of Panama. We never lobbied the Panamanian government to pardon anyone involved in this case," spokesman
Adam Ereli told reporters at a State Department briefing.

President Bush’s new get-tough Cuba policy and the outgoing Panamanian President’s close relations with the White House have fanned the rumors.

Three of the men, Pedro Remón, Guillermo Novo and Gaspar Jiménez were flown to Miami on a private plane Thursday morning, shortly after being released. They were greeted by family and well-wishers.

A second plane flew Posada Carriles, who is not a U.S. citizen, to an undisclosed location. There are unconfirmed reports that the plane made a stop in San Pedro Sula, Honduras and that immigration officials there are searching for Posada Carriles.

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Apr16.html
Our Man's in Miami. Patriot or Terrorist?

By Ann Louise Bardach
Sunday, April 17, 2005; Page B03

In 1988, the late, great Cuban exile director Nestor Almendros released his critically acclaimed film about political prisoners in his homeland -- a documentary that shattered whatever was left of the utopian view of Cuba. It was called "Nobody Listened." The title would work well for a sequel, this time set in Miami to shatter any lingering illusions about the nature of Cuban exile politics.

The anti-hero could be Luis Posada Carriles, the fugitive militant, would-be assassin of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and prison escapee who is wanted by Venezuela for the 1976 shootdown of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 civilians. Late last month, a South Florida television station offered a startling exclusive: Posada, last seen in Honduras, had slipped into Miami. Then last Tuesday, Posada's newly retained attorney had the temerity to request asylum for him.

Posada must have thought nobody would be listening. How was it possible that a self-described "warrior" and "militante" -- long a fixture on the U.S. immigration authorities' watch list -- had crossed into the United States with a bogus passport and visa? And is it remotely conceivable that the Bush administration, notwithstanding its purported commitment to the war on terrorism (Rule 1 of U.S. counterterrorism policy: "make no concessions to terrorists and strike no deals"), would consider residency for a notorious paramilitary commando? He has even boasted of orchestrating numerous attacks on both civilian and military targets (including the 1997 bombings of Cuban tourist facilities that killed an Italian vacationer and wounded 11 others) during his 50-year war to topple Castro.

In any other American city, Posada, who is now 77, might have been met by a SWAT team, arrested and deported. But in the peculiar ecosystem of Miami, where hardline anti-Castro politicians control both the radio stations and the ballot boxes, the definition of terrorism is a pliable one: One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. His lawyer made the tortured argument that those who planted bombs in Havana could not be held responsible for innocent victims unless it could be proven that those victims were, in fact, targets. Other supporters have underscored that Posada was once a CIA asset who fought in its ill-fated excursion at the Bay of Pigs, and who played a crucial role in the Iran-contra operations during the Reagan-Bush years.

It is a story of keen interest to me as Posada had granted me an exclusive interview in June 1998. At a safe house and other locations in Aruba, I spent three days tape-recording him for a series of articles that ran in the New York Times. The urbane and chatty Posada said that he had decided to speak with me in order to generate publicity for his bombing campaign of Cuba's tourist industry -- and frighten away tourists. "Castro will never change, never," Posada said. "Our job is to provide inspiration and explosives to the Cuban people."

Instead of undermining Castro, such comments have enabled the Cuban leader to argue that his foes are lawless at best and killers at worst. And so Castro remains in power, and Posada is looking for a new home.

Posada and his Miami strategists are hoping that he can follow in the footsteps of his fellow conspirator, one-time cellmate and convicted terrorist, Orlando Bosch. In 1976, Bosch, Posada and two Venezuelans, were charged and imprisoned for the bombing of the Cuban civilian airliner -- the first act of airline terrorism in the hemisphere -- killing all aboard, including the members of Cuba's national fencing team, many of them teenagers.

The powerful exile leadership in Miami financed a legal crusade to free the two, challenging the trial process in Caracas, where bribery is widespread. Bosch would serve 11 years and Posada nine before their lawyers won acquittals. But both remained jailed pending prosecutors' appeals and new trials, in accordance with Venezuela's labyrinthine judicial system.

Their indictment was the result of the collective data and wisdom of three intelligence organizations: American, Venezuelan and Cuban. "Bosch and Posada were the primary suspects," a retired high-level CIA official familiar with the case confirmed in an interview, adding "there were no other suspects." A close confidante of the two militants told me, "It was a screw-up. It was supposed to be an empty plane." Others contend that the men believed the airliner to be a military craft, though neither man has ever expressed remorse for the civilian death toll. An unrepentant Bosch still calls the plane "a legitimate target," recently telling a Miami reporter, "there were no innocents on that plane."

Posada "escaped" from prison in 1985 after his Miami cohorts paid a $28,000 bribe to the warden. Three weeks later, he was in El Salvador, where Felix Rodriguez, a comrade from his early CIA days, was waiting for him with a very special job offer: to be his deputy in the covert Contra resupply operation directed by Lt. Col. Oliver L. North. In our conversations, Posada blamed a fellow commando (conveniently dead) for the airline bombing and cited political influence-peddling in the Venezuelan justice system for his and Bosch's long prison stints. Their critics argue the opposite: that Venezuela's endemic corruption enabled Posada and Bosch's supporters to buy them superb accommodations in prison and, ultimately, Posada's escape.

Bosch was allowed to leave Venezuela not long after then-U.S. ambassador Otto Reich voiced concerns about his safety in a series of cables to the State Department. He flew to Miami in December 1987 without a visa and was promptly arrested. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh described Bosch as an "unreformed terrorist," who should be deported. But Bosch had a powerful advocate in Jeb Bush, who at that time was managing the campaign of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban exile to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. <h4>In an unusual presidential intercession on behalf of a convicted terrorist, President George H.W. Bush overruled the FBI and the Justice Department and in 1990 approved the release of Bosch, who won U.S. residency two years later.

Posada is gambling that he will have Bosch's luck and is banking on the same supporters. But Bosch's presence in Miami has often proved to be an embarrassment to the Bush family. When Bill Clinton was questioned by a Newsweek reporter about his pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, he snapped, "I swore I wouldn't answer questions about Marc Rich until Bush answered about Orlando Bosch." Few Republicans raised the issue again.</h4>

In November 2000, Posada was arrested again, along with three other anti-Castro militants for plotting to assassinate Castro during the Ibero-American summit in Panama. All of the arrested men had impressive rap sheets and had been charter members of the terrorist groups CORU or Omega 7. In April 2004, Panama's Supreme Court sentenced Posada and his associates to up to eight years in prison, but in August the quartet was sprung by a surprise pardon from departing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, who maintains good relations with Miami's political leadership. Her pardon outraged U.S and Latin American law enforcement officials.

Three of the men were flown to Miami and met by their jubilant supporters just days before the 2004 presidential election. But Posada disappeared -- until his emergence here last month.

The quartet are not the only unsavory characters to be given the red carpet in Miami. Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen, with the backing of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, wrote letters on behalf of several exile militants held in U.S. prisons for acts of political violence. Some were released in 2001, including Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel and Virgilio Paz Romero, both convicted for the notorious 1976 car bomb-murder of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronnie Moffitt, in Washington. Once released, instead of being deported like other non-citizen criminals, they have been allowed to settle into the good life in Miami.

South Florida's politicians have also tried, unsuccessfully so far, to convince the Justice Department to release Cuban-born Valentin Hernandez, who gunned down fellow exile Luciano Nieves in 1975. Nieves' crime was speaking out in support of negotiations with the Cuban government. Nieves was ambushed in a Miami hospital parking lot after visiting his 11-year-old son. A year later, Hernandez and an accomplice murdered a former president of the Bay of Pigs Association in an internecine power struggle. Hernandez was finally captured in July 1977 and sentenced to life in prison for the Nieves murder. Exile hardliners, though, continue to refer to him as a freedom fighter.

Polls show that Miami's political leadership and its radio no longer speak for most exiles. The majority of Cuban exiles, like other Americans, abhor terrorism, whether in Cuba or Miami, left or right. But as one convicted killer after another is allowed to resettle in Miami, the political climate there has chilled and few dare to speak out. And when they do, it seems that nobody is listening.

Since 9/11, the administration's double standard on terrorism, with its Cuban exception, is even more glaring. Just before the Justice Department announced a post-9/11 sweep of those "suspected" of terrorism, it had quietly released men who had been convicted of terrorism. Last Thursday, the administration congratulated itself on a sweep that netted 10,000 fugitive criminals, yet somehow Posada eluded it.

I remember Posada's sly smile when he told me that he had at least four different passports from different countries in bogus names, including an American one. When I asked when he last visited the United States, he chortled with amusement. "Officially or unofficially? I have a lot of passports," Posada said. "If I want to go to Miami, I have different ways to go. No problem." Evidently not.

Quote:

http://www.nlg.org/cuba/newsOct2001.htm
25 years after CIA-trained agents bombed Cuban airliner, Miami protests
terrorists at large

I. As we continue to mourn the many victims of Sept. 11th in the US, we
should reflect that Saturday, October 6th is the 25th anniversary of the
terrorist bombing of the Cuban airliner after take off from Barbados. All
73 lives on board were lost -- among them the Cuban fencing team, returning
from a tournament abroad -- when a bomb exploded on board. A number of
Cuban-American groups and others will hold a demonstration in Miami on
Saturday afternoon, to protest the fact that the alleged mastermind of the
operation, Orlando Bosch, continues to operate in freedom in Miami.

Bosch had been jailed on these charges in Venezuela, but was not convicted
after a series of military trials, and left prison after the prosecution
failed to keep the case alive there, reportedly as a result of the
intervention of the US ambassador, Otto Reich, now a nominee to become Asst.
Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere. <h4>Bosch then entered FL.
illegally in 1988. He was detained based on his violation of U.S. parole,
after he had been released from serving four years of a 10 year prison
sentence (from 1968-72, for staging a bazooka attack on a Polish freighter
docked in Miami and for sending death threats to the heads of state of three
Western European nations, all because they traded with Cuba). His was
remanded to INS custody, while the US refused Cuba's extradition requests.
Some 30 other countries had refused to accept him based on his long record
of terrorist acts. He filed an application for asylum in the U.S.

According to the U.S. Justice Dept., the Cuban airline bombing was "under
the direction of Bosch. ... We could not shelter Dr. Bosch and maintain our
credibility in this respect." In January 1989 the acting attorney general
wrote: "For 30 years Bosch has been resolute and unwavering in his advocacy
of terrorist violence. . . . He has repeatedly expressed and demonstrated a
willingness to cause indiscriminate injury and death.'" Former Attorney
General Dick Thornburgh described Bosch as an "unreformed terrorist." The
U.S. district court found that organizations under his leadership had been
responsible for "numerous terrorist operations," including planting bombs at
embassies and blowing up an airline office, and the CIA documents also
linked him to air attacks on Cuba in the 1960's.

Nonetheless, against the recommendations of the district director of the INS
and the Department of Justice, and after a federal court upheld his
deportation, he was freed without deportation in July 1990, due to the
intervention of former Pres. Bush in response to pressure from Florida's
rising political star Jeb Bush, the Cuban American National Foundation
(CANF) & others in the Cuban American exile community.</h4>

Orlando Bosch now walks the streets of Miami a free man. While being held in
Venezuela on the airline bombing charge in 1983, the Miami City Commission
declared an "Orlando Bosch Day" in his honor.

The Cuban government has frequently protested that Washington houses
terrorists such as Bosch, while the US government maintains Cuba on its list
of terrorist nations for reasons that are described as based on politics
rather than facts. (See Wayne Smith's analysis,
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sun_sent...NST+TERRORISTS
http://web.archive.org/web/200303260...lkonterror.htm
--------------"U.S. actions undercut tough talk against terrorists

By Wayne S. Smith
Posted November 12 2001

As President Bush has made clear, we are now involved not simply in an all-out campaign to bring to justice Osama bin Laden and all others responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but in a campaign to end terrorism as an international threat. If we are to lead that campaign effectively, it is vital that our own rejection of terrorism be unequivocal -- and unquestionable.......
............. One of the most infamous was Orlando Bosch. In prison from 1968 until 1972 for terrorist activities, he was then paroled, but only two years later he violated his parole and fled to Latin America, ending up in Venezuela, where in 1976 he was imprisoned for masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airliner, with the loss of 73 lives.

Released from Venezuelan prison under strange circumstances in late 1987, Bosch returned surreptitiously to Miami in 1988, where he was almost immediately arrested for illegal entry. The Immigration and Naturalization Service began proceedings to deport him.

That caused an uproar among hard-line exiles in Miami, but despite their demands that he be freed, the acting associate attorney general in 1989 denied Bosch's petition to remain in the U.S. "The security of this nation," he explained, "is affected by its ability to urge credibly other nations to refuse aid and shelter to terrorists … We could not shelter Dr. Bosch and maintain our credibility in this respect."

One can only say "amen" and wish that that had been the end of it. But it was not. Lobbied unrelentingly by Sen. Connie Mack of Florida, by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, her then-campaign manager Jeb Bush and by various other Miami politicians, the first Bush administration overrode the Justice Department and in 1990 allowed Bosch to remain in the United States.

Worse, in 1992, the Bush administration granted Bosch an administrative pardon. Since then, he has lived freely in Miami. "-----------------

article, 07/23/01; and the official state dept. rationale
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt...cfm?docid=2441 )

MoonDog · 05-25-2005, 02:14 PM

I'm thinking the guy must have some dirt on Iran-Contra, etc., that make him too dangerous to put into a situation where he might decide to talk. Hence a consideration of asylum. Extradite him, I say, and who cares what he knows. He doesn't sound like someone who I'd like to have in the country.

I giggled though, Host, when you hold up a nlg.org as a "non-controversial" source. Visit their link, and find this :

Quote:

Domestically, the betrayal of democracy and the Supreme Court’s integrity in Bush v. Gore has made clear that the struggle for real democracy in the U.S. is far from over. The intertwining of governmental power with the influence of corporations, epitomized by the ENRON debacle, has confirmed fighting corporate power will be a major challenge for the American people in the new century. The seizure of governmental power, the huge buildup of military might and the attack on civil liberties after the 9-11 tragedy, together with the scapegoating of Muslims, Middle-Eastern immigrants and the re-creation of McCarthyesque “anti-terrorism” measures, has demonstrated that the Guild must, once again, play the role for which history and experience has prepared its members.

Seems like they might stir up a controversey or two with that statement (hehe)! But I'll take the information they present, along with the stuff I found via Google, and come to the same conclusion - I don't think this Posada guy needs asylum. Let Chavez have 'em...and maybe it will improve our relationship with that guy to some small degree.

ironman · 05-26-2005, 08:29 AM

I see a double standard here, it seems there are, in the US goverment's view, two kinds of terrorists: good and bad. You are a bad terrorist if your actions affect US's interests or friends, you are a good terrorist if your actions affect US's enemies interests or friends. A terrorist is a terrorist, period. It shouldn't matter his background ot the people he attacked.
Raveneye, i find your comment's about Venezuela's courts of law very interesting. That been the case, all the US prisoners in Guantanamo shoulded be in Italy or Spain, due to the relation between US and Middle East countries, i don't see a fair trial for any of the prisoners, besides, there's been italian and spanish victims because of the "presumed" crimes commited by these prisoners.

Lebell · 05-26-2005, 08:35 AM

I tend to agree with ironman in that a terrorist is a terrorist.

I also know there is a fine line between terrorist and revolutionary. George III thought Washington, Jefferson, Adams, et al were terrorists.

raveneye · 05-26-2005, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Raveneye, i find your comment's about Venezuela's courts of law very interesting. That been the case, all the US prisoners in Guantanamo shoulded be in Italy or Spain, due to the relation between US and Middle East countries, i don't see a fair trial for any of the prisoners, besides, there's been italian and spanish victims because of the "presumed" crimes commited by these prisoners.

Well it's just hard for me to get upset about not sending him to Venezuela, since he's already been tried twice in Venezuela and acquitted both times. In my mind not being sent back there to be tried yet a third time (and possibly escape with a bribe a second time) is really not a reason to be outraged.

roachboy · 05-26-2005, 09:18 AM

yes, well basically i would agree with ironman.
so apparently does amnesty international.
an excerpt from their annual human rights report section on the united states, which was released yesterday, gives a better argument than i could on the nature of the beast under george w. bush and his "war on terror":

Quote:

Amnesty International
United States of America

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Head of state and government: George W. Bush
Death penalty: retentionist
International Criminal Court: signed
UN Women?s Convention: signed
Optional Protocol to UN Women?s Convention: not signed

Covering events from January - December 2004
Hundreds of detainees continued to be held without charge or trial at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Thousands of people were detained during US military and security operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and routinely denied access to their families and lawyers.

Military investigations were initiated or conducted into allegations of torture and ill-treatment of detainees by US personnel in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and into reports of deaths in custody and ill-treatment by US forces elsewhere in Iraq, and in Afghanistan and Guantánamo. Evidence came to light that the US administration had sanctioned interrogation techniques that violated the UN Convention against Torture. Pre-trial military commission hearings opened in Guantánamo but were suspended pending a US court ruling.

In the USA, more than 40 people died after being struck by police tasers, raising concern about the safety of such weapons. The death penalty continued to be imposed and carried out.

International Criminal Court

The US government intensified its efforts to curtail the power of the International Criminal Court (ICC). In December, Congress approved a provision in a government spending bill mandating the withholding of certain economic assistance to governments that refuse to grant immunity for US nationals before the ICC.

Guantánamo Bay

By the end of the year, more than 500 detainees of around 35 nationalities continued to be held without charge or trial at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay on grounds of possible links to al-Qa?ida or the former Taleban government of Afghanistan. While at least 10 more detainees were transferred to the base from Afghanistan during the year, more than 100 others were transferred to their home countries for continued detention or release. At least three child detainees were among those released, but at least two other people who were under 18 at the time of their detention were believed to remain in Guantánamo by the end of the year. Neither the identities nor the precise numbers of detainees held in Guantánamo were provided by the Department of Defense, fuelling concern that individual detainees could be transferred to and from the base without appearing in official statistics.

In a landmark decision, the US Supreme Court ruled in June that the US federal courts had jurisdiction over the Guantánamo detainees. However, the administration tried to keep any review of the detainees? cases as far from a judicial process as possible. The Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT), an administrative review body consisting of panels of three military officers, was established to determine whether the detainees were ?enemy combatants?. The detainees were not provided with lawyers to assist them in this process and secret evidence could be used against them. Many detainees boycotted the process, which by the end of the year had determined that more than 200 detainees were ?enemy combatants? and two were not and could be released. The authorities also announced that all detainees confirmed as ?enemy combatants? would have a yearly review of their cases before an Administrative Review Board (ARB) to determine if they should still be held. Again, detainees would not have access to legal counsel or to secret evidence. Both the CSRT and the ARB could draw on evidence extracted under torture or other coercion. In December, the Pentagon announced that it had conducted its first ARB.

The government informed the detainees that they could file habeas corpus petitions in federal court, giving them the address of the District Court in Washington DC. However, it also argued in the same court that the detainees had no basis under constitutional or international law to challenge the lawfulness of their detention. By the end of the year, six months after the Supreme Court ruling, no detainee had had the lawfulness of his detention judicially reviewed.

Detentions in Afghanistan and Iraq

In August, the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations, appointed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld following the publication of photographs of torture and ill-treatment committed by US personnel in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (see below), reported that since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, about 50,000 people had been detained during US military and security operations.

US forces operated some 25 detention facilities in Afghanistan and 17 in Iraq (see below). Detainees were routinely denied access to lawyers and families. In Afghanistan, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had access only to some detainees in Bagram and Kandahar air bases.

Detentions in undisclosed locations

A number of detainees, reported to be those considered by the US authorities to have high intelligence value, were alleged to remain in secret detention in undisclosed locations. In some cases, their situation amounted to ?disappearance?. Some individuals were believed to have been held in secret locations for as long as three years. The refusal or failure of the US authorities to clarify the whereabouts or status of the detainees, leaving them outside the protection of the law for a prolonged period, clearly violated the standards of the UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Allegations that the US authorities were involved in the secret transfer of detainees between countries, exposing detainees to the risk of torture and ill-treatment, continued.

Military commissions

By the end of the year, 15 detainees were subject to the 2001 Military Order on the Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism. Detainees named under the Military Order can be detained without charge or trial or tried before a military commission. Military commissions are executive bodies, not independent or impartial courts, with the power to hand down death sentences; there is no right of appeal against their decisions to any court.

Four of the 15 ? Yemeni nationals Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al Bahlul and Salim Ahmed Hamdan; Australian national David Hicks; and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi of Sudan ? were charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes and other offences. The first pre-trial hearings were held for these four detainees in August.

On 8 November, US District Court Judge James Robertson presiding over Salim Hamdan?s habeas corpus appeal issued an order stating that Salim Hamdan could not be tried by military commission as charged. Judge Robertson ordered that unless and until a ?competent tribunal?, as required under Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention, determined that Salim Hamdan was not entitled to prisoner of war status, he could only be tried by court-martial under the USA?s Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Judge Robertson held that even if Salim Hamdan was found not to have prisoner of war status by a ?competent tribunal? which satisfied the requirements of the Third Geneva Convention (which the judge said neither presidential nor CSRT determinations would satisfy), his trial before the military commission would be unlawful because of military commission rules permitting the exclusion of the defendant from certain sessions and the withholding of certain classified or ?protected? evidence from him. Military commission proceedings were still suspended at the end of the year, with the government having appealed against Judge Robertson?s ruling.

Torture and ill-treatment of detainees outside the USA

Photographic evidence of the torture and ill-treatment of detainees in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by US soldiers became public in late April, causing widespread national and international concern. President Bush and other officials immediately asserted that the problem was restricted to Abu Ghraib and a few wayward soldiers.

On 22 June, after the leaking of earlier government documents relating to the ?war on terror? suggesting that torture and ill-treatment had been envisaged, the administration took the step of declassifying selected documents to ?set the record straight?. However, the released documents showed that the administration had sanctioned interrogation techniques that violated the UN Convention against Torture and that the President had stated in a central policy memorandum dated 7 February 2002 that, although the USA?s values ?call for us to treat detainees humanely?, there are some ?who are not legally entitled to such treatment?. The documents discussed, among other things, ways in which US agents could avoid the international prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including by arguing that the President could override international and national laws prohibiting such treatment. These and other documents also indicated that President Bush?s decision not to apply the Geneva Conventions to detainees captured in Afghanistan followed advice from his legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales, that this would free up US interrogators in the ?war on terror? and make future prosecutions of US agents for war crimes less likely. Following the presidential elections in November, President Bush nominated Alberto Gonzales to the post of Attorney General in his new administration.

On 30 December, shortly before Alberto Gonzales? nomination hearings in the Senate, the Justice Department replaced one of its most controversial memorandums on torture, dated August 2002. Although the new memorandum was an improvement on its predecessor, much of the original version lived on in a Pentagon Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism, dated 4 April 2003, which remained operational at the end of the year.

A February report by the ICRC on abuses by Coalition forces in Iraq, which in some cases were judged to be ?tantamount to torture?, was also leaked as was the report of an investigation by US Army Major General Antonio Taguba. The Taguba report had found ?numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses? against detainees in Abu Ghraib prison between October and December 2003. It had also found that US agents in Abu Ghraib had hidden a number of detainees from the ICRC, referred to as ?ghost detainees?. It was later revealed that one of these detainees had died in custody, one of several such deaths that were revealed during the year where torture or ill-treatment was thought to be a contributory factor.

During the year, the authorities initiated various criminal investigations and prosecutions against individual soldiers as well as investigations and reviews into interrogation and detention policies and practices. The investigations found that there had been ?approximately 300 recorded cases of alleged abuse in Afghanistan, Guantánamo and Iraq.? On 9 September, Major Paul Kern, who oversaw one of the military investigations, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that there may have been as many as 100 cases of ?ghost detainees? in US custody in Iraq. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld admitted to having authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to keep at least one detainee off any prison register.

However, there was concern that most of the investigations consisted of the military investigating itself, and did not have the power to carry the investigation into the highest levels of government. The activities of the CIA in Iraq and elsewhere, for example, remained largely shrouded in secrecy. No investigation dealt with the USA?s alleged involvement in secret transfers between countries and any torture or ill-treatment that may have ensued. Many documents remained classified. AI called for a full commission of inquiry into all aspects of the USA?s ?war on terror? and interrogation and detention policies and practices.

During the year, released detainees alleged that they had been tortured or ill-treated while in US custody in Afghanistan and Guantánamo. Evidence also emerged that others, including Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and the ICRC, had found that such abuses had been committed against detainees.

Detentions of ?enemy combatants? in the USA

In June the US Supreme Court ruled that Yaser Esam Hamdi, a US citizen held for more than two years in military custody without charge or trial as an ?enemy combatant?, was entitled to due process and habeas corpus review of his detention by the US courts. His case was remanded for further proceedings before the lower courts. While the latter were pending, he was released from US custody in October and transferred to Saudi Arabia, under conditions agreed between his lawyers and the US government. These included renouncing his US citizenship and undertaking not to leave Saudi Arabia for five years and never to travel to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan or Syria.

José Padilla, a US national, and Ali-Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, a Qatari national, remained detained without charge or trial as ?enemy combatants?. José Padilla had filed a similar petition to Yaser Hamdi before the US Supreme Court but the Court rejected his petition on the grounds that his appeal had been filed in the wrong jurisdiction. The case was pending a rehearing in South Carolina, where he was detained in a military prison at the end of 2004.

source: http://web.amnesty.org/web/web.nsf/p...256FF0003B7FA6

so you see, the bush administration is clever: they avoid accusations of unfair trials by not allowing "enemy combattants" to get to trial. that is one way to deal with it. kinda makes you wonder what the deal is really with the american questions about the venezuelan court system--that's right, venezuela is run by someone to the left of the bush administration, someone who is not one with the neoliberal ideology.
clearly THAT is the problem--given the travesty that is the american set-up for the administering of "justice" in the context of the "war on terror", the administration is obviously in no position to complain about problems elsewhere. or so you'd think.

View Poll Results: Should we extradite the bastard or not
yes	15	83.33%
No	3	16.67%
Voters: 18. You may not vote on this poll

05-20-2005, 11:12 PM	#1 (permalink)
piesen Banned Location: WA	Bush-Posada Now here is the question off the Week Should we extradite Posada or not …………….I say ohh yea. I know he has been working with the CIA (thereby the USA) but if you go rogue you loose you license. What he is accused off happened after he was dismissed from the CIA early 1976. And frankly no matter who you work for, if you have any part in terrorism like downing an aircraft (civilian aircraft) you should be put to the big sleep. What is yea all opinion??

05-24-2005, 08:13 AM	#3 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	raven: could you please hunt up a link or two that might give background for your view of venezeulan courts? i am curious about it. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

05-24-2005, 08:59 AM	#4 (permalink)
Lebell Cracking the Whip Location: Sexymama's arms...	I would also appreciate some background. This is not a story I am actively following. __________________ "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU! Please Donate!

05-24-2005, 09:07 AM	#5 (permalink)
maleficent Junkie Moderator Emeritus Location: Chicago	Accusations Against Luis Posada Carriles The 1976 bombing of a Cubana jetliner that was blown out of the sky off the coast of Barbados, which killed 73 people on board. Venezuelan courts acquitted Posada twice and he escaped from a prison while awaiting a third trial. Posada last week denied involvement in the bombing. Venezuela is seeking his extradition. A string of hotel bombings in Havana in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist and wounded several others, acts the Cuban government considers Posada's work. Posada took credit for the attacks in a 1998 interview with The New York Times, but during a news conference last week declined to answer questions about the bombings. An alleged plot to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro in 2000. Panamanian authorities arrested Posada and three Cuban exiles from Miami in Panama during the Ibero-American Summit. A Panamanian court convicted Posada of endangering public safety and falsifying documents, and sentenced him to eight years. But outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso pardoned Posada and the others. Among other things... __________________ Free your heart from hatred. Free your mind from worries. Live simply. Give more. Expect less. Last edited by maleficent; 05-24-2005 at 09:42 AM..

05-24-2005, 08:10 AM	#2 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	He should be tried in a court of law, somewhere. Preferably one in working order, which would probably exclude Venezuela in his case. Maybe they should extradite him to Italy, since I think some of his alleged victims were Italian.

05-24-2005, 09:34 AM	#6 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	My comment is based mainly on the political situation (enmity between Bush and Chavez, friendship between Chavez and Castro), but there are also a variety of judicial problems that could be cited, besides the corruption in general: Chavez' packing of the Supreme Court in seeming violation of his own constitution; the fact that judges for the most part don't have tenure and can be fired by that packed Supreme Court for making politically incorrect decisions; the fact that Posada was already tried twice in Venezuela and acquitted for the airliner bombing. He escaped (bribed a warden) while the case was under appeal by the government, so presumably (I guess) if he goes back the appeal will go forward and be heard by Chavez' Supreme Court. Or, maybe they would attempt to retry him a third time. All these things makes it even pretty unlikely (in my opinion) that Posada could ever get something resembling a fair trial in Venezuela. More likely it would be a political circus. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/12/14/venezu9864.htm

05-24-2005, 09:52 AM	#7 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	. . . I'm in Miami and this is pretty big news here. I got a haircut today in a little local Cuban shop and it's all that everybody was talking about there; there's an interview with Posada in one of the local papers today. One of Bush's problems is that the Charter of the Organization of American States requires the U.S. to extradite him to Venezuela, it's quite clear (you can find the legal language on their website). Yet there's no way Bush will allow that to happen. Ironically Bush has been attacking Chavez for various violations of that same charter. I think most people (excepting Cubans) think Posada should be extradited, it's just a question of where.

05-24-2005, 10:59 AM	#8 (permalink)
Pacifier undead Location: Duisburg, Germany	What is the problem with venezuela? They might be a bit too left for you americans but will he be detained in some sort of Camp X-Ray or what? __________________ "It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death — Albert Einstein

05-26-2005, 08:29 AM	#12 (permalink)
ironman Smithers, release the hounds Location: Guatemala, Guatemala	I see a double standard here, it seems there are, in the US goverment's view, two kinds of terrorists: good and bad. You are a bad terrorist if your actions affect US's interests or friends, you are a good terrorist if your actions affect US's enemies interests or friends. A terrorist is a terrorist, period. It shouldn't matter his background ot the people he attacked. Raveneye, i find your comment's about Venezuela's courts of law very interesting. That been the case, all the US prisoners in Guantanamo shoulded be in Italy or Spain, due to the relation between US and Middle East countries, i don't see a fair trial for any of the prisoners, besides, there's been italian and spanish victims because of the "presumed" crimes commited by these prisoners. __________________ If I agreed with you we´d both be wrong

05-26-2005, 08:35 AM	#13 (permalink)
Lebell Cracking the Whip Location: Sexymama's arms...	I tend to agree with ironman in that a terrorist is a terrorist. I also know there is a fine line between terrorist and revolutionary. George III thought Washington, Jefferson, Adams, et al were terrorists. __________________ "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU! Please Donate!