Note to terrorists: Blowing up Cuban airliners is cool
The War on Terrorism can be confusing. There are rules, however. If you try and smuggle cell phones, you’re a terrorist. If you blow up a Cuban airliner and leave 70 or so innocents dead, you can settle comfortably in Florida.
A man accused of blowing up an airliner and killing 73 people, who has already admitted to bombing hotels with fatal consequences and who has a conviction for a failed assassination attempt on a head of state, was freed on a technicality in a Texas court this week, and can look forward to a quiet retirement in Florida.
In London a man accused of hacking into the computer system of the Pentagon and Nasa is waiting to see if the House of Lords will hear his appeal against extradition to the US to face a trial in which one prosecutor has already indicated he should “fry”. Blowing up an airliner is clearly regarded as less serious than causing major embarrassment to the defence establishment.
Luis Posada, a veteran anti-Castro militant and CIA operative under George Bush Sr, was told that he was free to go due to administrative errors in the case against him for entering the US illegally. Posada is wanted in Venezuela and Cuba for allegedly plotting to blow up a Cuban airliner in which 73 people died in 1976.
The US authorities have already indicated that they will not extradite him to either country, and all the other states to which they have sought to deport Posada have refused him entry. No wonder his lawyer remarked, without apparent irony, that “he is very gratified that the system has worked”.
Of course, the most important rule to note in the quest to decide who is a terrorist is this: If you have CIA backing, you can be as much of a murdering terrorist as you like. Just ask Luis Posada.
–WKW
Crossposted at Shakesville.com