Who Have You Lynched For Me Lately

The Grand Old Partisan would like to take this opportunity on the anniversary of Hitler's birth to remind everyone that before it's opposition to the Civil Rights Act in the 1960's, in the 1860's the Republican Party was much more tolerant and didn't invite nearly as many KKKlansmen or other Democratic Party terrorist groups to it's rallies.

This public service message is brought to you from the same people who want to remind everyone Obama is a terrorist sympathizer and the bar is set so low that when you put John McCain's hair-trigger temper the best you can say is, "At least he doesn't throw punches."

Republicans: No lie too outrageous, no scheme too nutty, no plan too ... well, no plan at all.

Big Republican Lies On Iraq

by shep

No, I don’t mean Dick Cheney prostrate on the sand in Ramadi – however appealing the idea – I mean the monumentally deceitful propaganda being hurled at the American public by Republican leaders in both the White House and the Congress:

1) It’s about al Qaeda

This lie has been going on (and been debunked) since before the war. The truth is, Osama bin Laden was a foe of Saddam Hussein and his secular Baathist state. While the US invasion and occupation of Iraq opened a window for al Qaeda affiliates, they represent a small percentage of those fighting US troops and are currently despised by their erstwhile Iraqi Sunni partners. They are being killed and otherwise expelled from Anbar province to much public celebration by US officials. If the US leaves Iraq, neither Sunni nor Shiite nor Kurdish Iraqis will tolerate al Qaeda’s presence there.



2) If we leave Iraq, the terrorists will follow us here.

The truth is, if any of the Islamist terrorists (and not just al Qaeda) could strike us here, they would already have done so. Leaving Iraq won’t change their capacity to do that one bit, except that it would take away the radicals best recruiting tool and best excuse to attack us.



3) If we leave Iraq before we “win” the cost will be too great.

The truth is, no one has any idea what will happen if we leave Iraq except that we will no longer be bleeding troops by the hundreds and money by the tens of $billions per month. And Republicans have been consistently and insanely inaccurate on the cost-benefit calculation for Iraq policy from the beginning so there is absolutely no reason to assume that their guess is right this time.



4) Congress should let the generals decide how to run the war.

The truth is, as much as the President desires, the generals have run and will continue to run whatever policy is set forth by the civilian leadership of the government, just as the Founders intended and wrote into the US Constitution. Congress gets to write and fund war policy and the President, as Commander-in-Chief gets to execute that war policy, period.


In short, you can’t trust a word Republicans or the Bush Administration, including the Pentagon and the generals, tell you about Iraq or Iran.

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]

Posada Charges Dropped -- Justice Weeps.

From Democracy Now, Monday:

There are several new developments in Posada's case. Authorities have filed documents showing the FBI believes Posada plotted a series of deadly bombings in Cuba in the 1990s. Meanwhile both Posada and the U.S. government are trying to disqualify potentially damaging evidence from his trial. Defense attorneys have filed a motion to omit Posada's statements from a 2006 interview with immigration officials. For their part, government prosecutors have filed a motion to effectively bar Posada from discussing his ties with the CIA.

Hmmmm? Even more evidence that there's a dangerous terrorist in US custody, confirmation of his heinous crimes still comes in making his confession unnecessary. Do we ship him to Gitmo? NO! Miami.

Let's be straight about this. Posada didn't confess, he bragged about his exploits to immigrations officials. This wasn't some coerced admission in violation of his Miranda rights. They tossed the confession, and a US Justice Department already under fire for playing political favoritism sabotaged it's own case because this guy knows too much.

That was then...

Posada Carriles has been in custody since May 2005 after he entered the U.S. illegally to seek asylum. In January, he was indicted on seven immigration fraud charges accusing of lying to immigration authorities.

His release on bail was granted by U.S. Judge Kathleen Cardone and ended a long fight by the U.S. government to keep him behind bars.

His lawyers had expected him to be taken immediately back into custody on an immigration detention order, but that did not happen.

[snip]

The U.S. has refused to extradite him, which has prompted charges that the Bush administration is ignoring its own "war on terror" due to the political sensitivities of the case and his links to the U.S. intelligence community.

Two years ago, Phil Althouse sent me a story about Anti-Castro Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles who is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner which killed 73 people, as well as other bombing plots -- one resulting the in the death of an Italian tourist -- and organizing a private hit squad which targeted Castro for murder.

As Phil details below the jump, we were never going to go to the wall against this guy. One, he's one of ours. Two, he knows just who in (and out) of the CIA's old Central and South American network are still playing the same old games.

Phil's contributions to Dispassionate Liberal are far and few in between, but what he does send our way is usually extraordinary -- which is why I gave him complete access to post anything he wants, any time he can. I've ressurected Phil's old article after the jump so you can read the full background on this case -- complete with some commentary by fellow E.Pluribus Unum contributor, Shep, back on the old blog.

Shep's point that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter is as apt today as it was exactly two years ago this week.

Most of Posada's activities occured when George H. W. Bush was head of the CIA, Ollie North was influencing friends and bribing enemies, Elliot Abrams and John Negroponte had yet to get caught, and Porter Goss thought he was James Bond. Posada knows where too many of the bodies are buried.

When Posada was released on bail and placed under house arrest a month ago, the move drew outrage from Cuba and Venesuala where he has already been convicted in abstentia for the bombings as well as a conviction in Panama for attempted assasination of Fidel Castro (for which he was subsequently pardoned by a Panamanian president closely allied with the US.) Now that even the immigration charges against him have been dropped, the cries of hypocrisy and renewed demands for extradition will be even louder.

Now keep in mind, this isn't your run-of-the-mill killer, who could hardly to expect to be granted any bail at all when he was such an obvious flight risk and alledged to be responsible for a mass murder. Even if bail were granted, you could expect the price to be in the Millions of Dollars, but not for Posada. He got out of jail for only $350,000. Of course, we didn't charge him with murder or terrorism, but immigration fraud. Hmmm.

Cuba charges “farce” in US dropping of Posada charges

Havana (eCanadaNow) - Cuba Wednesday condemned a US court’s decision to drop charges against Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, who is accused in Venezuela and Cuba of acts of terrorism.

“The decision to free Posada was made a long time ago by the White House,” the Communist Party daily Granma noted. “Prosecutors never charged him for what he is: a terrorist, and legal devices were used to cover up the judicial farce.”

US District Judge Kathleen Cardone dismissed all seven counts of immigration fraud on Tuesday, based on a motion filed by the defence, only three days before Posada Carriles’ trial was due to begin in a Texas court, a spokeswoman for his lawyer confirmed to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

[snip]

Cuban state media on Tuesday criticized the judge’s “cynical” decision and called the trial against Posada Carriles a “farce.”

Posada Carriles’ trial in the US was on charges that he lied to immigration officials and on an application to obtain US citizenship last year, including about how he entered the country in March 2005.

[snip]

US courts have refused extradition requests for the one-time CIA operative, saying that Posada Carriles could face torture in Venezuela or Cuba.

Posada was convicted in Venezuela of being one of the masterminds of the airliner bombing, but he escaped from prison after eight years and joined US-directed covert counterinsurgency operations in Central America.

He was also convicted in 2000 in Panama of attempting to murder Cuban President Fidel Castro, but was pardoned four years later by a Panamanian president closely allied with the US.

The Bush family has a history of treating Posada and his associates as something less than terrorist bombers who murder innocent civilians by blowing up planes and hotels. Now it looks like there is nothing to stop his citizen application from going through.

However, this will only add fuel to the conspiracy theories surrounding the narco-republicans and their old Contra connections.


From the Archives:

Nice Guy Seeks Asylum (From Phil Althouse)

While I'm still on the road, Phil Althouse sent this missive to Lib Central:

Alive and well in Miami and seeking asylum . Per the CBC Washington is considering request while dodging question whether he is in U.S. However, his attorney says that he is in Miami. He has been in contact with his buddy Orlando Bosch who lives in Miami. So, if the U.S. is truly waging a war against terrorism and won't stand for countries harboring terrorists, what the hell is this guy doing in Miami?




Posada arrested in Venezuela



Posada 1972 School of Americas, Fort Benning, GA

Luis Posada Carriles is an anti-Castro Cuban exile active in campaigns against the Cuban government. Although born in Cuba, Posada once served as the head of the Venezuelan secret police. Along with Orlando Bosch he was convicted of taking part in the bombing of a Cuban airliner over Venezuela in 1976, in which all seventy-three people onboard were killed. Posada subsequently escaped prison and found work supplying arms to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras. Carriles has been an international fugitive since the early 1980s.

It is alleged that Posada Carriles has worked for the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), which denies any connection. The Miami Herald has recently run articles querying CANF's ties to terrorism and Operation Condor. In 2000 he was convicted with Gaspar Jiménez, Pedro Remón and Guillermo Novo Sampol of conspiring to assasinate Castro during a regional summit in Panama. The four were subsequently pardoned by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso in the final days of her administration in 2004. Jiménez, Remón and Novo were admitted into the United States.

On April 13, 2005, Posada requested political asylum in the United States through his attorney. On May 3, the Venezuelan Supreme Court approved an extradition request for him. Speaking the same day in Washington, D.C., State Department Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega stated that Posada may not be in the United States. Noriega added that charges against him "may be a completely manufactured issue."

A favorite of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), his full name is Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles, although his family and friends call him Bambi.

Posada Carriles joined the counterrevolution shortly after the Cuban government began a process of political and economic reforms in January 1959 to benefit the countrys underprivileged.

Although a member of the 2506 Brigade (organized, trained, financed and armed by the US government to try and topple the Cuban revolution) he did not participate in the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Posada Carriles preparation as a terrorist included training in military tactics, espionage, sabotage, explosives handling, demolition and firearms. He was a member of the counterrevolutionary group called Commandos L and by 1963 was in the US Army and receiving training at Fort Benning, Georgia.

His list of evil deeds includes participation in plans to assassinate Cuban officials in Chile and another to try and kill President Fidel Castro when he visited that South American country in 1971.

The murder of two Cuban officials in Argentina in August 1976 is another line item on his resume.

Considerable documentation exists showing how Posada recruited Venezuelans Hernan Ricardo Lozano and Freddy Lugo to sabotage a Cubana Airlines plane.

These mercenaries placed the bombs that exploded in-flight, a few minutes after takeoff from Barbados International Airport on October 6, 1976 and killing all 73 people on board.

In her book, Pusimos la bomba y que? (We put the bomb and so what) Venezulean journalist Alicia Herrera gives a profile of Posada Carriles recounted by his wife at the end of the 1970s, and which describes her husbands lack of scruples.

When he got involved in the Barbados incident, (referring to the blowing up of the Cubana passenger plane) I knew he would be successful because the poor guy had dedicated so much effort, with so much passion...

Later, with help from the Florida based Cuban American National Foundation, Posada Carriles escaped from a maximum security prison in Venezuela on August 18, 1985,

Since then and until he was jailed in Panama in November 2000, El Salvador became his preferred sanctuary.

At the end of 1996 he put the final touches on a series of terrorist actions to be carried out in Cuba, traveling between El Salvador and Guatemala with a Salvadoran passport under the name Francisco Rodriguez Mena and acquired in 1995.

In March, 1998, Cuban authorities detained the Guatemalans, Maria Elena Gonzalez Meza de Fernandez, Nader Kamal Musalam Barakat, also known as Miguel Abraham Herrera Morales, and Jazid Ivan Fernandez Mendoza, linked to bomb explosions in Havana during 1997.

The three Guatemalans, along with the Salvadorans Ernesto Raul Cruz Leon and Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerna, also detained in Cuba, were part of a network of Central American mercenaries hired by Posada Carriles and financed by the Cuban American National Foundation.

On November 15, 1997, the Miami Herald ran an extensive article resulting from an investigative report about the bombs planted in Cuban hotels and the connection of those events with a band of Salvadoran criminals known for bank robberies, house break-ins and car thefts.

The Herald concluded that Luis Posada Carriles was the brains behind those activities, for which he collected 15,000 dollars in Miami.

In July 1998, Posada Carriles told the New York Times that he received 200,000 from the president of the Cuban American National Foundation, Jorge Mas Canosa, to carry out terrorist actions in Cuba.

His anti-Cuban acts came to a temporary halt when he was jailed in Panama on November 17, 2000 after Cuban President Fidel Castro denounced plans to assassinate him with explosives at Panama University.

Assisting Posada Carriles with the foiled plot that could have killed several hundred people were Guillermo Novo Sampol, Pedro Remon and Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo. Now the notorious quartet was just given pardons by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, who in doing so, became herself an accomplice of these dangerous terrorists.

Posted at 5/12/2005 6:54:13 am by The Lib

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ORIGINAL COMMENTS

	Posted by shep @ 05/12/2005 01:26 PM PDT
	Would this be an example of the oft-denied, highly nuanced idea that one man's "terrorist" is another's "freedom fighter". I used to think that the best reason not to believe anything a Republican politician says was their calculated lying. Now I'm thinking it's really their pathological hypocrisy.

	Posted by Mark Adams @ 05/12/2005 10:31 PM PDT
	How about their Nixonian framing of issues?

	Posted by shep @ 05/13/2005 01:29 PM PDT
	Orwell is spinning.

The Terror Within

Creepy Freeper ... Check.

Proud, Lifelong Wingnut ... Check.

Underachieving Computer Geek ... Check.

Brainwashed by Cute Conservative Bimbos ... Check.

Closeted Xenophobic Racist ... Check.

If you know someone who identifies with these qualities, you've got someone who fits the profile of this charming domestic terror suspect, who allegedly likes to sent fake anthrax powder to celebrities and democratic public officials.

QUESTION: Do you think that the rightwing noise machine will ever figure out how irresponsible it is to equate Democrats and/or liberals with terrorists?