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Seven Minutes with Leonard Weinglass
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Though unable to attend the event with Leonard Weinglass, attorney for the Cuban Five, which Steve Clemons had mentioned over a month ago, I did take some time to watch a part of his lecture. After viewing a few minutes of this talk, it's abundantly clear why Weinglass is regarded as a formidable trial lawyer -- his narrative style is simply captivating. In this clip (above), he contrasts the plight of the Cuban Five with that of Luis Posada Carriles.
Former Ambassador Wayne Smith wrote an article in The National Interest Online this summer debunking the retention of Cuba on the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. As if we weren't doing enough to discredit our counterterrorism efforts with our selective definitions in other regional theaters (for instance, our courtship of the MEK in Iran), the protection of Posada Carriles undercuts our global efforts by compromising potential cooperation and intelligence sharing.
On a related note, the President will deliver a speech today on freedom, democracy and the future of Cuba (China, of course, will be conspicuously absent from the discussion). An outline of what he will say can be read here. But you can read further analysis and commentary of the speech and US-Cuba policy at The Havana Note including Sarah Stephens and Peter Kornbluh on the Posada case, Philip Peters on Cuban reforms, and Lawrence Wilkerson on the embargo.
--Sameer Lalwani
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Reader Comments (7) - post a comment
Blatant double standards anyone? It's not as if this is the only case, or that the US is the only country that selectively shelters terrorists.
However, Posada Carrilles is a terrorist convicted of blowing up an airplane in flight, causing the deaths of many innocents - exclusive of any merits that his specific targets may have had.
He's also an illegal alien that we're supposed to be so worked up about right now.
Perhaps there is merit in the accusation that he could not expect fair treatment if delivered to Panama, Cuba, or Venezuela.
This, then is a job for the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Except that the US is a mortal enemy of that court, particularly if it might affect the US government, military, or other citizens.
This case undercuts the US's assertion of principle in so many other areas of critical concern to the country. Posada's extradition would lend credence to US positions far beyond any damage he might bring to the country's intelligence operations. Or might there be other considerations being weighed?
ECUADOR WANTS MILITARY BASE IN MIAMI
By Phil Stewart
NAPLES (Reuters) - Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa said Washington must let him open a military base in Miami if the United States wants to keep using an air base on Ecuador's Pacific coast.
Correa has refused to renew Washington's lease on the Manta air base, set to expire in 2009. U.S. officials say it is vital for counter-narcotics surveillance operations on Pacific drug-running routes.
"We'll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami -- an Ecuadorean base," Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy.
"If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States."
The U.S. embassy to Ecuador says on its Web site that anti-narcotics flights from Manta gathered information behind more than 60 percent of illegal drug seizures on the high seas of the Eastern Pacific last year.
It offers a fact-sheet on the base at: http://ecuador.usembassy.gov/topics_of_interest/manta-fol.html
Correa, a popular leftist economist, had promised to cut off his arm before extending the lease that ends in 2009 and has called U.S. President George W. Bush a "dimwit".
But Correa, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, told Reuters he believed relations with the United States were "excellent" despite the base closing.
He rejected the idea that the episode reflected on U.S. ties at all.
"This is the only North American military base in South America," he said.
"So, then the other South American countries don't have good relations with the United States because they don't have military bases? That doesn't make any sense."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUKADD25267520071022?sp=true
* * *
- Touche'
ECUADOR WANTS MILITARY BASE IN MIAMI
Mon Oct 22, 2007
By Phil Stewart
NAPLES (Reuters) - Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa said Washington must let him open a military base in Miami if the United States wants to keep using an air base on Ecuador's Pacific coast.
Correa has refused to renew Washington's lease on the Manta air base, set to expire in 2009. U.S. officials say it is vital for counter-narcotics surveillance operations on Pacific drug-running routes.
"We'll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami -- an Ecuadorean base," Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy.
"If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States."
The U.S. embassy to Ecuador says on its Web site that anti-narcotics flights from Manta gathered information behind more than 60 percent of illegal drug seizures on the high seas of the Eastern Pacific last year.
It offers a fact-sheet on the base at: http://ecuador.usembassy.gov/topics_of_interest/manta-fol.html
Correa, a popular leftist economist, had promised to cut off his arm before extending the lease that ends in 2009 and has called U.S. President George W. Bush a "dimwit".
But Correa, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, told Reuters he believed relations with the United States were "excellent" despite the base closing.
He rejected the idea that the episode reflected on U.S. ties at all.
"This is the only North American military base in South America," he said.
"So, then the other South American countries don't have good relations with the United States because they don't have military bases? That doesn't make any sense."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUKADD25267520071022?sp=true
* * *
- Touche'-
Mr Clemons, i just saw your post on the havana blog and visited it and found the story about the cia operative luis posada carriles, i agree that mr carriles and terrorism ought to be punished but what i find unacceptable is that you choose to pursue mr carriles who is the weak link in the armor instead of the central intelligence ageny whom the blog claims contracted him to do the job. This merry band of superheros at the blog although they point to the cia, choose to pursue an elderly terrotist who was used by this organization to do their work, because you and the havana blog gang can rest assured that mr carriles would not have had access to c4 or any other sophisticated terrorist tools unless he was hired to carry that bombing out by the agency in question, but of course that would be a fight you would never win and may not even actually be interested in engaging in.
so like a hyenna, the blog satisfies their need for a kill by singling out the infirm member of the pack, an old decrepit hatefilled cuban patriot, who feels that his country was surrendered to the communist by interests much bigger than anything he could ever combat in a meaninful way.
if a young lions is what you pretend to be, then take on the central intelligence agency face to face instead of targeting one of its whelp who now belongs in a home for the aged. a hyenna is not the incarnation one ought to choose for himself.
Besides the cia continnues to create more of these terrorists, at least in taking them on you can really tackle the job of diminishing the creator of terrorist instead; the central intelligence agency.
hired by the cia to do their dirty work, these guys ought to band together and testify before congress somewhat like the mafia witness of the early sixties, but alas they are still fighting the marxism leninism of the prior era.
Mr Clemons, i just saw your post on the havana blog and visited it and found the story about the cia operative luis posada carriles, i agree that mr carriles and terrorism ought to be punished but what i find unacceptable is that you choose to pursue mr carriles who is the weak link in the armor instead of the central intelligence ageny whom the blog claims contracted him to do the job. This merry band of superheros at the blog although they point to the cia, choose to pursue an elderly terrotist who was used by this organization to do their work, because you and the havana blog gang can rest assured that mr carriles would not have had access to c4 or any other sophisticated terrorist tools unless he was hired to carry that bombing out by the agency in question, but of course that would be a fight you would never win and may not even actually be interested in engaging in.
so like a hyenna, the blog satisfies their need for a kill by singling out the infirm member of the pack, an old decrepit hatefilled cuban patriot, who feels that his country was surrendered to the communist by interests much bigger than anything he could ever combat in a meaninful way.
if a young lions is what you pretend to be, then take on the central intelligence agency face to face instead of targeting one of its whelp who now belongs in a home for the aged. a hyenna is not the incarnation one ought to choose for himself.
Besides the cia continnues to create more of these terrorists, at least in taking them on you can really tackle the job of diminishing the creator of terrorist instead; the central intelligence agency.
hired by the cia to do their dirty work, these guys ought to band together and testify before congress somewhat like the mafia witness of the early sixties, but alas they are still fighting the marxism leninism of the prior era.
This merry band of superheros at the blog although they point to the cia, choose to pursue an elderly terrotist who was used by this organization to do their work, because you and the havana blog gang can rest assured that mr carriles would not have had access to c4 or any other sophisticated terrorist tools unless he was hired to carry that bombing out by the agency in question, but of course that would be a fight you would never win and may not even actually be interested in engaging in.
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