Not all terrorists are created equal

The U.S. is often accused of double standards and hypocrisy in its foreign policy, human rights, and pro-democracy hubris when it comes to pursuing its own interests. This can easily be seen when one of the justifications for the Iraq war was to bring to democracy to the people of Iraq, while at the same time the U.S. enjoys rather cozy and lucrative relations with China. The fact that China has horrible human rights record and an authoritarian government doesn’t seem to matter when it boils down to the ‘important’ issue: trade. The China case is just one of a number of hypocritical stances taken by the U.S. and for that simple reason it doesn’t even stand out that much.

One recent case though seems to me to go head and shoulders above a lot of this hypocrisy, the situation surrounding Luis Posada Carriles. Some of you have heard of him before, others have not so I will give a little background information. Carriles is an anti-Castro Cuban militant that was once employed by the CIA. He has been tied to numerous bombings and terrorist plots over the years, most often funded by the CIA (this was apparently before the U.S. considered terrorism a bad thing, how the tables have turned). The most notorious crime he is connected with though is the 1976 bombing of Cuban plane that resulted in the death of all 73 people on board.

Sounds bad right? Well unfortunately it gets worse. He was jailed in Venezuela and was undergoing trial for the bombing when he escaped in 1985. After trying his hand in a few more plots over the years he ended up being jailed in Panama in 2000 for plotting an assassination attempt, but he received a Pardon and left the country 4 years later. He made his way into the U.S. at some point after that and was rightly detained by U.S. authorities.

But not on terrorism charges, rather on charges about lying to immigration officials upon his entry into the country. Both Cuba and Venezuela demanded that he be extradited to them to continue facing trial for his alleged crimes or that he be tried for them in the U.S. as is laid out in the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation, a UN international agreement.

Pretty straightforward, right? Well the U.S. has refused to hand over Carriles or try him on terrorism charges, preferring to simply pursue the immigration charges in blatant disregard for international law. The fact that international law is being ignored is of course nothing new to the U.S. but the fact that a world recognized terrorist is the beneficiary of it should something rather disturbing to all U.S. citizens.

And to top it all of the judge in Carriles’ immigration case dismissed yesterday leaving Carriles a free man within the U.S.

At this point the question has to be: why? Granted the U.S. certainly doesn’t like or approve of the governments in Cuba or Venezuela so I can at least understand the reluctance to hand Carriles into their custody. But why let a known terrorist walk free in U.S., I mean at least give him trail here. Perhaps I am being cynical, but the only other reason I can think of is that in for about a year, from Jan 30 1976 to Jan 20 1977 George H. W. Bush served as Director of the CIA. If Carriles was brought to trail on terrorism charges he would inevitably bring to light many details of that agencies policies and secrets, probably putting George senior in a bad light. The fact that his son is in the White House and this administration has repeatedly rejected bringing Carriles to justice is just a bit too much for me.

It brings me to the conclusion that the U.S. hypocrisy only continues to spread. Terrorist are evil and bad when they come from the Mid East, but when they come from Cuba and are anti-communist not only do they escape punishment, they get a welcome into our country. Don’t think the rest of the world isn’t paying attention. They certainly are. This Orwellian double-speak can only go on for so long before it catches up with us.