Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Luis Posada Carriles: When Injustice is Justice

In George Orwell's prophetic novel 1984 the Rulers of Oceania, by their language of newthink and process of doublethink, convinced the masses that statements formerly considered irrational were rational. In other words, virtual reality became actual reality. The Party's slogans, accepted by the ruled, were "War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery", and "Ignorance is Strength" . Our US Rulers seem to have us well along these same paths, with new realities surfacing each year. Another one, "Injustice is Justice", became apparent to some of us in the press who were permitted to attend the recent Luis Posada Carriles hearings before Homeland Security immigration judge William Abbott in El Paso, Texas.

By way of background, what is known publicly about Posada is that as a young man he worked in Havana in enforcement for the Batista regime, and came to US in 1960. In the CIA directed Bay of Pigs invasion, he and his partner Orlando Bosch joined CIA Operation 40, made up of sharpshooters whose job was to murder the leaders of Cuba's government. When the invasion failed, the CIA sent him to Ft. Benning, Ga. ("School of the Americas") where he was trained in explosives and interrogation by torture. Allegedly, Posada was seen in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, on November 22, 1963, the place and day Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy. During the 1960’s Posada was involved in CIA's Operation Mongoose (murderous incursions into Cuba). He also ran the CIA's demolition school in Florida and made several deadly forays into other countries, such as blowing up the Soviet library in Mexico City, the Cuban embassies in Argentina, Peru and Portugal and the Costa Rica-Cuba Cultural center. In 1972 CIA sent him to Caracas with substantial bomb making materials and equipment to work with the Venezuelan intelligence agency, DISIP. The head of DISIP, one Joachim Chaffardet, made Posada the chief of his "special services," which involved teaching demolitions and interrogation by torture.