U.S. fears Carriles could be "tortured" if deported!

Deciding who will witness the Luis Posada Carriles asylum case Monday, sisters

Roseanne Nenninger (in pink) and Sharon Persaud (in blue) learn they will not be

allowed into the hearing of the man accused of killing their brother in a 1976 Cuban

airliner bombing.

This past Monday the Immigration hearing of Luis Posada Carriles' request for asylum in the United States began. Carriles has a long history of subversive acts against Cuba, including a series of bombings of Cuban hotels in 1997, assassination attempts on Fidel Castro and his role in the blowing up of a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed all 73 passengers on board.

As a terrorist, his application for asylum in the United States contradicts Bush's proclamation on a number of occasions, post 9/11, that anyone "harboring a terrorist, is a terrorist."

If Carriles' asylum request were to be denied, he faces possible deportation to his home country, Venezuela. But that nation's leader, President Hugo Chavez, has been the subject of a recent call for assassination by evangelical Pat Robertson, a long-time financial supporter of president Bush. Robertson's "fatwa", to date, has drawn no condemnation from president Bush who dismissed it as simply the personal comments of a private citizen.

Pooh poohing Robertson's remarks as Bush did, seems to support official US policy as promoted by Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld's recent trip to Latin America. At every stop, Rumsfeld called Venuezla a threat to the stability of the area, much as he labelled Iraq before the war there.

So there's that sticking point in Venezuela's call for Carriles' return to stand trial for his role in the 1976 Cuban airliner bombing, that is, their leader is on our s"hit" list.

It appears we have a real game of international stickball being played by the Bush administration. I haven't found a lot of information for what happened in Wednesday's hearing, but it went something like this:

Carriles has withdrawn his asylum request. He doesn't want to embarass the U.S. I'm surmising because of facts that might come out in the course of his testimony. Remember, Carriles has a long history of working with the CIA.

In another ironic move for the U.S., there is reluctance to deport him to his home country. That's because we fear this terrorist may be tortured. Oh really? Is there no limit to the hypocrisy of which this nation is capable? What in the hell are we doing to hundreds of so-called terrorists each and every day with impunity? The only difference I can discern is Carriles is guilty of terrorism, while most of those we torture in Gitmo, Abu Graib and elsewhere are innocents. But we have no remorse. This whole thing is beginning to reek of farce.

Anyway, the next chapter on Carriles will be released Sept. 26th when he will again appear in court. Stay tuned.