Pixiq

Thanks for the photos and video!

Carlos,

Thanks for posting the video. It provides an extra dimension to Saturday’s events. Keep up the good work.

al

Carlos:

Are you sure that you are not nonee? Because he also believes that Posada Carriles is a “terrorist” because Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez say so.

Read my blog if you care for another opinion.

Hey MAT, I never said he was a terrorist. I’ve also never said he wasn’t. I even said I don’t think he should have to defend himself any longer. But if somebody else wants to consider him one, whether reasonable or not, that’s their right.

I also said, big fucking deal on him. Move on.

These Code-pinkos are just another bunch of irrelevants who are convinced they’re right about everything. (Forgive me, friend, but don’t they know that’s what you’re here for?)

Hardliners don’t take as good as they give. Put them all in the same bag… and you ruin a perfectly good bag.

Manuel,

This has nothing to do with what Chavez and Castro say. Not everything is so black and white.

That’s the problem with some of these exiles. Someone calls Posada a terrorist and they interpret it as someone calling Castro and Chavez great leaders.

Posada is a terrorist because he kills civilians.

Just like the IRA were terrorists when they were killing civilians in London and like the UVF when they were killing Catholic civilians in Belfast.

And like Osama bin Laden when he was killing civilians in New York City.

I read your post and you mentioned how Castro was able to take power through guerrilla warfare in the streets of Havana.

That’s true, but you neglected to point out that many of those same terrorists quickly became disillusioned with Castro and came to the United States and used their experience with explosives against exiles who spoke out about a more moderate view towards Castro.

Wasn’t Posada one of these Cubans who helped Castro overthrow Batista only to later turn on Castro when he revealed himself to be a communist?

You also mention how Castro has trained terrorist organizations like PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah.

But the U.S. trained Posada. One country’s terrorist is another’s hero.

I lived in Dublin for 18 months and I supported a unified Ireland, but I didn’t believe in bombing parts of London to achieve this goal. And most Irish civilians felt the same way.

I believe Castro is a repressive dictator, but I don’t understand how killing teenage members of the National Fencing Team, who were on that plane, is going to help topple the government.

And I don’t understand how Cuban exiles can just forgive Posada for killing their own people whose only crime was perhaps that they had not yet gotten on a boat to come to Miami.

It’s men like Posada who resort to violence and intimidation in their politics that has prevented Cuba from ever being a stable democracy in its short history.

Castro is just the latest in a long-line of revolving door dictators who came to power after Cuba won its independence from Spain.

And Posada is just the latest in a long-line of revolving door terrorists or freedom fighters or whatever you want to call them that have attempted to topple these same dictators.

The fact that some Cuban exiles support Posada – and will shut down anybody who doesn’t support him – shows that they have not learned a single thing from Cuban history, nor a single thing about democracy from their stay in the United States.

There is no excuse for terrorism in my opinion. If this guy had anything to do with the downing of that plane, why are these people defending him? That’s absurd. Innocent students were killed and for what? On the other hand, I have no sympathy for Code Pink. They clearly wanted to agitate the exile community. There are way too many other causes than this one that was clearly chosen to offend this crowd.

Imagine Code Pink protesting the Wiesenthal Foundation and calling them murderers in Aventura. . . How do you think the community would react? The older Cuban exile community is seething with still open wounds and these folks are sprinkling salt on them. Just my thoughts.

y

Carlos:

It has never been proved that Posada “killed civilians,” although, in every war, civilians are killed. So long as it’s not by design, there is nothing that can be done about that.

Posada has never been accused of “using explosives against exiles.” He lived and fought Castro everywhere in the world except in the U.S.

The fact that Posada fought against Batista indicates that he is not a batistiano (isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?). The fact that he turned against Castro when he betrayed his promise of holding free elections shows that he is a democrat.

That the U.S. “trained Posada” does not make him a “terrorist” or even a stooge of the U.S. At one time Posada’s enemies were also this country’s enemies.

Cuban exiles have nothing to “forgive Posada for.” Defending our national dignity requires no apology.

As for “Castro [being] the latest in a long-line of revolving door dictators who came to power after Cuba won its independence from Spain,” you could not be more wrong.
Castro is sui generis. We must go back to colonial times to find his like in Valeriano “Butcher” Weyler. If you don’t know that you know nothing about Cuban history.

nonee:

There are only two sides to the coin: either Posada is a terrorist or he is not a terrorist.

It is Posada’s enemies — who happen also to be our enemies — who can’t “move on.”

The greatest malefactor of the Cuban people, Fidel Castro, will die peacefully in his bed, while Posada, who has done nothing but fight for our liberty for 50 years, will be tormented to his dying day.

Manuel,

There is enough evidence from our own government to indict Posada in a U.S. court and make his stand trial for the bombing of that airplane.

I never said Posada used explosives against citizens in Miami, but many of those who support him today have done just that.

Posada also admitted to the New York Times that he was responsible for killing an Italian tourist in Havana in 1997.

There is no doubt that these murders of civilians were clearly “by design”. We’re not talking friendly fire here.

I really don’t understand how defending Posada equates to “defending our national dignity”.

Give Cuba more respect than that. There is a lot more in Cuban culture to be proud about than that scumbag.

Castro differs from his predecessors in the fact that he is not a puppet for the U.S. Government.

But he is just as corrupt, violent and oppressive as his predecessors.

MAT, if he did what he is accused of doing, then I guess he’s a terrorist. That and “freedom fighter” are not mutually exclusive. And both terms are subjective. While I don’t condone those alleged actions, I can understand that in some twisted, over-the-top way, such actions sometimes have purpose. The more the indiscriminate deaths, the more innocent victims, the less purpose, however.

Remember my question to you of a few days ago: Did that airliner have a tactical value? This being a war of freedom, and all…

Carlos:

Posada has been tried in both civil and military courts for the airliner explosion and been found innocent. How many times do you propose that he should be tried for the same offense and by how many countries? In Castro’s Cuba, of course, acquittals are reversed and defendents can (and have been) tried as many times as it is necessary for them to be found guilty. Is that what what you want for this country — the abrogation of the Rule of Law.

The man responsible for blowing up the Cubana de Aviación plane was a man named Navarrete, a Castro double-agent, who confessed to the crime in a Florida courtroom shorly before his death.

A New York Times reporter claims that Posada admitted to her that he was responsible for a hotel bombing that killed an Italian tourist. However she has refused to release the tape of the interview or a transcript. Both Posada and The New York Times are on record as giving their consent to the release.

Why would Posada confess to a New York Times reporter and why would the reporter refuse to release the tape that would prove her contention?

He was acquitted in a military court in Venezuela, but the court itself agreed that it had no jurisdiction over the case because Posada was a civilian.

He was then tried in a civilian court, but escaped before a verdict could be read, so he was NOT found innocent.

In fact, there is currently an arrest warrant out for him from the same civil court that you claim found him innocent.

He didn’t confess to a New York Times reporter. He bragged.

This is what the Cuban ultra right-wing in Miami is like. They won’t allow ANY opinion to be heard except theirs, and they say they represent all Cuban-Americans. And if you disagree with or criticize them (in English), they call you a racist.

Carlos:

Posada was a director of intelligence for Venezuela and as such subject to court martial. The government ignored the military court’s ruling and placed Posada on trial again in flagrant violation of the Venezuelan Constitution and norms of international jurisprudence. Still Posada prevailed a second time. It was not until he was threatened with a third trial that he knew he had to escape and did. His escape was facilitated by Venezuelan intelligence, which probably acted with government authorization. The scandal of trying him a third time was thus evaded.

That an Hugo Chávez-controlled judiciary should do his bidding and indict Posada a fourth, fifth or sixth time, is something that should surprise none and proves nothing.

Posada is not a stupid man. He has proved that simply by surviving. Why then would he “brag” about something that could be his undoing? He survived an assassination attempt by Castro that blew half his face away. Would Posada be able to resist Castro’s killers but not a New York Times’ reporter? Oh, please. He told her nothing.

“Castro differs from his predecessors in the fact that he is not a puppet for the U.S. Government.” — Carlos Miller

Yes, he’ll sell his country to anybody and has.

Mr. Tellechea said: “Posada was a director of intelligence for Venezuela and as such subject to court martial.”

Wrong again.

Posada left his position at DISIP in 1974. At the time of the bombing Posada was self-employed at his detective agency. He, with Bosch, Lugo and Ricardo, should have never been tried by a military court.

I assure you Carlos, no one in the exile community cares that you think they are a dying breed. If the this kind of reaction shocks you, you obviously no nothing about the seriousness of el exilio. Code Pink thought they could provoke a bunch of people who believe very deeply in their cause and not expect a reaction.

Also Maximo Gomez is a hero of Cuban independence. And you wonder why the Cuban community is so hostile to people like you, you call us names, debase our experiences, and insult our national heroes.

Jorge,

This reaction did not shock me. It did not even surprise me. I was born and raised down here. I know all about the “seriousness” of el Exilo.

I’ve never felt that the Cuban community has been “hostile” with me.

I just disagree with the ultra right-wingers on politics. And I know many Cubans who do as well.

Pancho:

I did not specify the exact dates that Posada Carriles work for Venezuelan intelligence. You assert that he left in 1974. However, it is likely that he continued to collaborate with DISIP long after that and at least up to the time of the explosion if not thereafter. Whether the Venezuelan government was justified or not in court martialing him, the fact is that it did. Having been found innocent, he should never have been retried again.

Have those who favor the continual retrial of Posada Carriles on the same charges ever advocated the trial of Fidel Castro for his innumerable crimes against humanity? Do you?

As you know, there is considerable independent evidence from British investigators that the Cubana de Aviación plane was blown-up by Castro agents to frame Posada. Haven’t you discussed that evidence on your own blog? I believe you have in the past. Yet I don’t recall you calling for Castro to be indicted on the basis of that evidence.

Manuel,

Posada may not be stupid, but he is also vain. And he knows he is protected by the U.S. Government, which is why he felt no fear in bragging to the NY Times about killing the Italian tourist in 1997.

He was smart enough to have denied involvement in the 1976 airline bombing.

In this New York Times article , it is clear that he wanted to get his side of the story out before he died.

This also came at the heels of when Mas Canosa died, which is why he had no problem saying Mas Canosa had funded him.

This, of course, caused an uproar in Miami’s Cuban community, so Posada had to claim he was misquoted.

And the NY Times ended up running a correction saying Posada never said the CANF directly funded terrorist acts.

But that was clear from the original article when Posada said Mas Canosa gave him money and told him he doesn’t want to know what it is used for.

The fact that Mas Canosa gave him money was never denied.

EDIT: Link fixed.

Carlos:

As you say, The New York Times had to run a correction admitting that Posada had never said CANF was involved in funding terrorist acts. So, in effect The Times admitted that it lied when it attributed these comments to Posada. It is, therefore, no leap of the imagination to suppose that it lied also when it claimed that Posada admitted he had any role in the bombing that killed the Italian tourist.

Every hagiographic word that Herbert Matthews wrote about Castro in The Times was a lie. Why should we believe anything that it says about Castro’s enemies?

It was the Miami Herald that came out with an article headlined “NY Times admits error in exile story” — as if they had never been influenced by Miami’s exile community before.

A Rueters article on the same subject was headlined “New York Times says Cuban exile group distorts truth.”

The actual correction stated the following: “Because of an
editing oversight one sentence reported that Mr. Posada said that
Cuban-American leaders had ‘supported’ a series of hotel bombings in
Cuba. The wording was not intended to mean that Mr. Posada said the
foundation leaders had paid specifically for the hotel bombings.”

Essentially, we’re playing with semantics here. Nobody is denying the CANF gave money to Posada. But the CANF is insisting that they had no idea what Posada was using the money for.

How naive of them.

I love how hardliners maintain that Posada has never been convicted of any terrorist act when it is, in fact, those acts that they revere him for. If hardliners actually believed that he was innocent, he would be nothing but another old Cuban sitting in Little Havana, playing dominoes and cursing Castro. The fact that hardliners know that he did what he is accused of doing, elevates him to something one notch down from The Almighty, at least in their twisted, hypocritical little minds.

Oh, and no one ever mentions that the man was convicted in Panama just 8 years ago for plotting to kill Castro by blowing up an auditorium of Panamanian students. That conviction alone warrants the moniker “terrorist” be applied to that POS.

As far as the incident itself goes, does anyone else see the irony in hardliners seeing nothing wrong with chasing down and attacking “provocateurs” like Code Pink on a public street in broad daylight while putting up statutes, making movies about and basically martyring a group of pilots who, one could say, similarly provoked Castro just over 10 years ago.

Neither Code Pink nor the Brothers to the Rescue pilots were doing anything wrong at the time they were attacked. Both Code Pink and BttR passionately believed in what they were doing. But both groups were set upon and forcibly stopped from continuing on with their respective missions by old, arrogant, and lawless Cuban men bent only on silencing them.

In the YouTube clip you hear one hardliner yell, “The streets of Miami belong to the Cubans.” I wouldn’t doubt it if at some point during the BttR shootdown, Castro extolled, “The airspace above Cuba belongs to Cubans!”

Indeed, in more than one way, Miami’s hardliners are still beholden to Fidel Castro.

.

And I do want to say that, once, just once, I’d like to see how far hardliners are willing to go to silence the people that don’t think they they do.

Instead of running off as a mass of hardliners descends upon them, I would love for someone to stand their ground, take a few punches or slaps or worse and be in a position to say, “Gee, I thought my life was being threatened by this horde of angry people that surrounded me.”

Because when that happens, a whole new dynamic comes into play.

.

Rick,

Welcome to the discussion.

From my experience, if you make a stand against the hardliners, they back down. At least in a physical sense.

They’ll keep calling you a communist, but they won’t dare approach you if they see you will put up a fight.

The one difference between Code Pink and Brothers to the Rescue is that Code Pink was still in the United States (at least geographically) so they were protected under the First Amendment.

The pilots of Brothers to the Rescue were violating Cuba’s air space, which is a violation of international law.

Not that I’m criticizing them for what they did because they clearly understood the risks involved.

And I have not read anything that indicates they were killing Cuban civilians – unlike Posada.

But they were not protected under U.S. law during their missions.

On the other hand, Code Pink supposedly was protected by the First Amendment.

Carlos:

I hope that your reply to Rick is not a bid to become the next resident token on his blog.

I have never read an example of moral equivalence more repugnant than you have just written. That it is based on error upon error does not excuse it.

For the errors of fact, take the time to acquaint yourself with the shooting down of the Brothers to the Rescue plane. You know absolutely nothing about it.

I am convinced now that you are not nonee. Apologies to nonee.

Manuel,

What is it with you guys? First Rick accuses me and you of being “soulmates” and now you suggest that I am vying to become his “resident token”.

I’m nobody’s token. Especially Rick’s.

Now about Brothers to the Rescue: I understand you have a lot of emotional sentiment about this matter and I really do not mean to come across as “repugnant”.

I’m just trying to approach this matter very objectively.

But I do find it striking how you can get so offended about the downing of the BTTR airplane, yet show such a cold indifference to the downing of the Cuban airliner where 73 people died.

I don’t give a crap about Code Pink, but as a gringa who has lived in Miami since 1969, I don’t have too much respect for a group of people that has contributed NOTHING as a citizen of Miami and the US except their undying obsession with Fidel and Cuba. It really doesn’t matter to me how much they suffered in Cuba more than 40 years later. Did survivors of WWII come here and still 40 years later only cared about one issue? Why can’t the exiles focus all this energy on education, health care, cleaning up Miami’s corrupt government, understanding and respecting our Constitution — issues that actually affect ALL of society. I have tons of first generation Cuban American friends and thankfully, they do not obsess about this, they are American citizens in the truest sense of the word. Anyone, regardless of race, culture or background, who is one-dimensional and intolerant of anything but their small little worldview is, by definition, a bad citizen.

Carlos:

I have never condoned the explosion of the Cubana de Aviación plane but maintained always that Luis Posada Carriles had nothing to with it.

“…understanding and respecting our Constitution…” – Kathie

You mean like the freedom NOT to address any of the things you mentioned?

Aside from that whole suppression of dissent thing, it seems to me we understand YOUR Constitution pretty fucking well… See what I did there? I said “fucking”. First Amendment and all that rot…

Oh please, you know what I mean about the Constitution. The hardcore Cuban exiles don’t want to hear any opinions differing from theirs: not about Elian Gonzalez, the embargo, nothing. They don’t have to change their opinion and they don’t have to listen to others’ and they can support any issue they please, but they don’t want differing opinions to even be expressed. If you don’t see that reality, then you are living in denial.

and P.S. Nonee, “our constitution” doesn’t mean mine. It means the entire citizenry of the U.S. It’s very convenient for you to take that and couch it in some non-existent xenophobia.

The reality I see is that there are elements in this country who react to dissenting opinions, and the expression thereof, with violence. I’m not referring here to the clinic-bombing anti-abortion evangelicals, the church-bombing white supremacists, ship-bombing eco-terrorists, or even blood-flinging animal activists. No. I am referring to the bullhorn-weilding septuagenarian Cuban intransigent. They exist, along with the rest of the cultural Yetii I mentioned. None of them should be used to tar the entire phylum.

You seem more non-plussed with a portion of this community’s unwillingness to listen to or accept differing opinions, “not about Elian Gonzalez, the embargo, nothing. They don’t have to change their opinion and they don’t have to listen to others’ and they can support any issue they please…” I assume they have not changed your mind. It sounds like you also disagree wholly with a differing opinion, unwilling or unable to see any validity in it. So, shall we call you pot, or kettle?

It is OUR Constitution, and my tongue was firmly in my cheek when I suggested otherwise. I think you fell short in only extending its protections to “the citizenry of the U.S.,” but as an avowed non-xenophobe, I know you just misspoke.

This Constitution of ours, through its Amendments, protects us from reprisals from our government for the expression of our opinions. Our criminal laws protect us from physical reprisals from anyone for the same. What’s more, anyone who violates those norms of decency should be made an example of by heaping helping of ridicule, scorn, and incarceration.

But nothing anywhere says that anyone has to listen to you express your opinion, much less agree with you.

I’m not convenient.

nonee, we may disagree, but your passion is inspiring and I like the way you write

Thanks for sharing

I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:

MIAMI “EXILES” ARE A BUNCH OF COWARDS!

Hysterical.
Someone call Rick Sanchez…