Luis Posada's immigration case is now set for hearing before a Homeland Security judge in Texas on Aug. 29. On May 21 Secretary Rice indicated the Homeland case might go on for many months and his extradition would be determined on its completion. With motions and appeals and paid lawyers, this might mean years. A provision in the 1922 US-Venezuela extradition treaty says the custodial state can keep the alleged criminal until its own proceedings against him arising from crimes committed there are completed.

… So why not just send him to the extradition judge and be done with it? What's the reason for keeping him here? Delay for delay's sake? Aggravate the Venezuelan government? Weaken the US claim to be the world leader in its "war against terrorism"? None of these seem very convincing as motives, even for this Administration. According to recently declassified CIA reports ( National Security Archives, Book 153, FBI report 11/2/76 ), in custody after his Oct. 6, 1976 bombing of the Cubana civilian airliner, flight 455, Posada threatened through his co-conspirator Morales Navarette that if forced to talk, the Venezuelan government "would go down the tube" and there would be "another Watergate."

From that lead in, the author, Tom Crumpacker, goes on to weave a trail connecting George Bush Sr. to Carriles and the assassination of JFK.

… Bush Senior has said he was not with the CIA before being appointed director by President Ford in early 1976. Joseph McBride in an article in The Nation of July 16, 1988 wrote: "A source with close connections to the intelligence community confirmed that Bush started working for the CIA in 1960 or 1961, using his oil business for clandestine activities." There's a memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to the State Department dated Nov. 28, 1963 concerning information developed by the Miami FBI office about groups in Miami seeking to blame the JFK murder on the Cuban government. It says the information was orally furnished on Nov. 23 to "George Bush of the CIA." Bush Senior was in Dallas then. As was another CIA operative, Chauncey Holt (now deceased), who identified Posada as being in Dealey Plaza at the time of the murder.

… In the fall of 1963, JFK was not relying much on CIA intelligence or opinions regarding Cuba. Negotiations (supposedly secret) were about to start between US and Cuba to possibly normalize relations. JFK's conditions were that Cuba distance itself from the Soviet Union and stop aiding revolutionary movements in Latin America, to which Castro seemed amenable.

A key part of Allen Dulles's Bay of Pigs plan was "Operation 40." They were 40 CIA agents, mostly gunmen, whose job was to kill the leading members of Cuba's government. Some, like Posada, had previously worked in enforcement for the Batista regime. Prior to the invasion they were waiting in Dominican Republic. Their boat took off for Cuba but turned around when informed the invasion was failing. They returned to the US, and, unbeknownst to JFK, Operation 40 continued on. For years and decades, with some changes in names and personnel.

… Many of the original names kept appearing in connection with subsequent covert, violent CIA projects, such as Operation Mongoose, Operation Phoenix, the JFK murder, the regime changes in Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Watergate burglary, the bombing of Cubana flight 455, the Iran-Contra war, and Operation Condor which exterminated many South American progressives. Names like Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Felix Rodriguez, E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, Antonio Veciana, Guillermo Novo, Eugenio Martinez, Ricardo Morales, David Sanchez Morales, David Phillips, all members of the 40.

So, according to Crumpacker, Carriles could well be the missing link to unraveling a chain of deceits that have shackled justice and truth in the Americas for a half century.

In an oligarchy where the important decisions are made in secret by a power elite, where the mainstream media is used to manipulate rather than inform, it's often difficult for the public to distinguish actual from virtual reality. It's apparent that Posada could supply many of the missing pieces of the puzzles of the last 45 years.

Who knows? Conspiracy theories tend to weigh like an albatross around the neck of any individual who advances them.

“Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.” — The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

But then so many pieces of the puzzle seem to fit along the edges of this picture. So every new piece has to be examined as though it matters.

One thing is certain. As it stands now, Carriles is an albatross around the Bush Administration's neck. Because if the bird man ever does chirp, he likely could prove that some longstanding conspiracy theories are, in fact, not theories at all.