The U.S. Justice system is truly a twisted knot of hypocrisy at times.
As proof, take a look at the handling of two cases now pending before U.S. immigration courts.
In one case, we have Guillermo Eduardo Ramírez Peyro, an informant who, according to DEA sources, was involved in up to a dozen brutal murders in Ciudád Juárez, Mexico, while working under the supervision of officials with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.
Then there is the case of accused anti-Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.
If you recall, Posada Carriles was arrested in Miami in mid-May 2005 after allegedly entering the United States illegally via the Texas/Mexico border. He then claims to have taken a bus from Texas to Miami.
(However, most folks inclined to look a horse in the mouth won’t buy his claim about entering the states through Texas. It is almost certain he was delivered to the shores of Miami with the assistance of his benefactor, Santiago Alvarez, and a misguided shrimp boat captain who, prior to reaching U.S. soil, washed nearly ashore with his crew in public view off the coast of Mexico.)
Case One
Ramírez Peyro, a Mexican citizen, is now incarcerated in a jail somewhere in the Midwest trying to prevent the U.S. government from deporting him to Mexico, where he claims he faces a certain death at the hands of the narco-traffickers he betrayed in a case known as the House of Death.
The Department of Justice is arguing for his deportation, several government whistleblowers contend, because the informant Ramírez Peyro is a key witness to the complicity of federal agents and attorneys in the House of Death mass murder. Hence, if Ramírez Peyro is knocked off in Mexico, so is the potential for his words to be turned against powerful U.S. officials.
From the Ramírez Peyro’s appeals court pleadings:
Mr. Ramírez testified he entered the Mexican drug trafficking industry after he left the Mexican federal highway police. His first job was as a distribution manager in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. He became a United States government informant in 2000 and subsequently made contact with the Carrillo Fuentes Organization, (CFO), in Ciudád Juárez. His performance as an informant is extensively documented in the record. Mr. Ramírez explained he was tasked with infiltrating groups of organized criminals as a means to effectuate the arrest and prosecution of high-level participants.
Mr. Ramírez testified he was present when individuals who were involved with CFO in drug trafficking or whom CFO members believed were a threat were assassinated by two Mexican police officers in Ciudad Juárez. Mr. Ramírez submitted payment records confirming he was paid over $200,000.
In fact, Ramírez Peyro was far more than “present” at the House of Death executions. According to records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, he actually participated in the first murder at the House of Death in early August 2003.
Ramírez Peyro’s U.S. government handlers later debriefed him about the murder, which also was recorded on tape, according to law enforcement sources. Rather than shut down the drug sting at that point, Ramírez Peyro’s handlers allowed him to return to the House of Death to pay a gravedigger for burying the body, FOIA records show.
In addition, Ramírez Peyro was allowed to continue his work in the House of Death murder machine — which was responsible for at least 11 more homicides over the ensuing four months.
Case Two
Posada-Carriles is a long-time CIA operative who is accused of blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976, snuffing out the lives of some 73 innocent people. Of course, that is just the tip of the ice pick in terms of the crimes Posada Carriles stands accused of in the eyes of the world. Venezuela, in particular, wants justice served up to Posada Carriles and has sought his extradition in connection with the airline bombing.
The 78-year-old Posada Carriles is a native of Cuba but later also became a citizen of Venezuela, where the airline-bombing plot was allegedly masterminded.
Posada Carriles is now sitting in jail in El Paso as he, like Ramírez Peyro, seeks refuge in the United States from the retribution that awaits him elsewhere for past deeds.
But unlike Ramírez Peyro, who might hurt the interests of powerful U.S. officials if he is allowed to stay in the United States, Posada Carriles presents a quite opposite dilemma for similarly situated powerful elites in this country who occupy a plantation villa known as the White House.
After all, if Posada Carriles were to be returned to Cuba or Venezuela, what dark secrets might he reveal to officials there about the U.S. government’s involvement in his sordid terrorist past?
Consequently, the immigration courts of this land appear to be holding Possada Carriles to a different standard than Ramírez Peyro.
U.S. officials claim, remarkably, that if returned to Mexico, Ramírez Peyro has no reason to fear harm from the murderous narco-traffickers he betrayed while on the U.S. government’s payroll — despite the fact that these same narco-traffickers have a track record of torturing and murdering more than a dozen people.
However, in the case of Possada Carriles, the same U.S. government, through the same immigration justice system, argues that the terrorist cannot be deported to Cuba or Venezuela because he would face certain torture and a threat to his life if returned to either of those sovereign nations — which were victims of his terrorist activity.
This position is bound up in even more hypocrisy given President Bush’s recent admission that the U.S. government has whisked away suspected “Islamofascist” terrorists to be held without trial in secret CIA prisons overseas — where they almost certainly faced torture and life-threatening conditions.
But in the case of the terrorist Posada Carriles, it is not torture he has to fear, but rather aggravating his skin cancer by getting too much sun while relaxing on the beaches of Miami, where his family now lives.
That's right. According to a recent report by the Associated Press, Possada Carriles may well be set free soon — so that he can await the outcome of his case in comfort instead of prison.
And given the fact that no country to date, other than the United States, has been willing to offer the terrorist shelter within their borders, Possada-Carriles’ short-term freedom may well last a lifetime — given his advanced age and ill health.
From the AP story:
EL PASO - A federal magistrate has agreed that an anti-Castro Cuban militant should be able to leave a federal immigration jail while he waits to be deported.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Norbert Garney has ruled that Luis Posada Carriles should be set free from the El Paso immigration detention center where he has been held since his arrest on immigration charges last year, Posada's El Paso lawyer, Felipe D.J. Millan, said Monday.
Millan said the ruling will now go to a federal district judge. Millan anticipates that Posada could be set free in about 30 days if Garney's ruling is upheld, as he anticipates it will be.
… Last year, an immigration judge ruled that Posada should be deported but said he could not be sent to Cuba or Venezuela because of the fear that he could be tortured.
During a brief hearing in federal court Monday, Posada asked Garney to let him return to Miami, where his wife and children live, until the U.S. government can find another country to send him to.
Federal authorities have been trying since October to find a country that would accept Posada.
Canada, Guatemala, Mexico, Costa Rica and El Salvador have all rejected formal requests to accept him.
So what does this tells us about U.S. justice?
It seems to tell us, on a very dark note, that U.S. government-sanctioned terror and murder are just deeds, assuming you don’t expose the people who sanctioned those deeds.
At a minimum, it is yet more evidence that the so-called war on terrorism, like the war on drugs, is a big pretense.
