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Reporter's Notebook: Bill Weaver

Where is Luis Posada?

Posted by Bill Weaver - July 19, 2005 at 2:58 am
Today we received mixed signals on the location of Luis Posada, the anti-Castro terrorist wanted in Venezuela for the bombing of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 in 1976. . . Posada, last released from prison in Panama in 2004, is the Zelig of the Latin American world of spies and intrigue.  He was involved with the Bay of Pigs attack, was a major player in Iran-Contra, an operative in the murderous Condor network that wiped out innumerable leftists in Latin America, worked with President Cerezo in Guatemala in attempting to keep the Guatemalan army at bay, and engaged in numerous attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro.  Indeed, his last stint in prison before coming to the United States was for plotting Castro’s murder during a 2000 visit to Panama; Posada was arrested with 40 pounds of C-4 explosives.

But for the last few decades, wherever Posada goes the specter of the Bush dynasty follows.  At the time of the Cubana bombing, on October 6, 1976, George H.W. Bush was Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and newly released records show that agency involvement with the bombing was greater than even suspected by many of the more cynical observers.  It does not get any clearer than the CIA report of June 22, 1976, that stated, "a Cuban Exile extremist group, of which Orlando Bosch [a long-time partner of Posada] is a leader, plans to place a bomb on a Cubana Airline flight traveling between Panama and Havana." Bush senior was also Vice President of the United States when Posada “escaped” from a Venezuelan prison while being tried for the Cubana bombing.  Posada resurfaced soon after his 1985 escape from Venezuela, as Ramon Medina, a chief player in the Iran-Contra affair,a grotesquerie hatched by the CIA and the Reagan-Bush Administration that helped fund itself by facilitating drug sales in the United States.  In 1986, Bush family friend and lapdog, Elliot Abrams, lied stone-faced to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about U.S. involvement in the "contra" affair, making sure to protect Bush senior:

"Mr. Stokes asked whether denial of U.S. involvement included the Vice President.  Mr. Abram’s said Mr. Gregg of the Vice President’s staff had introduced Mr. [Felix] Rodriguez to Salvadoran Air Force officials in 1984 to serve as an adviser on air/ground operations.  Mr. Rodriguez’ actions since that time were on his own."

Abrams has resurfaced as a chief adviser in the Bush junior administration.  And Bush senior, as President, released Posada’s comrade-in-arms, Orlando Bosch, from federal detention in 1990.  Now with the weight of all this history on him, and no doubt tremendous familial pressure, Bush junior must decide what to do with a 77-year-old terrorist who is really the living embodiment of a failed United States policy of decades past.  The federal government transported Posada to El Paso, Texas, where he is to have a bond hearing on July 25.

We are unable to go into any further detail, but credible information has it that Posada is no longer in El Paso.  Additionally, two separate calls to the detention facility supposedly holding Posada yielded differing information concerning his upcoming bond hearing.  During a call this morning, employees said that the bond hearing set for the 25th will be accomplished electronically, with neither Posada nor his attorney to be present. Later in the day, however, a second call to the detention center yielded the information that Posada was “most definitely” at that facility and that he would be present for the bond hearing next Monday.

Bill Conroy, well known to regular readers of Narco News and the Narcosphere, said that he checked with sources on the inside and could not confirm that Posada had been moved.  But one of his sources said that “it would not be a big surprise if Posada were moved. They could move him on a whim, claiming he was under threat or for some national security pretense. [The government] want[s] to control [Posada] as much as [it] can without killing him.”

If the U.S. is moving Posada around, it is in an effort to play a shell game with its own past.  It must be difficult to know what to do with someone whose life and experience span U.S.-sponsored murder, deceit and lies perpetrated upon people and democracies, and who is a Bush family member by ideology, temperament, and disgust for law, if not by birth.  Samuel Beckett once said that, “Habit is the ballast that chains a dog to his vomit.”  We will soon find out what chains George W. Bush to Luis Posada.

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Carriles' health is failing?

Submitted July 20, 2005 - 8:40 pm by Bill Conroy
The Miami Herald reported the following today about the man without a country:

A lawyer for anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles is asking an immigration judge to throw out the U.S. government's case against his client, arguing that it hangs on hearsay testimony that Posada masterminded the bombing of Cuban tourist sites and other terrorist acts.

Attorney Eduardo Soto is also fighting Posada's deportation, saying that his client has had a relapse of skin cancer and has a worsening heart condition.

U.S. immigration authorities declined to comment on the motion.

… The motion was filed in preparation for next Monday's immigration hearing in El Paso, where Posada will ask a judge to release him on bail. Soto said doctors had recently discovered that Posada is suffering from new manifestations of skin cancer and a heart condition.

Nothing is new about Carriles’ lawyer portraying him as a victim. The Miami Herald report conveniently fails to address the public-record trail pointing to Carriles evil deeds, however.

But this is the first mention of Carriles’ health problems I have seen in the mainstream press since his capture.

Given Bill Weaver’s report about Carriles’ alleged departure from El Paso, one has to wonder what scheme is now afoot. It also brings to mind the comments of the intelligence official who spoke with Narco News in an earlier story:

Source 3: A private consultant who does work for the intelligence community

"They will get Posada Carriles in prison." the source opines.

"He will die of syphilis. That would be the easiest excuse. He's never had it before, but they will give it to him. (The disease) takes 25 years (to kill you) if not treated. In his case, they'll condense his syphilis.”

OK, cancer and heart disease aren’t the same as syphilis, but they are still a pretty deadly combination for a 77-year-old locked away in the bowels of the U.S. prison system.

If it’s true, it sure is a convenient development for the Bush Administration.

And as far as Carriles’ lawyer trying to play the sympathy card for his client – hoping that might get him sprung -- well, unless he’s living under a shrimp boat somewhere, he should know that dog won't hunt.

Carriles: The Bird Man of El Paso

Submitted July 23, 2005 - 6:20 pm by Bill Conroy
There’s an interesting commentary on the Baltimore Chronicle Web site concerning Luis Posada Carriles. Like prior Narco News reports, the commentary, penned by a retired attorney from Austin, Texas, points out that Carriles’ immigration proceedings are likely to take a long time to unfold — likely years.

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.

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