Friday, June 1, 2007

Justice, Bambi, and Che

At Babalu they found it delicious, and Carlos Alberto Montaner’s column on the parallel lives of Luis Posada Carriles and Che Guevara had a literary quality to it, but to me it was a study in ambiguity.

Above all, Montaner instructs us as to how, for many Cubans outside Cuba, Posada’s case is not about what to do with Posada right now. Instead, the spotlight on Posada provokes painful reflection about revolutionary violence and those who got away with it. And in that regard, El Che, of worldwide t-shirt fame, is particularly galling. Montaner accuses the media, everyone’s favorite whipping boy these days, of hypocrisy. Posada’s past is being dredged up, while Che gets a movie about his incredible road trip with his buddy Granados.

The Posada episode may turn out like the Elian Gonzalez case. For a significant segment of exiles, the clearcut legal issues – custody of a child with one surviving parent, disposition of an individual with a terrorist past and a pending extradition request – are secondary, overwhelmed by a national political grievance. The issue of justice doesn’t rest primarily with Posada, his deeds, and how a court would judge them. What matters is the historical injustice that would prevail if Posada is tried and others are not.

There are differences: Unlike in Elian’s case, Miami political leaders are generally quiet about Posada, considering that this is post-9/11. And Posada’s case is first and foremost a federal matter.

President Bush has a narrow set of issues to settle. He declared a war on terror and sets standards for the world to follow. His supporters praise his “moral clarity.” Posada entered U.S. territory, the President’s Justice Department labeled him a terrorist, and the FBI links him to the 1997 Havana hotel bombings. Either the United States brings him to justice, or it does not. Either decision will affect anti-terrorism efforts, which require consistency on the part of the government and cooperation from other countries.

Not much room for ambiguity.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't see much in common with the Elian case. Elian transcended Cuban-American generations, and there were "newcomers" as well as "old timers" on both sides of that issue. Other than the Vigilia Mambisa octogerians, I can't see many in Miami getting worked up about Posada doing time in the U.S. or even Italy. Montaner's point is valid: right wing terrorists DO receive much more copy that left wing ones. If Bill Clinton's January 21, 2001 pardon of Weather Underground terrorist Susan L. Rosenberg had gotten a tenth as much coverage as the Posada case, his ambitious wife would be in Chattaqua baking cookies today. Imagine the MSM uproar if Posada were to be similarly pardoned. Even as a pre-Sept-11 act, Clinton's pardon was inexcusable.

Anonymous said...

..and the pardon of Bosch by Bush 41 also was wrong.

leftside said...

Montaner's article is a study in fanciful story-telling, non logical thinking and hypocrisy, more like it. Blaming the media for kids wearing Che t-shirts and being "harsh" on Posada is laughable. Sure, there was once a global war on imperialism, which Che and Posada served on the front lines of. But to equate the two is just not credible, given that Che has been dead for 40 years and Posada's worst crimes have come since then. Che was part of Revolutions for national independence, Posada was an agent of US power...

There is a distortion in every sentence in the piece. Hoe does this get though the editing process?

leftside said...

Also, the biggest difference between Posada and Elian is that no one outside of 2-3% (mostly left-wing) US population knows about it - compared to the wall to wall coverage Elian got. if this is not an indictment of the US media I don't know what is...

Elian affected on Cuban family. Posada affects hundreds of aggreived families and, more importantly, the very credibility of a central tenet of US foreign policy. If the Posada story would have gotten 1/100th of the television news coverage Elian did, Posada would be in jail, named a terrorist under the Patriot Act. Instead, the next time the US wants to extradite anyone from an "unfriendly" Latin (or any other) country, the double-standard will be dragged out.