News from other countries...

UPDATE: According to several reputable sites I found, Luis Posada Carriles is currently in custody in the US, and was scheduled for a hearing regarding his status on June 13th. I can't find any record (yet) of that trial or what has happened since, but I'm inclined to believe that we're not HARBORING a terrorist, but simply that our judicial bureaucracy is taking some time processing the request to extradite him to Venezuela. Worth keeping an eye on, but unless there's some recent update that I've not yet found, it seems premature to portray the US as harboring him.

Nevertheless, I still think Ms. Stillman's essay is useful and interesting for some of what it describes, even if some of it may need to be filtered for liberal bias.

Sarah Stillman has written an essay which, while somewhat fictionalized and facetious in tone, does help to give us some view of the news from Iraq that we don't see, the bodies, the destruction, the bits of war that we seem to forget in our "Don't show the horror of war, just repeat that it's unpatriotic to not support it" society.

I found her comparison between Venezuela and the United States to be interesting, and in her description of the Venezuela she saw, I see a lot of what the United States should (in my opinion) be. Not necessarily the subsidized health care or the social security for stay at home Moms, those are a bit too far to the left for me. But some of her descriptions about how the populace comes away from Presidential speeches feeling informed, and how they still take to the street to protest when the ideals of their country are not met.

I was particularly interested in the discussion of Luis Posada Carriles, a name I'd not heard before, but it would definitely be interesting to learn more and either verify or dispute the facts as she presents them.

Certainly it would be interesting if we're harboring a person who, in pursuit of a goal we support, purpetrated a terrorist act on the same scale as the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland (an act for which we pursued justice for about 16 years, proving that when it happens to us we consider it pretty darn important). He was convicted of that crime but escaped from prison and is currently in the United States.

I hope there are mitigating circumstances. I hope there is some ambiguity or some reason to beleive the charges are bogus. As much as I dislike Bush, I'd hate to think that we make this big show of hunting down terrorists where-ever they may hide, and then turn around and harbor them here.

But as I say, I'll reserve judgement until I have time to research the man in question further.

Meanwhile, read Ms. Stillman's piece. It's most interesting reading.

Liam.