For pure entertainment value, it’s hard to beat the President of Venezuela:
The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.
“And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here.” [crosses himself]
“And it smells of sulfur still today.”
Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.
I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday’s statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.
Personally, I think an entire staff of psychiatrists could be kept occupied by remarks from the latest U.N. General Assembly… but Chavez has been hopping up and down like a hyperactive chicken for so long, it’s hardly worth the excitement he generates.
Even the strangest speeches, though, sometimes contain items of interest, and Chavez’s bizarre rant yesterday is no exception.
CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier.
And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists.
And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner.
And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.
And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to.
And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace.
Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is protected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I’m here today.
Chavez glossed over a number of inconvenient little tidbits here — like Posada Carriles’ ties to the Venezuelan government, or that he’s not actually “living here”, but in jail on immigration charges — but that doesn’t make the gist of what Chavez is talking about here false.
Carriles has blown up people. Even he says so. Carriles is a vicious killer who sees no problem with targeting airplanes, hotels, and restaurants as a means to bring down a government. He’s a terrorist by any definition.
And Chavez is also right about something else: the U.S. position is hypocritical on Carriles (Wikipedia, my emphasis):
At this time, Carriles is being held by U.S. immigration authorities in El Paso, Texas, on charges of entering the country illegally — Posada’s immigration case had a hearing before a Homeland Security judge in Texas on August 29, 2005, had another on September 26. On September 28th a US judge ruled that Posada cannot be deported because he ‘faced the threat of torture in Venezuela’. The Venezuelan government reacted angrily to the ruling, accusing the US of having a “double standard in its so-called war on terrorism”.
Folks, I see this as a justifiable grievance against us, and at the very least we need to get the subject front and center. If this isn’t a terrorist, then we are all over the map with indefensible definitions. Furthermore, I’m not at all impressed with how this appears to be playing out. Nine days ago came this story:
Judge Norbert Garney found that Posada Carriles should be released because no country can be found to accept him, other than Cuba and Venezuela, both of which want to try him for a series of bombings.
The problem seems to be that Posada Carriles was, for many years, a paid U.S. spy. He was also employed by (the head of) Venezuelan intelligence, and thus is potentially an embarrassment for any number of governments.
It’s hard to justify holding this well-known terrorist (and there’s really no other way to describe him) in the face of the American GWOT, and I have to agree that it affects our credibility.
Yes, Chavez is a lunatic who spends a lot of time trying to capture the international spotlight, but even crazy people drop the occasional grain of truth.
I think this may be one.
We cannot give Posada Carriles sanctuary in the U.S. and have any hope of being taken seriously.
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There are TONS of info. online about Luis Posada Carriles (google search here). In addition to the links included above, I found the following to be particularly useful:
Luis Posada Carriles: The Declassified Record
BBC – Profile: Cuban ‘Plane Bomber’
NY Times 1998 (by subscription) – A Bomber’s Tale: Taking Aim at Castro; Key Cuba Foe Claims Exiles’ Backing
Answers.com
Other interesting input about Chavez’s lunacy at the U.N from The Gun Toting Liberal, while Nick Anderson at the Houston Chronicle somehow managed to see this coming in his crystal ball.