Beautiful Horizons

Deja Vu All Over Again

As this understandably snarky Morin cartoon in yesterday's Miami Herald makes clear.

Unbelievable

Sometimes the insensitivity of the law can just leave you speechless:

Two men wrongly jailed for murder for 18 years must pay for the money they saved in "board and lodgings" while in prison, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

Cousins Michael and Vincent Hickey were convicted of murdering newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater in November 1979.

An independent assessor ruled their "loss of earnings" compensation should be cut by 25% to cover living expenses.

Here is some of the fine board they experienced:

Stigmatised as child killers, they had been subjected to appalling treatment in prison, Susie Labinjoh, of Hodge Jones & Allen, added. Their food had regularly been adulterated with phlegm and glass.

The very definition of insult to injury.

Good For Him

I applaud the forthrightness and moral clarity of William Wood, the US Ambassador to Colombia in this instance:

U.S. Ambassador William Wood on Thursday lashed out at a speech made to Congress by the head of Colombia's right-wing militias, calling the warlord's comments ``scandalous.''

Wood said Salvatore Mancuso, supreme commander of the outlawed United Self-Defense Forces, or AUC, should never have been allowed to speak before the national legislature. ''It's a bit strange that in Congress, where they write the laws, approve the laws and defend the laws you would also find those who break the laws,'' he said.

Well said. Again, if anyone has any doubts, let me state yet again: my sympathies in Colombia lie solely with the Colombians who decently and bravely are trying desperately to lead normal lives. I have nothing but contempt for the FARC, the AUC and the ELN and I oppose the impunity amnesty plans that do not provide for jail time for the leadership of these terrorist groups as well as forfeiture of all enrichment obtained through their illegal activities.

The Noose Tightens

I see a new program in the works for HBO Latino: The Pinochets.

A son of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has been arrested in Santiago for alleged tax fraud involving millions of dollars.

Authorities say Augusto Pinochet Hiriart was detained Thursday in a probe of a group accused of forging vehicle invoices.

The French news agency says the group bought and sold cars, possibly stolen ones, and altered its accounting to avoid some $625,000 in taxes.

Is the father soon to follow? I can dream can't I?

Oh Puhleeze!!!!!

Since when has it been that when a decorated veteran makes the following statement:

"You see that flag up there. We call her Old Glory. The stars and stripes forever. I fought under that flag, as did so many of you here and all across our country. That flag flew from the gun turret right behind my head. It was shot through and through and tattered, but it never ceased to wave in the wind. It draped the caskets of men I served with and friends I grew up with. For us, that flag is the most powerful symbol of who we are and what we believe in. Our strength. Our diversity. Our love of country. All that makes America both great and good. That flag doesn't belong to any president. It doesn't belong to any ideology and it doesn't belong to any political party. It belongs to all the American people."

it's time for a "shmaltz alert?" Only when they are a Democrat, I suppose. Give me a frigging break!

Timothy Noah Nails It

Lest anyone think that Bush-bashing is always acceptable, Timothy Noah does a terrific job of taking Castro to the woodshed for ridiculous Bush-bashing:

However much Chatterbox may dislike President Bush, he must affirm that he very much enjoys living in a country where you can say any rude thing you like about the commander in chief. Castro is smarter and better-read than Bush, but he rules a country described thusly by Human Rights Watch:

Cuba is a one-party state that restricts nearly all avenues of political dissent. The government severely curtails basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, movement, and to a fair trial. While it has long sought to silence its critics by using short term-detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, threats, surveillance, criminal prosecutions, politically motivated dismissals from employment, and other forms of harassment, the government's intolerance of dissenting voices intensified considerably in 2003.

Chatterbox will take America's frat-boy ignoramus, religious fanatic, or however else you care to describe him over Cuba's thuggish bibliophile any day of the week. So, please, Comandante, read away. But even if you follow the Modern Language Association's footnoting policy to perfection, Chatterbox would prefer that you leave this column out of your speeches from now on—particularly those that end with the nutty cry, "Hail Caesar!"

Amen to that.

More Potential Backlash From Bush Cuba Policy

The Times also has this article about the possibility of backlash against President Bush for his new Cuba policy:

But the strategy has pumped life into a voter registration drive among newer Cuban immigrants, who generally favor greater contact with the island and their relatives there.

Sergio Bendixen, a longtime pollster based in Miami, said the new measures were drawing supporters and opponents in equal numbers among Cuban-Americans. For a bloc that has been characterized by remarkable electoral cohesion for decades, the split is telling, Mr. Bendixen said.

"They've been very controversial," he said of the new restrictions. "The Bush side feels it's going to energize their base. The Democrats feel it has created a very important opening to gain significant support."

Jorge Mursuli of Mi Familia Vota, a voter registration drive among Hispanics in Florida, said his nonpartisan operation was signing up as many Democrats as Republicans.

"It shows you the potential this issue has to blow up in their faces," Mr. Mursuli said of the president and his advisers on Cuba.

Knowing the president and his inability to acknowledge his mistakes, I predict that there will be a Reaganesque moment. Just as President Reagan ignored the poignant pleadings of Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and went to Bitburg, Germany to lay a wreath on a memorial for the Waffen SS after making the hideous statement that they were also "victims" of the Nazi's, I predict that President Bush rather than acknowledge he made a mistake will ignore the pleadings of Felix Ramirez as recounted in this post:

Felix Ramirez, 51, who arrived in the United States in 1969 and says he visits the island three times a year and sends cash to relatives regularly, said he has a terminally ill sister in Matanzas. He fears he won't see her again.

''She's dying,'' he said. "In three years, she'll be dead and buried and I can visit her bones in some cemetery.''

But please don't take my word for it. After all, I'm just a foe of Bush looking for any port in a storm. Consider this:

Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, based in Miami, said the restrictions adopted by the administration amounted to "bad policy and bad politics." Although his longtime anti-Castro organization, the largest exile lobby, supports most provisions in the new strategy, the restrictions on travel and relief packages have changed the focus of debate, he said, away from Mr. Castro's human rights record and the persecution of dissidents.

"We succeeded in turning Castro versus the U.S. government into David versus Goliath,'' Mr. Garcia said. "The giant is perceived as being abusive."

That's what I've been saying all along.

The New York Times on Señor Mancuso Goes to Bogotá

Juan Forero has a good article in today's New York Times about the AUC leaders appearance before Colombia's congress. It appears that the demonstration of support for the AUC was stage managed:

Outside, in the giant Plaza Bolívar, anchored by the stoic statue of the Liberator that has served as a meeting place for protesters and lovers for decades, hundreds of people bused in from the countryside shouted, "Viva La Paz," or long live peace, in an orchestrated show of support. Participants said they were given T-shirts that read, "We are builders of peace," and long banners proclaiming allegiance to the peace process.

"They got us together, they organized us," said Luis Parrado, 50, a street vendor, pointing to several men in bright windbreakers who bused Mr. Parrado and others from the southern city of Villavicencio.

and the stagemanaging was aided by the authorities:

But there were also relatives of people killed by the paramilitaries, carrying coffins and photographs of their loved ones. Some yelled, "Mancuso, fascist, you narco-terrorist."

Heavily armed police officers, dressed in black antiriot gear, quickly removed the protesters, who went peacefully.

Hundreds who supported the paramilitary presence were permitted to remain, hailing President Álvaro Uribe and Mr. Mancuso.

"We want to support the president's peace talks," Rafael Quintero, 45, an indigenous leader who lives in the heart of paramilitary territory in northern Colombia. "It's a good process."

I shudder to think what would have happened to Mr. Quintero if he had expressed a different opinion.

AUC Leaders Address Colombian Congress

I'm wondering what the purpose of this was:

Leaders of a far-right Colombian paramilitary group, accused of massacres and drug trafficking, addressed the country's Congress on Wednesday and said a peace deal should not include jailing them for their war against Marxist rebels.

The three leaders of the outlawed United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, told a congressional hearing on their negotiations with the government that they took up arms because the military failed to protect them and their property.

"The reward for our sacrifice for our country, for having freed half the country from the guerrillas and preventing another Cuba or the old Nicaragua establishing itself on the nation's soil, cannot be to send us to prison," said Salvatore Mancuso, AUC military commander.

Oh really, Mr. Mancuso? What have you done to accomplish this "sacrifice?"

Assassinated Disappeared your own founder and suggested assassinating President Uribe to strengthen your bargaining position.

Used civilians as human shields.

Attacked peasants with chainsaws.

Stolen land from Colombian citizens.

You as well as the rest of your leadership are under indictment by the US Department of Justice for drug trafficking.

Some sacrifice. You personify the notion that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.

The US Ambassador, William Wood, to his credit isn't buying it and thinks that Mancuso should be extradited.

Here's the crocodile tears moment:

"I grew up and was educated with the desire to serve society. I never imagined that .... extortion and the threat of kidnapping and death would force me to [ed. note: extort, kidnap and murder? ]act in self-defense," said Mancuso, a burly rancher, wearing a suit and tie instead of his customary combat fatigues.

He opened his address by saying he "believed in God, in the God of hope, of love and of forgiveness."

Time to revisit your catechism, sir. To be forgiven you must acknowledge and do penance for your sins. It's high time you did so.

Doctors Without Borders Leaves Afghanistan

This headline says it all:

After 24 Years of Independent Aid to the Afghan People Doctors Without Borders Withdraws from Afghanistan Following Killings, Threats, and Insecurity

Before anyone starts erecting strawmen, yes I know that the Taliban is responsible for this, but consider the following:

The violence directed against humanitarian aid workers has come in a context in which the United States-backed coalition has consistently sought to use humanitarian aid to build support for its military and political ambitions. MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières the French name] denounces the coalition’s attempts to co-opt humanitarian aid and use it to "win hearts and minds." By doing so, providing aid is no longer seen as an impartial and neutral act, endangering the lives of humanitarian volunteers and jeopardizing the aid to people in need. Only recently, on May 12, 2004, MSF publicly condemned the distribution of leaflets by the coalition forces in southern Afghanistan in which the population was informed that providing information about the Taliban and al Qaeda was necessary if they wanted the delivery of aid to continue.

Even if you want to place the most benign reading on that comment from MSF, the danger to aid workers is clear:

Taliban-led militants have been blamed for attacks that have killed more than 30 aid workers since March 2003 and made much of the south and east virtually off-limits. The killings of the MSF workers occurred in the northwest and raised fears that the violence was spreading and becoming too dangerous.

This is a real tragedy for the people of Afghanistan:

Over the last 24 years, MSF has continued to provide health care throughout difficult periods of Afghanistan’s history, regardless of the political party or military group in power. "After having worked nearly without interruption alongside the most vulnerable Afghan people since 1980, it is with outrage and bitterness that we take the decision to abandon them. But we simply cannot sacrifice the security of our volunteers while warring parties seek to target and kill humanitarian workers. Ultimately it is the sick and destitute that suffer," said Marine Buissonnière, Secretary General of MSF.

Draw your own conclusions, but in my humble opinion I really don't see how one can make the case that security in Afghanistan has gotten better.