Terrorists, immigrants and selective enforcement

By Libby

I see the Treasury Dept. has drawn a bead on Michael Moore for traveling to Cuba without permission when he took some ailing 9/11 rescue workers there for medical treatment. Bad Michael, he violated the trade embargo, something of course that hundreds of other Americans have done via trips arranged through Canada and Mexico. But Moore makes those movies that piss the Commander Guy off, so the only way the White House would let him travel to Cuba is by special invitation to Gitmo.

The administration has also made a big show of punishing illegal immigrants lately. Hundreds of them working in the glamorous meat packing industry have been ripped from their families and held in detention centers here. I'd bet some of them still haven't been charged with anything.

Meanwhile, thanks to planned incompetence, a real live known terrorist, Posada Carriles is strolling South Beach in Miami, having been released from custody on a legal technicality.

On Tuesday, the judge in El Paso, Texas dismissed an indictment against Posada Carriles. She said statements Posada Carriles made that were to be used against him at his trial had been improperly obtained.

Tuesday's move came three days before Posada Carriles was scheduled to go on trial on charges that he illegally entered the United States in 2005.

No worries about a stay at Gitmo for this enemy combatant. Cuba and Venezuela want him so Bush going to keep him instead. Of course he's a good terrorist because he was working for us. As the All Spin Zone points out:

What is clear, beyond all reasonable doubt, is that Posada Carriles is an international terrorist who was trained and financed by the U.S. government. Whether he was operating as a freelancer, or at the behest of his CIA handlers when he carried out his terrorist acts is completely beside the point. Documents from the U.S. government make it clear that the man plotted the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people, and he has admitted being involved in hotel bombings in Havana.

Carriles is a naturalized Venezuelan citizen but fat chance Bush would turn him over to Chavez. When it comes to the global war on terror, apparently only some parts of the globe count.