U.S. Using 1994 Argentine Bombing Investigation To Pressure Iran

[Hissyspit]

Source: Raw Story/Wall Street Journal

US using 1994 Argentine bombing investigation to pressure Iran
Nick Juliano
Published: Tuesday January 15, 2008

- snip -

The US is using an international criminal investigation into a 1994 terrorist attack in Argentina to keep Tehran in duress. The Wall Street Journal reveals the Bush administration's behind-the-scenes machinations to encourage the 14-year-old probe, which claims Iranian agents planned the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

"One U.S. goal is to cause legal problems for some of Iran's political leaders," report Jay Solomon and Evan Perez. "Administration officials also hope to use the matter to highlight Iran's alleged role in financing and supporting terrorism around the world."

The news comes less than two weeks after a confrontation between US Navy warships and small Iranian speedboats that resulted in several days of bellicose warnings and hostile rhetoric toward Iran from President Bush and members of his administration. Late last week it was acknowledged that the "threats" the Navy initially thought were coming from the Iranians could have been broadcast from virtually anywhere and may have been the result of a prankster known as the "Filipino Monkey."

- snip -

Administration officials are now telling Solomon and Perez that the 1994 bombing "serves as a model for how Tehran has used its overseas embassies and relationships with foreign militant groups, in particular Hezbollah, to strike at its enemies," the two report.

Read more: http://rawstory.com/news/2007/US_using_1994_bombing_investigation_to_0115.html

[acmavm]

1. So next they're going to go after Posada Carilles for killing 78

innocent people on a airplane maybe. Hell, they won't have to go far to find that guy. He's here in Miami.

[bif]

2. Could the appear any more desperate to get their war on?

How pathetic is that? 14 years ago?

[Judi Lynn]

3. If George Bush had even the slightest trace of credibility he wouldn't have brought Cuban "exile"

terrorist Sixto Reinaldo Aquit Manrique up on stage to sit behind him during one of his public speeches in Miami. Here's how it looked, taken from a Miami tv station broadcast, with a small image of Bush in the foreground:



Sixto Reinaldo Aquit Manrique (aka, El Chino Aquit), sharing the platform with Bush in Miami, May 20, 2002. The UN Rapporteur cited Aquit firing a 50 caliber machine gun at a Cypriot tanker in Cuban waters in his 1994 annual report on human rights in Cuba.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0504/S00224.htm

Nor would he have released, only a short time before September 11, the two bombers who killed Chilean leftist diplomat, Orlando Letelier, and his associate, American Ronnie Moffit, and injured her husband in a car bombing on the streets of Washington, D.C. in broad daylight!

From the Washington Post:

In November 2000, Posada was arrested again, along with three other anti-Castro militants for plotting to assassinate Castro during the Ibero-American summit in Panama. All of the arrested men had impressive rap sheets and had been charter members of the terrorist groups CORU or Omega 7. In April 2004, Panama's Supreme Court sentenced Posada and his associates to up to eight years in prison, but in August the quartet was sprung by a surprise pardon from departing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, who maintains good relations with Miami's political leadership. Her pardon outraged U.S and Latin American law enforcement officials.

Three of the men were flown to Miami and met by their jubilant supporters just days before the 2004 presidential election. But Posada disappeared -- until his emergence here last month.

The quartet are not the only unsavory characters to be given the red carpet in Miami. Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen, with the backing of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, wrote letters on behalf of several exile militants held in U.S. prisons for acts of political violence. Some were released in 2001, including Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel and Virgilio Paz Romero, both convicted for the notorious 1976 car bomb-murder of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronnie Moffitt, in Washington. Once released, instead of being deported like other non-citizen criminals, they have been allowed to settle into the good life in Miami.
(snip)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58297-2005Apr16.html



Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel



Virgilio Paz Romero has shown contrition, by allowing what he did was a "grave human error." (The shorter man is Paz.)
Say no more, throw open the prison door, why live in the past, let the bomber go, according to _{George W. Bush.}

[Judi Lynn]

4. Yes, the Bushes are strictly opposed to any kind of terrorism. It's only a fluke that the elder Bush

overruled a U.S. assistant Attorney General Joe D. Whitley and issued an administrative pardon to Cuban "exile" bomber/mass murderer, Orlando Bosch Avila, after his son, Jeb, and Cuban "exile" Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (her campaign manager was _{Jeb Bush} and Bosch's lawyer Raul Cantero (grandson of bloody Cuban butcher/dictator Fulgencio Batista, and later appointed by _{Jeb Bush} to the Florida Supreme Court) asked him to do it.

As you may recall, Orlando Bosch Avila and Luis Posada Carriles are the two authors of the bombing mass murder of 73 citizens (some of them the Cuban fencing team, some were Guyanese medical students, some children) in a Cubana airliner, in the first recorded bombing of an airplane in flight.



Orlando Bosch is proud to be living free back in Miami, where the Miami city commissioners named a day of the year for him, and a street, as well.

His co-mass murderer/bomber, Luis Posada Carriles is proud to hang his hat at his own home in Miami, as well, after _Bush ally and friend, Mireya Moscoso, former President of Panama, pardoned him and his fellow bombers after they were caught trying to bomb an auditorium where Fidel Castro was scheduled to speak in Panama, which would have killed hundreds, if not thousands of people, had it not been caught in time.



Luis Posada Carriles, bomber/mass murderer/former CIA/Iran-Contra operative, back home in Miami.



Posada benefactor, and _Bush friend, Mireya Moscoso

Home in Miami

[LSK]

5. and the CIA's role in Iran, Chile, Cuba, Lebanon, Central America, etc etc etc?

[sarcasmo]

7. Don't forget the Kennedy Assassination. See post below.

[sarcasmo]

6. With this mindset can we go after Bush 41 to find out what he really knows about the Kennedy

Assassination.

[struggle4progress]

8. Argentina's police conveniently "botched" the local criminal investigation into this case years ago:

A Tragedy of Errors
The Investigation into the AMIA Bombing
July 18, 2001
Yael Shahar

... The investigation into the AMIA bombing was placed in the hands of federal judge Juan Jose Galeano, who was able to dedicate all his time to the AMIA case, assisted by 100 police and other workers ... After a flurry of initial arrests, only one man was found to have a direct link to the bombing -- Carlos Telleldin was accused of selling the white Renault used as a car bomb in the AMIA attack and refitting it for the bombing ... Then, in August 1996, three senior policemen and a retired officer were accused of being accessories to the bombing ... In November 1997, the congressional commission discovered that one of the policemen charged in connection with the bombing, Juan Jose Ribelli, had received $2.5 million the week before the bombing ... In September, 1999, Peronist Deputy Carlos Soria, president of the congressional commission charged with investigating the bombing, revealed that a police radio recording seems to show that a patrol car covering the embassy grounds was inexplicably called away from the scene minutes before the blast ... Alberto Zuppi, a lawyer representing relatives of people killed in the bombing, .... said .... the rubble from the AMIA blast, including human remains and fragments of the car bomb, was simply carted off and dumped in an open area for several years. It was eventually used as landfill in the River Plate. No one even tried looking for clues as to the nature of the bomb or the make of the vehicle ... Members of Buenos Aires Jewish community have long suspected that police involvement in anti-Semitic acts is greater than the authorities want to admit ...

http://212.150.54.123/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=371

[Judi Lynn]

9. Bush ally, and Bush family friend Carlos Saul Menem was the President during that time.

He's the same cretin who decided it was a delightful idea to give amnesty to all the Argentinian figures who had been involved in the torture and murder, many by throwing victims out of airplanes after torture, and the kidnapping of female leftist prisoners' babies, once delivery could be induced or they were delivered by C-Section, and giving the children to Argentinian military officers and their families, then killing the mothers. All these torturers and murderers were simply given blanket amnesty by _{George H. W. Bush} friend, Carlos Menem, who was also President during the bombing of the anti-Semitic bombing.

Here's a timeline from BBC News:

~snip~
The Falklands War

1982 April - Argentine forces occupy the British-held Falkland Islands, which Argentina calls Islas Malvinas and over which it had long claimed sovereignty. The United Kingdom dispatches a force to re-take the islands, which it does in June. More than 700 Argentines are killed in the fighting. Galtieri is replaced by General Reynaldo Bignone.

1983 - Argentina returns to civilian rule. Raul Alfonsin becomes president. Argentina begins to investigate the 'Dirty War' and charge former military leaders with human rights abuses. Inflation is running at more than 900%.

1989 - Carlos Menem of the Peronist party is elected president. He imposes an economic austerity programme.

1990 - Full diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom are restored, with Argentina still maintaining its claim to the Falklands.

1992 - Argentina introduces a new currency, the peso, which is pegged to the US dollar. A bomb is placed in the Israeli embassy, 29 people are killed.

1994 - A Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires is bombed. 86 people are killed and more than 200 injured.

1995 - Menem is re-elected.

1996 - Finance Minister Domingo Cavallo is dismissed. Economic hardship leads to a general strike in September.

1997 - A judge in Spain issues orders for the arrest of former Argentine military officers on charges of participating in the kidnapping and killing of Spanish citizens during the 'Dirty War'. Argentine amnesty laws protect the accused.

Recession bites

1998 - Argentine judges order arrests in connection with the abduction of hundreds of babies from women detained during the 'Dirty War'.

Recession starts.

1999 - Fernando de la Rua of the centre-left Alianza opposition coalition wins the presidency, inherits 114 billion-dollar public debt.

2000 - Strikes and fuel tax protests. Beef exports slump after an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Soya exports suffer from concerns over the use of genetically modified varieties. The IMF grants Argentina an aid package of nearly 40 billion dollars.

2001 February - Argentina recalls its ambassador to Cuba after President Castro accuses Argentina of 'licking the yankee boot'. Castro made the remarks in an apparent reference to Argentina's support for US condemnation of Cuba's record on human rights.

Argentina and the United Kingdom agree that Argentine private aircraft and vessels may now visit the Falkland Islands again.

2001 March - President de la Rua forms a government of national unity and appoints three finance ministers in as many weeks as cabinet resignations and protests greet planned austerity measures.

2001 July - Former president Carlos Menem is charged with heading an 'illicit organisation' that violated international arms embargoes against Croatia and Ecuador in the early 1990s. A court throws out all arms trafficking charges against Menem, freeing him after five months of house arrest.

2001 July - Much of the country is brought to a standstill by a general strike in protest against proposed government spending cuts. Country's credit ratings slip.


Return of the Peronists

2001 October - The opposition Peronists take control of both houses of parliament in Congressional elections.

2001 November - President de la Rua meets US President George W Bush in a last-ditch attempt to avoid an economic crash in Argentina. Share prices reach record lows.

2001 December - Economy Minister Cavallo announces sweeping restrictions to halt an exodus of bank deposits. The IMF stops $1.3bn in aid.

2001 13 December - A 24-hour general strike is held in protest at curbs on bank withdrawals, delayed pension payouts and other measures.

2001 20 December - President Fernando de la Rua resigns after at least 25 people die in street protests and rioting.
(snip/...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1196005.stm

[struggle4progress]

10. The effects of Argentina's Nazi collaboration continues to plague the country today

Tuesday, November 17, 1998 Published at 07:45 GMT
World: Americas
Argentina delves into Nazi past

By BBC South America Correspondent James Reynolds

... Recent studies have argued that Argentina offered widespread support to Nazi Germany during World War II, disregarding its official position of neutrality.

After the war ended, the government of Juan Peron is thought to have helped hundreds of suspected Nazi sympathisers to enter Argentina and escape trial in Europe.

For many years, human rights groups criticised Argentina for not wanting to bring these suspected criminals to trial.

But in 1996, the Argentine government extradited the former SS captain, Erik Priebke and this year, it extradited the Croatian couple, Dinko and Nada Sakic, accused of running a concentration camp during the war ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/215939.stm


Argentina Evades Its Nazi Past
By ANN LOUISE BARDACH
Published: March 22, 1997

... This month President Carlos Saul Menem of the Peronist Party acceded to a request from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to hand over bank records for the accounts of some 334 Nazis and their wives and mistresses who fled to Argentina. But this would not be the first time that Mr. Menem has signaled token cooperation and then proved to be less than sincere.

In 1992 he announced with great fanfare that he was releasing all of Argentina's wartime archives. But Sergio Widder, the Latin American representative at the Wiesenthal Center, insists that the records were ludicrously incomplete. ''Adolf Eichmann was not in the file,'' he said. Nor was there anything on Joseph Schwammberger, the commander of the Mielec concentration camp who was captured in Argentina in 1987, or on Erich Priebke, the SS officer captured in 1994 and now on trial in Italy for the massacre of 335 civilians at the Ardeatine cave outside Rome in 1944.

Nor did the files include anything on Ivo Rojnica, a pro-Nazi Ustashe commander from Croatia who became a Menem supporter and was even nominated as Croatia's Ambassador to Argentina in 1993. (After protests from Argentina's Jewish community, Croatia withdrew his nomination.) ...

A recently declassified 1945 State Department report concluded that ''the personal fortunes of Nazi officials'' were transported by diplomatic pouch to Buenos Aires, and that Hermann Goring had ''more than $20 million,'' as well as a submarine loaded with 40 boxes of treasure ...

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02E2DD153BF931A15750C0A961958260


from the August 23, 2002 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0823/p07s02-woam.html
Race-hate groups find virtual haven in Argentina
Lax laws and cheap Internet access have helped far-right groups thrive
By Colin Barraclough | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

BUENOS AIRES - ... Aided by inexpensive high-speed Internet access and an outdated antidiscrimination law, race-hate groups from all over the Spanish-speaking world are making Argentina their virtual home base.

"The late 1990s saw the re-birth of neo-Nazi groups in Argentina, both in the real world and on the Internet," says Sergio Widder, Latin America representative for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization. "The ultraright in Argentina is using the Internet to help create a neo-Nazi network in Latin America." According to the Wiesenthal Center, the number of sites worldwide it deems "problematic" has grown to 3,000 today from one in 1995. Specific numbers for Argentina were unavailable ...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0823/p07s02-woam.htm

[Judi Lynn]

12. These links provide some names which will be useful for future searches.

The article by Ann Louise Bardach dropped a lot of information in a small space. She used to write at the NY Times, before they started featuring such giants as Judy Miller! Ann Louise Bardach along with Larry Rohter got the unusual long interview with Cuban "exile" bomber/mass murderer, Luis Posada Carriles, which was read world-wide. Her Posada material is available at her site:

http://www.bardachreports.com/posada_files.htm

Pity how the great ones aren't the ones the papers seek to keep. From the article on Argentina's Nazi past linked above:

According to the Blue Book of Argentina, an exhaustive document compiled by the O.S.S. in 1945 (the World Jewish Congress obtained a copy last year), the Peron Government continued to aid the Fascist cause long after the war ended, issuing an estimated 60,000 to 90,000 visas to desperate Nazis, including Eichmann, Klaus Barbie and Josef Mengele. So complicit was Argentina that the United States seriously considered barring its entry to the United Nations.

60 to NINETY THOUSAND Nazis pouring into Argentina? My God! Simply unbelievable.

It's always good to remind oneself it was Henry Kissinger who tutored and guided the Argentinian military junta in their coup and their treacherous, barbaric seizure of the country, and the murder of 30,000 suspected "leftists." Talk about political prisoners!

The revelations, which were also announced at a conference in Argentina yesterday, confirm suspicions at the time that the regime would not have continued to carry out atrocities unless it had the tacit approval of the US, on which it was dependent for financial and military aid.

The junta, which ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, fell after the military's defeat in the Falklands war. During its period in power an estimated 30,000 people may have been arrested, tortured and killed. Many bodies have never been found.

An investigation into those crimes has begun in Argentina.

Mr Kissinger has been asked by the Chilean authorities to give evidence in connection with human rights abuses during the 1973 Chilean coup and the support he gave to the former dictator, General Augusto Pinochet. He is likely to be asked to do the same in Argentina.

He reportedly does not travel abroad without consulting his lawyers about the possibility of his arrest.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1101121,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So the strange twist in all this is that although Kissinger has always made a point of telling people that he has relatives who were murdered in concentration camps, he ended up doing tons of close work with and supervision of Nazi-loving fascist dictators and military juntas in Latin America.

What does that really say about Kissinger?

[Rex]

11. Meanwhile, Italy has arrest warrants out for CIA operatives.

Yeah, goodluck convincing the world we are the righteous ones. You will pick up votes in the UN, no doubt. BUT. It shows how desperate the BFEE is to get its war on with Iran.

Pathetic. Sad. Wrong.