Thursday, February 21, 2008

State sponsors of terrorism

In my U.S.-Latin American relations class yesterday, we discussed Fidel’s retirement, and a student asked if this would change the issue of Cuba being on the State Department’s State Sponsored Terrorist list. I remembered that Cuba was on there for harboring members of the FARC, but my student Kelby emailed me about the various other reasons. This isn’t new, but I hadn’t paid much attention to the rationale, which makes for some weird reading.

Nowadays only Iran, North Korea, and Cuba are on the list. Gadaffi is a good guy now, so Libya is off. Sudan is said to be cooperating and so is not a full member of the list anymore either—no, I swear I did not make that up. Genocide, apparently, is not state sponsored terrorism. But I digress.

Here is the State Department link, and check out the very first sentence:

“Cuba continued to publicly oppose the U.S.-led Coalition prosecuting the War on Terror.”

--So Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism because it speaks out against the U.S. By the way, since when did “War on Terror” become All Capital Letters? Since the Iraq War is part of that, then I suppose much of Western Europe must also be in this category.

Cuba also “maintained close relationships with other state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran.”

--I take it that Russia should also be on the list.

“The Cuban government continued to permit U.S. fugitives to live legally in Cuba and is unlikely to satisfy U.S. extradition requests for terrorists harbored in the country.”

--I guess the U.S. must also be on the list, since we harbor Luis Posada Carriles and refuse to extradite him. Oddly enough, the report mentions him and fails to see the irony. Instead, it uses that case to claim Cuban hypocrisy.

BTW, the report also notes that “Venezuela is the only nation certified as "not fully cooperating" that is not a state sponsor of terrorism.” The next of these terrorist reports will likely be in April. You know many in the Bush administration want to get Chávez on that list. Will they realize that doing so would be so blatantly political that it would likely only help Chávez?

This deserves my very first poll—check out the side bar.

18 comments:

boz 8:50 AM  

There are some Congressional Republicans trying to get Venezuela on the list. It would be a mistake simply because it diminishes the value of even having the list. Worse, it would harm the ability of the next administration to improve our policy.

Greg Weeks 9:39 AM  

I voted yes, but I can't say I am sure. It would be a bad idea, but that has never stopped anyone before.

Miguel Centellas 9:44 AM  

Yes, that's crazy. This will be good for my research methods class today. Their assignments was to operationalize a variable (I gave them seven options; one was "terrorist" organization). I'm curious to see if their operationalizations have more internal validity than the US Dept of State.

Anonymous,  9:47 AM  

Two words: Florida elections.

The Cuba issue all boils down to what the Republicans feel they need to do in order to win elections in Florida with the large Cuban-American community. A reliably Republican block in a swing state is not a group they want to piss off. Cuba has not been a credible threat to American security since JFK was in office, but who's counting?

Greg Weeks 9:51 AM  

That might be why Cuba stays on the list, but there is not much of a voting bloc that cares about Venezuela.

boz 9:52 AM  

I voted no. I'm hopeful that this won't go through in spite of pressure otherwise.

Paul 10:08 AM  

I'm missing what's so "political" about it? Chavez now openly supports the FARC terrorists, and there's tons of evidence he's giving them and the ELN sanctuary, and allowing them to run drugs through Venezuela. He's best buddies with Ahmadinejad, and a hero to Hezbollah.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51998945@N00/319999381/

boz 12:43 PM  

Paul,
I think that Venezuela and Iran are on very different levels in terms of their levels of support for terrorist organizations and actions. Iran's support for Hezbollah's activities (including the bombings in Argentina) goes way beyond anything that has been alleged against Venezuela. Putting Venezuela on the list of state sponsors of terrorism right now would diminish whatever value that list has left and do nothing to help stop terrorism.

Paul 2:14 PM  

Boz,

The Colombians who are kidnapped and murdered by the FARC and ELN might disagree. Chavez also went to Tehran and spoke about working with the Iranians for the destruction of the US. Seems to me it might be prudent to shade this turd on the world stage in the color he deserves.

Miguel Centellas 4:37 PM  

The real problem w/ putting Venezuela on the list is a look at the countries not on the list. Like Saudi Arabia. If the list is merely "countries we don't like" then it loses its meaning, as boz points out.

Anonymous,  5:02 PM  

Its hard to say.

I certainly don't agree with the rational, but this might be an easy way for lesser Democrats to score cheap points by looking tough on national security.

I would point out a House resolution that passed in November of 07 focused on Iran and South America. They repeatedly kept tying Venezuela to Iran.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:2:./temp/~c110xYyxCy::

now, that was when the rhetoric against Iran was full swing, I think now that its died down a bit, this has less of chance of happening. but again, Chevez certainly isnt popular in congress...the only person i have heard defend him is Jose Serrano from NY.

Now, anyone else find it interesting that North Korea was listed on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list as having abducted foreign individuals.....aka rendition? Also, notice the change in North Korea from the previous report to the current one.

Paul 5:43 PM  

"Now, anyone else find it interesting that North Korea was listed on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list as having abducted foreign individuals.....aka rendition?"

Yeah, kidnapping Japanese civilians
= rendition of Islamic terrorists.

Morally equal...good stuff.

Bosque 6:08 PM  

No one pays attention to the list anymore. Not a single "State" mentioned had persons who flew planes into US buildings, blew up embassies, or sunk military carriers.

The list has already become irrelevant.

Bosque 6:13 PM  

I dare say the Dept of State has become as irrelevant as the list.

They've become like a police officer who drives by a bank robbery to go to a theft call because the suspect in the theft is someone the officer personally dislikes. Meanwhile, the immanent & real threat is ignored.

boz 6:45 PM  

Paul,
I still say there is a distinct and important difference between the Venezuelan government's support for or tolerance of terrorist groups and the Iranian government's sponsorship of terrorist activities. The extent to which the Iranian government funds and directs terrorism places them at a different level than Venezuela.

boz 6:50 PM  

Miguel wrote:
If the list is merely "countries we don't like" then it loses its meaning...

The terrorism lists have never been methodologically well done. What's disturbing to me is how under the current administration other reports that used to be far less political seem to have become political tools (in particular, the State Department's human trafficking report comes to mind). It's going to take a long time to fix some of that damage.

Tambopaxi 2:24 PM  

The various certification instruments, counter narc, human rights, trafficking, terrorism, etc., all started out with good intentions, but over time, the original intent of each has been compromised by ad hoc political decisions (e.g., put Venezuela on terrorism list, but not Saudi Arabia) that make the lists (and the U.S.) look subjective, politically manipulated, and ultimately, silly. Too bad.

Venezuela may openly sympathize with groups like the FARC, but absent overt actions on that country's part to engage in terrorism, I'd say leave them off the list. If Bush y cia were to put Venezuela on the list, that'd be about right for those people. I'd expect Obama to take them off (if they're on) when he comes in next year, but that's not a possible scenario in Greg's little survey....

Greg Weeks 2:50 PM  

Well, since they're not yet, I kept it simple.

  © Blogger templates The Professional Template by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP