Posted on 06/30/2007 4:34:35 PM PDT by Baladas
Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday she is “appalled” by remarks made by Republican Fred Thompson suggesting that some Cuban refugees could be terrorists.
Thompson, an actor and former Tennessee senator, spoke about Cuban refugees Wednesday during an appearance in South Carolina.
The topic was illegal immigration and Thompson’s opposition to any legislation that does not do enough to protect America’s borders.
Using Cuban refugees as an example, Thompson said, “I don’t imagine they’re coming here to bring greetings from Castro. We’re living in the era of the suitcase bomb,”
Clinton, New York’s junior Democratic senator, speaking to a group of Hispanic supporters attending a Disney World convention of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, said “I was appalled when one of the people running for, or about to run for, the Republican nomination talked about Cuban refugees as potential terrorists.”
She said Thompson, “apparently doesn’t have a lot of experience in Florida or anywhere else, and doesn’t know a lot of Cuban-Americans.”
Clarifying his remarks, Thompson posted a response on his website - imwithfred.com - saying he understands how important Cuban Americans have been to this country. He also noted that the Cuban government remains on the state department’s terrorist list.
That is “why we must oppose the illegal immigration of Castro’s agents into the United States while welcoming the vast majority who immigrate legally and with legal intentionns,” said Thompson.
Then-Gov. Bill Clinton agreed with the Carter administration's decision to house some of the Cuban refugees in Arkansas.
Riots in the Fort Chaffee (Arkansas) center were a factor in the re-election defeat of then-Governor Bill Clinton.
In June 1980, the refugees rioted and set several base buildings afire. About 300 escaped and ran through the streets of nearby Barling before being captured. Clinton mobilized the National Guard, and officials from the Carter administration flew down to help.
By the time the last Cubans left the base in February of 1982, law-enforcement officials estimated that at least 450 assaults had occurred. Two Cubans died in the attacks on the base.
Mariel refugee Juan Carlos Santana, 45, has been in and out of Arkansas prisons since 1981. He is now serving a 25-year sentence for selling cocaine.
Santana was arrested for burglary and sentenced to three years. After his release, Santana was convicted of check forgery and sentenced to another three years. Then he began selling cocaine.
Sep. 05, 1994
But when Bill Clinton sat down with his top advisers last week to figure out what to do with the thousands of Cuban refugees floating toward Florida on every kind of makeshift raft they could tie together, there seemed no other choice. The President had already insisted he would not let the boat people into the U.S. proper — that was politically unacceptable
Clinton loudly proclaims he will not let Castro “dictate American immigration policy” — in the very act of reversing the 35-year policy of welcoming Cuban refugees with “an open heart and open arms,” as Jimmy Carter put it in 1980.
Ping
within the past week, I heard a news story about an aborted terror attack by a Cuban or Cuban-American ... it may have been a false initial report, and I’ve not heard more since, but it DID make an impression because we don’t think of Cubans as terrorists. However, with the Marial Boatlife, more than a few ‘bad apple’ Cubans managed to get into the US.
Jan, 1997
presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s 1991 pledge to end the Bush Administration’s interdiction of Haitian boat people sparked a major surge of boat building within Haiti.
While escaping the communist paradise with his mother, Elian was shipwrecked and then rescued off the Florida coast in 1999, but his mother wasn’t as lucky. Relatives of the 5-year old wanted him to stay with them in Miami. However, the boy’s father, a loyalist to Castro wanted him back and suddenly Elian was the in the midst of a heated tug-of-war.
The Clinton Administration decided that Elian would be better off with his alleged biological father in Castro’s Proletariat kingdom. The only problem was Elian’s Miami relatives, who had escaped from the de facto Cuban prison themselves, wanted Elian to grow up in the United States and enjoy the benefits of living in a free, capitalist nation.
Bill Clinton and the rest of his liberal cronies wanted the boy turned over to the federal authorities and shipped back to Cuba.
The possibility of retaliation is also behind Clinton’s decision to delay implementation of the most serious part of the bill for six months — until well after the U.S. elections in November. That way Clinton hopes to have it both ways — to still have a chance of winning the Cuban-American votes in November, and to avoid international retaliation from countries such as Britain and Canada. The withholding of U.S. entry visas (so far applied only to the executives of one Canadian company) may not, by itself trigger retaliation unless it’s applied more widely. At least that’s the hope of officials at the White House.
Heck, in America, we have the left wing terrorists Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. Why wouldn't a few Cubans be left wing, too? I'm sure there are those who also adore Communism and Castro as much as Hillary.
Amen.
Candidates with the yen to lead had better perceive issues through the prism of the red, white and blue..........or they get their walking papers.
She’s trying to define him first.
Fred better get on the ball and define himself, and fast!
I’m appalled by hillleree and her husband willie...the disgraced, former impeached president. So, there hillereee...put that in your pipe and smoke it. Boy if I were in her shoes I’d be worried and going on the attack too. First Obama and now maybe Gore and then FRED!!!
Fred needs to show he is Buford Pusser...and not another pub wimp.
I would respond.....”and I am appalled at the language Hillary uses, laced with F bombs while denigrating those under her manicured thumb”
Hillary could be a terrorist.
This is a good example of how we lose debates because we let liberals define the terms. They have managed [deliberately] to make everyone, now matter how they enter this country, into an “immigrant”.
Fred said nothing derogatory about legal immigrants. And he said nothing derogatory about refugees per se. Just that Castro sneaks in spies representing themselves as refugees. Which he does, and we are damn fools if we deny it.
I see a GOP commercial here.
Imagine a 30 second commercial assemblage of Hillary's negativeness...
In her own screeching voice, a series of clips from her speeches and microphone addresses how she's appalled at... or someone is the worst... or we need to investigate... or that one about the "plantation"... there are too many for one commercial.
Effective, n'est ce pas?
My alternative tagline could read... Hillary and the other leaders of the (once great) Democratic Party...
...a non-stop continuum of malignant blames and Stalinist accusations.
Excellent research. Thank you for the article. The Clinton’s have blood on their hands. Fred Thompson should take this info and engage in a little “politics of personal destruction”.
Cuba, A Menace to America: An Interview with Maria C. Werlau
By Myles Kantor
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 29, 2002
THE CUBAN AMERICAN NATIONAL FOUNDATION recently published Cuba: Assessing the Threat to U.S. Security, a collection of essays on several topics regarding Communist Cuba’s sponsorship of terrorism.
Maria C. Werlau contributed two essays to this volume: “Does Cuba Have Biochemical Weapons?” and “Cuba: Safe Haven for Fugitives and Hotbed for Terrorists.” Ms. Werlau is President of Orbis International Consulting and has recently launched the Free Society Project, Inc., a non-profit organization that will archive the loss of life during the Cuban Revolution.
Myles Kantor: Fidel Castro is often perceived as an idiosyncratic head of state, even a nuisance, but not a menace. Is Castro really a threat to America?
Maria Werlau: Those familiar with the true nature of the Castro regime would not describe Fidel Castro as merely “idiosyncratic.” Unfortunately many people choose not to know the truth, preferring to see it with an unsubstantiated, even irresponsible, romanticism.
Fidel Castro’s virulent hatred of the United States goes back far before he even came to power. Anyone who follows the news from Cuba is aware of how regularly and consistently he’s proclaimed it himself—of course, only when he’s not manipulating uncritical, misinformed Members of Congress whom Castro wines and dines into believing he can be “reasonable.” Castro, a student of Lenin and Gramsci, is a masterful prevaricator, who’s always known how easy it is to fool the Capitalists into hanging themselves with their own rope!
Castro’s Cuba is known to have trained thousands of guerillas and terrorists from all over the world. Plus, it is amply documented to have sponsored subversion and terrorism in most democratic nations of this hemisphere, including the United States, and as far away as the Middle East and Africa. Its ties to terrorist groups and states continue in the present and have caused thousands of deaths worldwide.
Cuba continues to harbor dozens of fugitives from U.S. justice—including Puerto Rican terrorists, who killed Americans and stole millions in a Connecticut heist, ETA [Basque Fatherland and Liberty] terrorists sought by Spain and IRA [Irish Republican Army] operatives apprehended in Colombia just last August after training FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] narcoterrorists in explosives and urban guerilla tactics.
Just last month, Fidel Castro hosted a four-day meeting in Havana of the Sao Paolo Fo...rum, an organization formed under his leadership to spread Marxism worldwide. Representatives from a number of terrorist groups attended the meeting, which called to unite efforts against U.S. and capitalist influence around the world, and viciously attacked the military campaign in Afghanistan. In May of last year Fidel Castro had visited Iran, Libya and Syria—other designated state sponsors of terrorism—where he gloated that the United States was weak and would soon be brought to its knees.
Above all, Castro has been consistent. The U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee reported that the Tricontinental Conference of African, Asian and Latin American Peoples, held in Havana in 1966, sought to “coordinate subversion and guerrilla activity on a worldwide basis” which had already been underway and warned of the “immediate and massive intensification of terrorism and guerrilla activity throughout the Americas, as well as in Asia and Africa.” Conference participants were reported to have “designated United States ‘imperialism’ as enemy number one in every continent.”
Myles Kantor: Some contend that Communist Cuba’s inclusion on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist sponsors is inappropriate. Is its removal justified?
Maria Werlau: For Cuba to be considered for removal from the state sponsors’ terrorist list it should first meet some minimal conditions. For example, Ambassador Dennis Hays, Executive Vice President of the Cuban American National Foundation, enumerated some of these conditions in his October 2001 Response to the Center for International Policy, “Castro’s Cuba: Continuing Sponsor of Terrorism”:
1. Renounce unequivocally terrorism and “revolutionary” violence.
2. Sever all ties with the ETA, FARC, ELN [National Liberation Army of Colombia], IRA, and other terrorist organizations.
3. Provide complete, timely, and actionable information on its past and present terrorist links with rogue nations and narco-terrorist groups.
4. Extradite terrorists and criminals to the nations seeking them, such as the United States and Spain.
5. Open all its biotechnology laboratories to full, unannounced, international inspection.
6. Prosecute officials responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians such as in the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down and 1994 “13 de Marzo” tugboat cases.
To this list, I’d add seventh and eighth conditions:
7. To hand over to U.S. justice the Cuban government officials, or any other Cuban citizens, indicted for drug trafficking in the United States.
8. Condemn Bin Laden and Al Quaeda.
Myles Kantor: How would you assess Communist Cuba’s threat to America relative to other state sponsors of terrorism such as Iraq and Libya?
Maria Werlau: Cuba should be assessed with a unique set of circumstances in mind. To begin with, there is strong indication that Cuba has an offensive biochemical weapons program—weapons it already used in Angola—and it is only 90 miles away from U.S. shores. In addition there is now ample and recent information of the effective penetration of the United States by a vast network of Cuban spies, who’ve monitored the activities and personnel at U.S. bases. They even managed to penetrate the Defense Department, where the Senior Cuba analyst [Ana Belen Montes] was accused of spying for Cuba in late September and awaits trial. These overtly hostile activities together with Cuba’s potential to cause great harm through asymmetrical means should be taken very seriously by our government.
Myles Kantor: After reading your essay, “Cuba: Safe Haven for Fugitives and Hotbed for Terrorists,” it seems like Cuba is the place to go if you’re an American cop-killer on the lam or a Marxist terrorist looking for training.
Maria Werlau: Yes, Cuba is a place to go if you hate the United States or have committed a crime. Reportedly there are over 70 fugitives from U.S. justice sought by the FBI for federal crimes—cop killers, terrorists, plane hijackers, bank robbers, embezzlers, and the sort. The irony, however, is that life is not always easy for these people. Castro is quick to use up every piece of propaganda value from these individuals, but most of them are then left to live the life of an ordinary Cuban—not an attractive proposition in a bankrupt, rationed society. Moreover, where the average Cuban can dream of fleeing the country, the criminals are stuck with nowhere to go!
Myles Kantor: Given the reality of the Castro regime, how should the Bush Administration respond?
Maria Werlau: President Bush has made very clear where our country stands in the war on terrorism: “If anybody harbors a terrorist, they’re a terrorist…If they fund a terrorist, they’re a terrorist. If they house terrorists, they’re terrorists. …If they develop weapons of mass destruction that will be used to terrorize nations, they will be held accountable.”
Fidel Castro, as I said before, has always been consistent. He takes advantage of perceived weakness and ultimately only responds to strength. The Bush Administration should exert maximum pressure on the Castro regime to guarantee U.S. and hemispheric security, holding Castro accountable not for empty promises, but in actions. Aside from some specific conditions I enumerated before, we should recognize that, ultimately, the way to guarantee our security is for the Cuban people to attain the freedoms they deserve and for Cuba to join the community of democratic nations where a rule of law can prevail.
This is a very lazy remark by Fred , a potentially costly remark that could cost him Florida if he wins the nomination.
I dont think Fred can handle the rigours of a national campaign.
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