Cuban boy's saga haunts Obama (Elian Gonzalez)

WorldNetDaily ^ | 6/22/08 | WorldNetDaily

[wagglebee]

Family members of Elian Gonzalez, the refugee boy rescued from the ocean but returned to his Cuban father during the Clinton administration, called a press conference to protest Barack Obama's visit to Florida and the candidate's hiring of two staff members who were involved in sending the boy back eight years ago.

The capture of Elian Gonzalez

The family specifically points to Obama's foreign policy advisor, Greg Craig, who represented Elian's Cuban father during the custody battle, and Eric Holder, a member of Obama's vice-presidential search committee, who served as deputy attorney general during the much-publicized affair.

Delfin Gonzalez, Elian's great-uncle, stood in the front yard of the home where immigration agents had seized the boy at gunpoint on April 22, 2000. "My fear is that those who collaborated with Cuba's communist government and made a great mistake with a defenseless child will make the same mistake again against this nation that is facing danger from terrorism," he said.

Gonzalez told the Miami Herald earlier, "Some wounds are so deep that they do not heal over time, such as taking a child and sealing his fate to a communist dictatorship."

[purpleraine]

I’m off to work. If I can, I’ll be back later.

[Rider on the Rain]

Is there any greater form of child abuse than submitting them to imprisonment and indoctrination in a communist country? I don’t think so. What Bubba and Jackboot Janet did to that boy was a pathetically evil act. I cannot respect the opinion of anyone who advocates such a policy.

[wagglebee]

The father’s rights and responsibilites supercede the cousins etc.

Funny, I was under the impression that in a child custody case the best interests of the child were ALWAYS paramount. And I cannot envision as scenario where a child is better off living under an oppressive communist regime.

[8mmMauser]

>>The father’s rights and responsibilites supercede the cousins etc.

I just about choked when I read this! I scrolled immediately to the top of the page to reassure I was still on FreeRepublic when I read your analysis of Elian and pops.

Elian’s “Father” is by most all measures Fidel Castro. Fidel superseded any rights the biological father may have expected. Elian’s “father” is the communist state. Period. That is how communism as in Cuba works.

Since it was all out in the open for reasonable people to see since it unfolded, only the most powerful of denial could filter out that simple truth. The truth glares in the fate of poor little Elian, now as much a puppet of the communist state as Howdy Doody and his dad as Mortimer Snerd.

It is possible you may still find support from a few remaining closet liberals on this forum, or those who substitute emotion for rational thought or have a specific blind spot but otherwise you are solidly in the company of the far left when you make preposterous claims like that.

There is no rational defense for this atrocity, only the defense proffered by the communists and their sympathizers on the left and those blinded to the facts.

[VOA]

Elian’s “Father” is by most all measures Fidel Castro. Fidel superseded
any rights the biological father may have expected. Elian’s “father”
is the communist state. Period.
That is how communism as in Cuba works.

It was fascinating to read the divided opinion on FR during
L'Affaire Elian.

My inexpert suspicion was that those supporting Elian staying in
the USA (with visits or immigration by his father to the USA)
are just old enough to remember more details of The Cold War.

And just didn't trust "The Liberator of Cuba" to be anything other
than the his old self...pimping Communism and trying to give it
a big Fig-leaf of having "family values".

I don't knock those with the oppossing opinion to return Elian
to Cuba based on "father's rights".

That's because we live in a relatively-free nation where people
have the right to voice all sorts of opinions without violence ensuing.

Unlike Cuba.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Children are taken away from their parents in Communist Cuba so the children can be brainwashed by the state. You act as if Elian was returned to his father, but that is not the case, because children do not live with their fathers in Communist Cuba. You don't seem to want to face that fact. Elian was not returned to his father. He was returned to Communist Cuba to live in a communist training camp as a ward of the state. If Elian's father had come to live in the US then he would have rights. In Cuba, he has no rights. Parents have no rights over their children in Cuba and that is why no child should ever be returned to Cuba to live in Communist slavery. Those who say otherwise are as stupid and evil as someone who would return a child to communist East Germany whose parent was gunned down trying to cross the Berlin Wall.

[VOA]

The family specifically points to Obama's foreign policy advisor,
Greg Craig, who represented Elian's Cuban father during the custody
battle, and Eric Holder, a member of Obama's vice-presidential
search committee, who served as deputy attorney general during the
much-publicized affair.

If this is the Eric Holder I remember...he's the Federal attorney
that appropriated the power of his office to help defeat one
of the first attempt to get concealed-carry in Missouri.

Only now do I hear that he was a prime mover behind Clinton's
infamous pardon of Marc Rich.

And that Holder is on Obama's short-list for his future appointee
to Attorney General of The USA.

The more I hear about Obama and his unindicted co-conspirators...
the more likely I'll get off my duff, hold my nose, and vote for
McCain.

[8mmMauser]

I don't knock those with the oppossing opinion to return Elian to Cuba based on "father's rights".

That's because we live in a relatively-free nation where people have the right to voice all sorts of opinions without violence ensuing.

What unnerves me is these same thought processes of shaky reason, vigorous emotion, will activate in the voting booth and give us the ObamaNation.

[BykrBayb]

Not in the United States of America. You seem to have us confused with Cuba.

People are not property here. The best interests of the child is the deciding factor in our court system. But please, don’t let the truth interfere with your cheerleading for communism. If you ever made the mistake of acknowledging the facts, you’d have to switch sides. You’re more valuable to the cause of freedom right where you are; serving as an example of the alternative.

Þ

[McGruff]

I gained a great deal of respect for the Miami Cuban community in the way they handled the aftermath of this incident. One young one started to deface the American Flag and an elder put a stop to that right away. That one little action told me a lot about them.

Elian probably cost Gore Florida and therefore the presidency. Maybe the same will hold true for Osama.

[wagglebee]

Elian is just one of many incidents that the left THOUGHT would be insignificant and quickly forgotten.

[wagglebee]

Children are taken away from their parents in Communist Cuba so the children can be brainwashed by the state. You act as if Elian was returned to his father, but that is not the case, because children do not live with their fathers in Communist Cuba. You don't seem to want to face that fact. Elian was not returned to his father. He was returned to Communist Cuba to live in a communist training camp as a ward of the state. If Elian's father had come to live in the US then he would have rights. In Cuba, he has no rights. Parents have no rights over their children in Cuba and that is why no child should ever be returned to Cuba to live in Communist slavery. Those who say otherwise are as stupid and evil as someone who would return a child to communist East Germany whose parent was gunned down trying to cross the Berlin Wall.

Outstanding post!

[8mmMauser]

>>Outstanding post!

I second that!

[BykrBayb]

>>Outstanding post!
I second that!

I third that!!!
Þ

[BykrBayb]

Maybe the same will hold true for Osama.

Osama? Do you mean Barrack Hussein Osama, or Obama bin Laden? I can never tell those two apart.

[purpleraine]

I can't respect the opinion of anyone who would spearate a kid from their parent because they live in a communist country.

Let me have your links to your attempts to free children of parents in communist countries, so I can defend you from claims that you are being hypocritical and a political opportunist.

[purpleraine]

Not a child custody case. The father has the child and no one with standing was able to get the supreme court to take the case. I suppose your interest in keeping the parent and the child apart supercede all that.

[purpleraine]

If you think parental rights and responsibilities don't belong on Free Republic, you have an odd definition of conservative. If you think snatching a kid and taking him away from a parent is conservative, then perhaps you should look for another site.

Funny, I didn't see Fidel's name in the court process as the father. If Fidel was the father then that means he went back to his father. Worse, you're no better than Fidel wanting to take control away from the parent. You'd be doing the same thing.

Reasonable people would follow up on your belief and get to the Mexico City airport and stop all those little commie kids from getting on the return flights to Havana. Be consistent.

Parental responsibility and rights are not a liberal idea, unless you're willing to turn it over to liberals. I'm not. Taking a kid away from his parent because he lives in Cuba is the worst kind of political nannystateism.

Rational is letting the surviving parent have the kid. Fighting to separate them is irrational

[purpleraine]

Please explain where the kid lived and where the father lived so we can document the accuracy of your statement. I saw an article awhile back that the kid was in some Cuban school. It was not a dorm or prison camp. Where was he living then and where was the father?

The father was in Cuba, all the more reason the kid wasn't in the US. How could the father see the kid if he wasn't in his homeland?

[purpleraine]

The family and all the other kid snatchers tapped out in the supreme court filing. That’s how it’s done in the US. I rest your case.