Pause to remember: Two Easter Eves ago, Elian was seized as picture of Jesus was trampled.

Deroy Murdock is a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and a policy advisor to the Cato Institute.

Saturday's Nacht-und-Nebel-style seizure of Elian Gonzalez by armed U.S. agents resembled Munich 1940 more than Miami 2000. The abuses of power and excessive force in this revolting episode epitomize a federal police state that has goose-stepped from Ruby Ridge to Waco and now to Little Havana.

At 5:14 a.m. -- while attorneys for the young Cuban refugee negotiated his status with Justice Department officials -- eight Immigration and Naturalization Service officers used a battering ram to knock down the front door of Elian's great uncle, Lazaro. Wielding machine guns, the body-armor-clad agents knocked over a picture of Jesus Christ and a statue of the Virgin Mary on Easter Eve. They then kicked down another door inside the Gonzalez home.

According to Elian's cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, federal agents held her at gun point while one screamed, "Give me the f - - - ing boy or we'll shoot you." An NBC cameraman said federal gunmen kicked him in the stomach, hit his sound man with a rifle butt and yelled, "Don't move or we'll shoot."

A Border Patrol agent in a helmet and goggles soon pointed his assault rifle at Elian and the man who shielded him in his arms -- Donato Dalrymple, one of the fishermen who rescued him from the Atlantic Ocean last Thanksgiving. As Elian hollered, "Help me! Help me!", he was whisked away in a white van driven by yet another federale whose face was hidden in a ski mask. Onlookers, meanwhile, were kept at bay with pepper spray.

This nauseating episode -- captured by TV cameras and Alan Diaz, an intrepid Associated Press photographer -- looked more like a kidnapping than an official act of the United States government. Then again, very little about this case has been kosher.

This raid supposedly was triggered after Attorney General Janet Reno decided that talks with the Gonzalez family had collapsed. Attorneys for the Gonzalezes say they spoke by phone with Reno and her subordinates late into the night and faxed proposals back and forth to Justice headquarters in Washington.

"For Janet Reno to say that negotiations had broken down at the time of the raid was an utter, utter lie," Barbara Lagoa, one of Elian's attorneys, told Fox News Channel.

The president previously urged the Gonzalezes to follow the rule of law -- and who better than Bill Clinton could make such an admonition? Nonetheless, it appears that federal officials trampled the rule of law when they burst into Lazaro Gonzalez's private property with a dubious search warrant. As Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe wrote in the April 25 New York Times, "it was not a warrant to seize the child. Elian was not lost, and it is a semantic sleight of hand to compare his forcible removal to the seizure of evidence, which is what a search warrant is for." Tribe, a veteran liberal, added: "Ms. Reno's decision to take the law as well as the child into her own hands seems worse than a political blunder. Even if well intended, her decision strikes at the heart of constitutional government and shakes the safeguards of liberty."

Furthermore, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled April 20 that Elian Gonzalez himself may have the right to seek political asylum in the United States, even against his father's wishes. The decision that Elian is entitled to a day in court -- specifically a May 11 INS asylum appeal hearing -- argues against his immediate transfer to his father. Juan Miguel Gonzalez is currently influenced, if not thoroughly controlled, by Cuban functionaries. His parents are reportedly in a Cuban government compound, perhaps held as collateral until their son returns to Fidel Castro's "workers' paradise." Juan Miguel has spent nearly his entire sojourn in America in the home of a senior Cuban diplomat. Imagine a North Korean boy who had escaped to Seoul awaiting a court hearing in the "neutral" territory of an apartment occupied by the Pyongyang regime's attache.

The Circuit Court also chastised the Clinton Administration for ignoring Elian's desires. "According to the record, plaintiff - although a young child - has expressed a wish that he not be returned to Cuba," the three-judge panel wrote.

"It appears that never have INS officials attempted to interview plaintiff about his wishes.

"It is not clear that the INS, in finding plaintiff's father to be the only proper representative, considered all of the relevant factors -- particularly the child's separate and independent interests in seeking asylum."

Fox News analyst Dick Morris joked that Hillary Clinton's next book will be called "It Takes a SWAT Team." The thuggishness of the Clinton Administration, reputedly the best friends a child could have, likely will scar Elian for years. Just last April 17, the Justice Department released a letter from Dr. Irwin Redlener claiming that "Elian Gonzalez is now in a state of imminent danger to his physical and emotional well-being in a home that I consider to be psychologically abusive." Perhaps the Clintons and Janet Reno believed Elian would find federal gun muzzles psychologically soothing. As Reno helpfully explained: "Elian Gonzalez is a child who needs to be cherished."

Adding further to all this intrigue is the fact that Dr. Redlener is a pediatrician, not a psychologist. As such, he is as qualified to comment on Elian's state of mind as a psychologist is to treat him for chicken pox. Beyond that, Dr. Redlener never even spoke with Elian. Unless Dr. Redlener is clairvoyant, he seems entirely unable to evaluate Elian's psyche. Redlener, it transpires, also served on Hillary Clinton's health care task force in 1993 and chaired the 1992 Clinton-Gore National Health Leadership Council. He is little more than an Administration flack with a stethoscope.

Add to this that Juan Miguel Gonzalez is represented by President Clinton's top-dollar impeachment attorney, Greg Craig. Nothing about the Elian Gonzalez case is as it seems. An adorable six-year-old boy is the latest victim of a lawless regime seemingly bent on serving the political wishes of Fidel Castro, even at gunpoint. So it goes these days in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The video I speak of was the one where he angrily pointed his finger and said he would never return to Cuba, and it was obvious he was being coached by someone off camera as to what to say. The family here and in Cuba have always been in contact, they have phones there too, so if they really cared they could call or at least get a message to him through the relatives. The Miami relatives always seemed more interested in having Elian as a commodity to make a buck off of, than in looking out for his best interest, so they never got much sympathy from me anyway.

'Said FAR more Eloquently than any "screed" I could possibly write!

Elian's Childhood was sacrificed for some (as yet hidden) political advantage for "the Clinton Political Machine."

To those of us who still harbor a moral Conscience, "Elian's Fate" represents a HORRIBLE RAPE of both an innocent child, & our moral values as a culture!

Until our Nation "makes the Elian Debacle Right," we carry a stain on our "National Soul" UNPRECEDENTED in our Nation's history!

I believe that the "Elian Mess" is the WORST CRIME (of MANY) that the Clinton committed in our name!

Doc

I believe that the "Elian Mess" is the WORST CRIME (of MANY) that the Clinton committed in our name!

It is definitely up there in the annals of the (MANY) horrors. I remember that Saturday so clearly. I sobbed as if he had been my own child.

Until our Nation "makes the Elian Debacle Right," we carry a stain on our "National Soul" UNPRECEDENTED in our Nation's history!

Absolutely. Amen.

"Pulling it all together, what we have right here in our own country are all of the ingredients necessary for a totalitarian police state. We have a federal government that nobody in his right mind would trust, which lies to us incessantly, uses illegal force against its citizens with impunity, and collaborates with totalitarian dictators under cover of a massive propaganda campaign conducted by our supposedly free press. Our major information media are dominated by closet totalitarians who pay lip service to democracy while covertly promoting the interests of communist despots. The political opposition is made up largely of cowards who are so intimidated by our totalitarian propaganda media they are unable to offer effective resistance to even the most egregious violations of civil liberties by the... corrupt Clinton regime. They have become, in the fullest sense of the term, Weimar Republicans. And finally, we have that which makes it all possible, a listless, docile, dumbed-down public who gape mindlessly at all of the above phenomena without the slightest glimmer of comprehension, and prattle the latest propaganda cliches dumped into their empty heads by the mainstream media."

"The Elian affair has truly given us a glimpse into the abyss of tyranny. The message that comes through loud and clear is that the system isn't working. The question that remains to be answered is whether we still possess the intelligence and fortitude necessary to fix it."

Edward Zehr(deceased...nov 2001) can(not) be reached at ezehr@capaccess.org

Published in the May. 22, 2000 issue of The Washington Weekly

Now Free Access to All Stories at http://www.federal.com

Thanks for the ping.

FROM ARTICLE:Saturday's Nacht-und-Nebel-style seizure of Elian Gonzalez by armed U.S. agents resembled Munich 1940 more than Miami 2000. The abuses of power and excessive force in this revolting episode epitomize a federal police state that has goose-stepped from Ruby Ridge to Waco and now to Little Havana.

Truer words are seldom spoken. I hate what the clintons and flying monkeys did to this little boy more than almost anything else other than Waco.

I hate that they forced this little boy whose freedom came at the worst price of all-the loss of his mommy-to return to that life of hell.

Elian probably thinks life in America is like life in Cuba, now, where you never know who might come crashing into your bedroom with a machine gun pointed at you.

The HORROR of that raid, the CRUELTY of that raid, the absolute Anti-American action of that raid, which went down while the caretakers were trusting on a resolution, was simply HORRENDOUS and NONE OF OUR LAWMAKERS DID ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

Except for Senator Bob Smith, a hero in this sorry saga, standing outside the gates of Andrews air force base, which had been TAKEN over the the DOJ, demanding with all of his heart to be admitted to the base to see this little lad and his family. Our DOJ refused to let this UNITED STATES SENATOR onto ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE. Can you EVEN imagine the audacity and hitler-like actions of the clinton's and reno to KEEP HIM OFF THE BASE? A senator????? I know the DOJ was controlling Andrews, I called, so that Elian could be secreted away (translation:held prisoner along with this father and family here in America because gregg craig and bill clinton did not want to give Juan even a single chance to defect). Whoever the base commander was at the time should be ASHAMED that this went down on his watch.

Oh yeah, baby, I broke complete trust with my leaders when NONE OF THEM went after the removal of Reno for this act of dispicable cruelty.

Beast Train

Now I've been happy lately, thinking about the bad things to go
And I believe it is toast, something really bad had to go

Oh I've been smiling lately, dreaming about the Elian Nation rising
And I believed it would be, some day it's now...here to stay

Cause going out over the edge of darkness, there crashes the BEAST train
Oh BEAST train leaving this country, takeing the big crash run

Now I've been smiling lately, thinking about the good things already here
And I believed it would be, something good is here to stay

Oh BEAST train crashing louder
Crash on the BEAST train
Come on crashing BEAST train
Yes, BEAST train crashing harder

losers jump upon the BEAST train
Come losers all onboard the BEAST train

Get our band together, go bring our song too
Cause it's getting farther, it soon will be gone for good

Now come and join the singing, it's so far from you
And it's getting farther, soon it will all be gone for good

Now I've been happy lately, thinking about the Elian Nation here
Why we go on living, why we live in happiness

Cause out on the edge of darkness, there dies a BEAST train
Oh BEAST train left this country, come Elian Nation rising!

Happy-happy-happy Easter

As Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe wrote in the April 25 New York Times, "it was not a warrant to seize the child. Elian was not lost, and it is a semantic sleight of hand to compare his forcible removal to the seizure of evidence, which is what a search warrant is for." Tribe, a veteran liberal, added: "Ms. Reno's decision to take the law as well as the child into her own hands seems worse than a political blunder. Even if well intended, her decision strikes at the heart of constitutional government and shakes the safeguards of liberty."

The Cuban Adjustment Act dates from 1966 and was passed during the Cold War. Any Cuban who comes to the US, regardless of how he or she gets here, is given parole status with sponsorship. They can apply for adjustment of status after one year and one day. That applied to Elian since there is no minimum age and it had been applied to unaccompanied minors in the past and could have been so applied in his case.

But of course, a lot of people cling to the wet foot/dry foot "rule" that Clinton imposed via fiat, changing the definition of the term (how unusual for Bill!) "American territory" (which had always included Coast Guard vessels) to "dry land".

By doing this, Bill changed the view of the US Coast Guard in the eyes of would-be refugees from friend to foe. The second thing that Bill accomplished with this EO, was that appeasement of his dictator friend in Havana.

The fact remains that the EO stands and is the current law, so until the SCOTUS rules on it or the current POTUS does something about it, that EO is policy.

I agree that what Clinton did was probably a favor to Castro, but until it is overturned, that is the law and Elian was an illegal alien.

In my personal opinion, both Clinton and Reno should be shot for snatching Elian like they did, but that does not change his status here in the US.

The US needs to rethink it's policy on Cuba and either completely cut the country off and dispose of Castro, or open it up, and hope for the best.

As Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe wrote in the April 25 New York Times... "Ms. Reno's decision to take the law as well as the child into her own hands seems worse than a political blunder. Even if well intended, her decision strikes at the heart of constitutional government and shakes the safeguards of liberty."

Nice catch, Sweetie.
So much was corrupt with Clinton and Reno, yet the Elian affair stands as one of their most odious.

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