Those
Wacky Bush Boys
Jeb
Appoints Judge With Terrorist Connections
By Michael I. Niman ArtVoice 8/22/02
Remember the
Florida
Supreme Court? They had a bit part
in the 2000 presidential electoral coup – nothing important, however, as the
election was eventually decided by the Reagan/Bush appointees on the U.S.
Supreme Court. The rest is history.
And the Florida Supreme Court has fallen into relative obscurity.
Fast forward to August of 2002. One
of the old chaps retired this spring, and the task of selecting a replacement
falls on Florida Governor and Presidential brother Jeb Bush, who along with
leading lady Katherine Harris, starred in the 2000 presidential coup.
Jeb’s selection is Raoul Cantero, the only finalist who
is not a judge (sounds like
Cheektowaga
, but on a state level). Cantero is
the grandson of
Cuba
’s brutal former dictator, General Batista.
Cantero’s father served granddad as an intelligence officer in
Batista’s notorious Bureau for Repression of Communist Activities, who through
their legacy of political torture and murder, eventually did more to incite
communist revolution than to repress it.
Terrorism
as “Heroism”
People can, however, break free from their families’
sleazy legacies, hence, they deserve to be judged on their own records.
Cantero, however, doesn’t fit this category.
He currently works as corporate lawyer for an outfit with longstanding
connections to the notorious right wing Cuban American National Foundation, the
richest and most prominent anti-Cuba lobby in
America
. Cantero formally served as a
lawyer for Orlando Bosch, identified by the Justice Department, the CIA and the
FBI as a terrorist, who “has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to cause
indiscriminate injury and death.” His terrorist attacks allegedly have taken
place in
Cuba
and
Panama
, as well as on
US
soil both in
Puerto Rico
and on the mainland, where he is associated with more terrorist attacks than al
Qaida.
Of course, as I have pointed out previously in this column,
attorneys should not be tarred with the accusations leveled against their
clients, hence, I am not condemning Cantero for defending Bosch.
Cantero, however, has done more than defend Bosch.
He also served as a spokesperson for Bosch and an advocate for Bosch’s
terrorist ideology. Cantero argued
that Bosch, who along with Luis Posada, was charged with blowing up an Air
Cubana jetliner, killing 73 people, was conducting a “heroic fight” against
Cuba
. Al Qaida made the same argument,
calling the psychotic architects of the
World
Trade
Center
bombing, heroes as well. What
Cantero and the al Qaida crowd fail to understand is that there is no heroism in
killing tourists on an airliner or office workers in a skyscraper, no matter how
just you feel your struggle against their governments to be.
Of course no one is appointing any al Qaida supporters to
judicial positions in the
United States
. This is where the double standard
comes into play. Bosch is “our”
terrorist; hence he is a “freedom fighter.”
And Cantero, he supports our terrorist, hence, rather than be accurately
labeled as a supporter of terrorism, he’s simply a Republican (like Jack Quinn
and Joel Giambra). And Jeb Bush,
rather than being the radical wacko who appointed a terrorist supporter to the
State Supreme Court, is simply the so-called president’s brother.
You gotta love
Florida
.
Maybe
This is Embarrassing?
The Cantero appointment is particularly problematic since
Florida
, home to a displaced Cuban mafia and a host of militant anti-Castro groups such
as Alpha 66, is ground zero for terrorism in the
United States
, with
Florida
courts typically hearing more terrorism-related cases than any other state’s
courts. Appointing a terrorist sympathizer to
Florida
’s highest court promises to undermine any future legitimate legal battles
against terrorists in
Florida
. The appointment of Cantero also
undermines the
United States
’ supposed global war against terrorism by further exposing American policies
as being hypocritical, and
America
as not serious in its battle against terrorism.
Without the pretext of fighting terrorism, the current multi-fronted war
is exposed as nothing more than a war over oil and other resources.
Ironically, brother George W. sees no problems with Jeb’s
appointment of Cantero. His State Department is instead busy intervening in
federal court in an attempt to kill a human rights lawsuit against Exxon-Mobil
Corporation. The lawsuit, brought by
The International Labor Rights Fund, charges that the oil giant acquiesced to
the Indonesian military’s campaign of torture, rape and murder of native
activists near their oil facility. The
rationale for killing the lawsuit, according to the Bush administration, is that
it undermines the
United States
’ “War on Terror.” Get it?
Appointing terrorists to judicial positions is ok, but pursuing human
rights and combating state terror undermines the fight against terrorism.
You gotta love them Bush boys.
Mad
Cows & Terrorists
Back in
Florida
, Jeb is running for re-election after enacting a George W. style tax cut for
the state’s wealthiest residents, thus plunging
Florida
’s economy into a severe deficit. Like
his brother, he’s now blaming terrorists (theirs, not ours) for his
government’s fiscal failures. In reality, however, his policies had already
rung up a $672 million deficit before the events of 9-11 even occurred.
Jeb’s new “terrorism budget,” stuffed with pork for campaign
contributors (printing contracts for family terrorism preparedness booklets,
satellite tracking system for cows, etc.), promises more hardship for Floridians
who have seen essential social services and public education decimated during
the last four years. And like the
appointment of Cantero, his recent actions, such as cutting National Guard
funding at a time Florida airports are supposedly on high alert status, seem to
aid, rather than abet, terrorism.
Jeb’s policies, like George W.’s, also seem to be
driven by lunacy. Upon closer
examination, however, both brothers are more driven by their family’s
incessant lust for dynastic empire at any cost.
Jeb, upon arriving in
Florida
, was welcomed into the anti-Castro Cuban community, where he was gifted with a
partnership in a real estate firm that eventually turned him into a millionaire.
The appointment of Cantero to the State Supreme Court, while on the
outset appearing insane and outrageous, is simply a business-as-usual repayment
of a debt. The integrity of
Florida
’s courts may go to hell, but the Bush family bottom line will get a boost.
In a similar fashion, Jeb made a healthy profit selling his overvalued
Enron stocks while
Florida
’s pension system took the hardest hit in the nation when Enron collapsed.
Recently released Bush/Cheney campaign finance documents
show that the company, along with Dick Cheney’s former employer, Haliburton,
also played a major role in the 2000 coup, underwriting the Bush/Cheney recount
activities and lending their corporate jets to the campaign.
With their help, the Bush/Cheney campaign was able to send over 100
lawyers and hundreds of other operatives to
Florida
to aid the Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris’ efforts to suppress a full
statewide recount. The documents were released on July 15th, which
was the last day of an IRS amnesty program for late releases of such
information. If this stalling tactic
was an attempt to bury the story, the Bush team needn’t have bothered, since
most of the mass media ignored this story as they did most other stories
pertaining to the 2000 coup.
Of
Coups and Camps
Recently published documents also show that Jeb’s role in
the 2000 presidential coup was more brazen than most observers originally
thought. Al Gore lost because
Florida
illegally purged 57,700 voters from their election roles prior to the 2000
election. Most of those folks were
black. Almost all of them were
Democrats. They were purged from the
rolls after falsely being identified as convicted felons, who, according to
Florida law, cannot vote (this is a separate story in itself – over 206,000
Black Floridians can’t vote – see http://mediastudy.com/articles).
Among the purged names, were thousands of voters who received clemency
from other states and could legally vote in
Florida
. Jeb, however, issued a letter to
county elections supervisors instructing them to purge these folks from the
voter roles none-the-less. In doing
so, Jeb threw the election for his brother.
He also violated state and federal law.
Whistleblowers recently produced a paper trail, but to date Jeb has not
been indicted. And with John Ashcroft running the Justice Department, there is
little chance of an indictment of Jeb Bush, nor anyone else involved in the 2000
coup.
It’s now 2002. Coup
year plus two. Jeb is in the Florida
Governor’s Mansion, not a federal penitentiary.
Terror supporter Raoul Cantero will be a Florida State Supreme Court
Judge – and few in the mass media think this is outrageous.
George W. is holding court in the White House where he sealed all public
records pertaining to the criminal activities of his father’s administration.
And Bush appointee, Attorney General John Ashcroft, has just this week
proposed creating camps to incarcerate indefinitely, without trial, American
citizens his agency unilaterally deems as “enemy combatants” in the
unspecified “war” against anyone or everyone, that George W. says may go on
forever. All this in the quest for cheap gas and sneakers.
Dr. Michael
I. Niman’s previous stories on the 2000 coup, black voter disenfranchisement
and Bush administration business dealings and conflicts of interest are
available online at http://mediastudy.com
articles. Also see http://gregpalast.com
for excellent reporting on these subjects from the BBC and The Guardian.
As always, send fanmail to hatemail@mediastudy.com
(not to be published) or hatemail to editorial@artvoice.com
(to be published).
©Copyright 2003
Return to
Articles Index
Return to mediastudy.com