Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Wires. Saturday, Nov. 3, 2001.
WASHINGTON – While the U.S. war effort is focused on the terrorists
hiding out in Afghan caves, a terrorist supporter regularly flies his planes
over U.S. territory, unimpeded.
The Federal Aviation Administration told NewsMax.com that in 1998, on
ex-President Bill Clinton’s watch, the "commercial" flights of
the communist Cuban regime of Fidel Castro were finally given the green light to
operate over U.S. territory.
Heretofore, Castro had bitterly complained that the decades-long ban against
flying over U.S. airspace while going to and from Canada had forced his
state-owned Cubana de Aviacion to spend huge amounts of money on fuel.
FAA spokesman Hank Price confirmed Friday to NewsMax.com that the Cuban
planes are now permitted to fly two paths, one over land on the U.S. East Coast,
and the other offshore over the Atlantic Ocean near the U.S. coastline.
Price could not name the states in whose skies the Cuban planes fly. He
referred us to the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. Repeated efforts to
reach the Cuban office through two separate phone numbers resulted in incessant
ringing during business hours. No one answered.
At the time the Cuban government was granted permission to fly over U.S.
airspace, Clinton was thought to be moving toward a normalizing of relations
with Castro’s dictatorship. The Clinton administration’s later effort
to please Castro by sending in armed agents to kidnap the young Cuban boy Elian
Gonzalez was widely viewed as another move toward closer U.S.-Cuban ties.
Ironically, the bad publicity over forcefully sending the boy back to Cuba’s
police state may have slowed down the drive to resume diplomatic relations,
which had been severed in the Eisenhower and Kennedy years.
Cuban planes now fly over American communities notwithstanding Castro’s
ties to the world’s deadliest terrorist groups and biotechnology
manufacturing plants, his strong ties to Iran, and his well-documented hatred of
the United States.
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against this country have caused
security-minded specialists to revisit their concerns over the Cuban threat.
Just this week, Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm that exposes
and prosecutes government corruption, warned, "the United States government
continues to ignore that Cuba is an eminent threat to this country."
At a recent congressional hearing, Rep. Robert Menendez D-N.J., presented
facts regarding the following developments:
Three suspected Afghans were arrested in the Cayman Islands with fake
passports after transit to Cuba.
Cuban spy Ana Belen, only recently arrested after working at the Pentagon
for years, provided classified information to Cuba.
Cuban spies recently convicted in Florida provided Castro with detailed
information about the U.S. mail system. (This could cause raised eyebrows, given
the recent anthrax problems at postal facilities and mailrooms in and out of
government.)
Castro recently visited Iran, following interchanges that have for years
existed between scientists in Cuba and Iran and the documented cases of
terrorists who have sought and achieved safe harbor on the island just 90 miles
from U.S. shores.
When presented with the above examples of Castro’s hate-America drive,
all Secretary of State Colin Powell could say was that he was "not familiar"
with most of them. The fact that Powell was unaware of what Cuba was doing
strikes Judicial Watch as "scary," especially in light of his earlier
announcement that he wanted to soften the embargo against Cuba.
Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman is critical of the U.S. government for
contacting Cuba for support only days after the terrorist attack in New York "even
though the Communist regime is on the U.S. terrorist nation watch list."
That list is issued each year by Powell’s own State Department. Assuming
the secretary is not "unaware" of that, asking Castro to help combat
terrorism ranks as "a blatant display of denial and chutzpah," in
Klayman’s view.
A Cuba-watcher who had been informed that Castro’s planes were flying
over peaceful American communities reacted by saying that the flights are
undoubtedly "used also for military surveillance purposes to photograph
targets while overflying the U.S. They could drop biological material."
Some of the strongest backers of President Bush’s action in this war
against terrorism believe he can best advance the cause by reversing the Clinton
approval of the Cuban overflights. Castro, they point out, recently proclaimed "Iran
and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees."
Because that aim is also number one on bin Laden’s agenda, terrorism
experts have difficulty figuring out how Castro can be of any help in the U.S.
fight against the Taliban.
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