Obama's Hugs for Thugs

Ralph Peters brings the hammer down on the very misguided Barack Obama.

Until Latin American states accept responsibility for what generations of corrupt, oppressive leaders did to their own countries, they won't progress beyond their self-destructive cultures of blame.

It's easy to chant, "Yanquis, go home!" Well, the Yankees went home. And only such countries as Chile, Colombia and, increasingly, Brazil, which have taken responsibility for their own futures, are making progress.

Obama was exactly right on one point: Our relations with Latin America must be a partnership in which all are treated as equals, based upon mutual respect.

But how do the lurid, screwball attacks on us by the likes of Chavez, Ortega or Bolivia's Evo Morales -- a racist demagogue -- count as examples of mutual respect? Doesn't our country deserve some slight defense from our president?

Obama needs to get up off his knees. Foreign leaders have already pegged him as the wimpiest metrosexual this side of the men's grooming-products counter at Barney's.

Ouch. Read the whole piece.

Meanwhile, since Obama is all for a Cuban stimulus plan (American money going there, no freedom in return), New York Republican Peter King is calling for the extradition of certain fugutives, who just happen to be left-wing terrorists.

Amid signs of a potential thaw in US-Cuba relations, Rep. Peter King wants to force the extradition of criminals who have been hiding out in Havana with the blessing of the Castro regime -- saying the cases should be a precondition for any talks.

At the top of the list is William Morales, the former bomb-maker for the FALN, which carried out several bombings in New York in the 1970s.

Morales lost nine of his fingers during an explosion, escaped from Bellevue Hospital in 1978, then made his way to Mexico and later Cuba.

Also living freely in Havana is Joanne Chesimard, who was convicted of killing a New Jersey trooper in 1977. There is still a $1 million bounty for her return.

"It's disgraceful that they have their sanctuary in Cuba," King told The Post.

If Cuba is serious about thawing relations, then hand them over. Somehow I doubt Obama has any interest in bringing them back.

Another Debate Question for Mrs. Clinton

To my knowledge, Her Thighness has never been asked a single question in a presidential debate about this dubious stain on her husband's record.

Any hard-hitting journalist out there willing to bring up the FALN pardons?

On Aug. 7, 1999, the one-year anniversary of the U.S. African embassy bombings that killed 257 people and injured 5,000, President Bill Clinton reaffirmed his commitment to the victims of terrorism, vowing that he "will not rest until justice is done." Four days later, while Congress was on summer recess, the White House quietly issued a press release announcing that the president was granting clemency to 16 imprisoned members of FALN. What began as a simple paragraph on the AP wire exploded into a major controversy.

Mr. Clinton justified the clemencies by asserting that the sentences were disproportionate to the crimes. None of the petitioners, he stated, had been directly involved in crimes that caused bodily harm to anyone. "For me," the president concluded, "the question, therefore, was whether their continuing incarceration served any meaningful purpose."

His comments, including the astonishing claim that the FALN prisoners were being unfairly punished because of "guilt by association," were widely condemned as a concession to terrorists. Further, they were seen as an outrageous slap in the face of the victims and a bitter betrayal of the cops and federal law enforcement officers who had put their lives on the line to protect the public and who had invested years of their careers to put these people behind bars. The U.S. Sentencing Commission affirmed a pre-existing Justice Department assessment that the sentences, ranging from 30 to 90 years, were "in line with sentences imposed in other cases for similar terrorist activity."

The prisoners were convicted on a variety of charges that included conspiracy, sedition, violation of the Hobbes Act (extortion by force, violence or fear), armed robbery and illegal possession of weapons and explosives -- including large quantities of C-4 plastic explosive, dynamite and huge caches of ammunition. Mr. Clinton's action was opposed by the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. attorney offices that prosecuted the cases and the victims whose lives had been shattered. In contravention of standard procedures, none of these agencies, victims or families of victims were consulted or notified prior to the president's announcement.

"I know the chilling evidence that convicted the petitioners," wrote Deborah Devaney, one of the federal prosecutors who spent years on the cases. "The conspirators made every effort to murder and maim. . . . A few dedicated federal agents are the only people who stood in their way."

Yes, but these murderers were freed in order to help Mrs. Clinton win a Senate seat in New York.

Read the rest.