While the Bush administration holds dozens of suspected Muslim
terrorists on secret or flimsy evidence, one of the world’s most
notorious terrorists slipped into the United States via Mexico and
traveled to Florida without setting off any law enforcement alarms.

Though the terrorist’s presence has been an open secret in Miami,
neither President George W. Bush nor Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has ordered a
manhunt. The U.S. press corps has been largely silent as well.

The reason is that this terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, was a
CIA-trained Cuban whose long personal war against Fidel Castro’s
government is viewed sympathetically by the two Bush brothers and their
father. When it comes to the Bush family, Posada is the epitome of the
old saying that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

The Bush administration – which has imprisoned Jose Padilla and other
alleged Muslim “enemy combatants” without trial – has taken a far more
lenient approach toward the 77-year-old Posada, who is still wanted in
Venezuela for the bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane in 1976 that killed
73 people. Posada also has admitted involvement in a deadly hotel
bombing campaign in Cuba in 1997.