U.S.Justice Dept.Investigators, according to the Washington Post, have uncovered what they believe is sufficient evidence to indict former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet. The charge is conspiracy to commit murder in a 1976 car bombing, which killed KGB agent Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronni Moffitt. The U.S. Justice Dept. has, however, not uncovered evidence to indict Attorney General Janet Reno for conspiracy to commit murder in a 1993 house bombing which killed about 100 innocent American citizens outside of Waco, Texas. Where did responsibility lie in each case and why does our government and mainstream press hold a double standard?
Prosecutors admit that they have no direct evidence linking Pinochet to the bombing. Their case pivots on the fact that Pinochet tried, justifiably in my opinion, to strip Letelier of his citizenship shortly before the bombing. E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., a former federal prosecutor who won convictions against low-level operatives in the bombing makes reference to Pinochet’s obsession over Letelier immediately before the bombing. Would this be a potential prosecution based on pseudo psychology? Is Pinochet being railroaded because, in the prosecutors opinion he suffered from an “obsession”? If so, it wouldn’t be the first time such smear tactics were used to replace lack of hard evidence.
Orlando Letelier served the Marxist regime of Salvador Allende, 1970-1973, as, among other positions, Minister of Defense and Ambassador to the United States. He was also, according to journalist William F. Jasper of the New American, an agent for the Soviet Union and Cuba working for the KGB and the DGI. Letelier was killed shortly before a planned trip to Cuba and was in possession of a briefcase filled with incriminating documents potentially embarrassing to the American establishment left.
These documents presented evidence that Letelier was regularly disbursing funds received by Soviet and Cuban intelligence services. In addition, the “Letelier Papers” demonstrated an extensive list of contacts on Capitol Hill including Senators Ted Kennedy, George McGovern, Hubert Humphrey and James Abourezk, Representatives John Conyers, Bella Abzug, George Miller, and Toby Moffett. Letelier’s base of operation was the Institute for Policy Studies and its offshoot, the Transnational Institute. The IPS, an influential think tank with extensive government and media contacts, has a long history of supporting Communist causes. Many IPS alumni are presently serving in the Clinton Administration.
The IPS and its network of fellow travelers in this country, working in concert with birds of a feather internationally, are behind this unstinting effort to “get” Pinochet. They despise him not only because he rescued Chile from the bloody clutches of a Communist tyranny, but because, to add insult to injury, he subsequently retired leaving behind a free and prosperous Chile, a remarkable record of economic and social reform, and a grateful Chilean citizenry.
An example of an IPS comrade in action is Peter Kornbluh head of the National Security Archive, a private group. Kornbluh has publicized documents, released by the Clinton Administration, which are alleged to show Pinochet’s culpability in various crimes but which in fact show nothing of the kind. IPS veteran Kornbluh, according to Jasper, arranged the crucial meeting between Nicaraguan Sandinista leaders in Managua and Senators John Kerry and Tom Harkin eight hours before the congressional vote on aid to the Contra freedom fighters. This propaganda coup is credited, in large part, with having resulted in a vote to stop the aid to our allies.
Another member of the “get” Pinochet gang is Reed Brody, member of the pro-Communist National Lawyers Guild and author of the 1985 “Brody Report” which set the party line and tone for the left-wing media with regard to reporting on the Red Sandinista regime in Managua. Brody is given an inordinately large amount of space in the main stream press to argue his point of view where he waxes philosophic on Marxist aphorism’s and specifically attempts to destroy the left’s arch-enemy, Pinochet. His agenda would, unfortunately for the cause of freedom, be the norm amongst many elite circles both here and abroad.
Atty. Gen. Janet Reno must have understood the potential for loss of innocent life when she gave a direct order, with the full knowledge and support of President Clinton, to an operation which resulted in the firebombing of the private Mount Carmel home of David Koresh. She knew the number of people, including children, who were inside the building when she approved of the plan that led to the inferno. The government and media have been reluctant to label this massacre a crime or to place blame even though Reno has accepted full responsibility. An adequate explanation for the most brutal act perpetrated by our government against American citizens on American soil in the past 100 years has not been forthcoming. We are left to assume, unless told otherwise in cogent terms, that murder was, indeed, the goal.
There is no attempt to indict Atty. Gen. Janet Reno or President William Clinton for “conspiracy to commit murder” only President Augusto Pinochet on admittedly flimsy evidence. There is no outcry by Government mandarins and their media savants for investigations by international tribunals against Reno and Clinton, only against Pinochet. No one in places of influence are referring to the Waco massacre as a “War crime” or an “atrocity”, those words are reserved for the enemy of the totalitarian left, President Pinochet.