The United States is currently facing a serious dilemma in how it deals with infamous Venezuelan terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who has recently been arrested in the U.S. state of Florida.

Washington can either call him a freedom fighter or, due to his criminal background, such as his involvement in the bombing of a Cuban airliner, in which dozens of people were killed, declare him a fugitive terrorist sought by both the Venezuelan and Cuban governments.

Posada was a CIA operative from 1965 to 1976.

To deal with the issue, the Bush administration has several options.

The first option is to deport Posada to Venezuela, where he has been indicted for the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 which killed 73 people.

The second option is to allow him to travel to a third country willing to grant him asylum.

The third option is to give him a green card allowing him to become a permanent resident of the United States.

And finally, the fourth option is to deport Posada to Cuba, where the judiciary is seeking to prosecute him for the bombing of a Havana hotel in 1997 in which an Italian tourist was killed.

Since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has announced that the United States does not extradite people to Cuba or “countries believed to be acting on Cuba’s behalf”, the deportation options are clearly not on the table and the only option remaining is giving Posada permanent residence in the United States.

Along these lines, the U.S. Congress has ratified a law called the Cuban Adjustment Act, according to which Cuban nationals who have resided in the United States for one year and a day can obtain permanent resident status. It seems that U.S. officials may seek to generalize the law to include Posada as well, although he is a Venezuelan citizen.

However, many political analysts believe that granting Posada permanent resident status will tarnish Washington’s reputation in its so-called campaign against terrorism.

Wayne Smith, the former U.S. envoy to Cuba and the current head of the Cuban Program at the Center for International Policy in Washington, recently said that granting Posada permanent resident status would seriously compromise U.S. policy and strategy in the campaign against terrorism.

After being smuggled into the United States in March, Posada, who has been sought by both Cuba and Venezuela for terrorist acts, was supported by U.S. intelligence and security services and lived a clandestine life in Miami, Florida.

However, by violating his agreement with U.S. intelligence and security officials to avoid public appearances, Posada made possible his detention as well as renewed calls for his extradition by both the Cuban and Venezuelan governments.

Documents released in the United States over the past week indicate that the 77-year-old Posada, who was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents two hours after giving a press conference for selected reporters in Miami, was the main person responsible for the bombing of the Cuban airliner in 1976.

Posada was also convicted and sentenced to eight years imprisonment in Panama for trying to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro during a Latin American summit in that country in 2000, but was pardoned in 2004 after apologizing to the Panamanian president.

Despite the calls for his extradition by Cuba and Venezuela, U.S. officials have so far refused to extradite Posada to Venezuela, claiming they do not trust the Venezuelan justice system and President Hugo Chavez, and have also announced that they would not extradite Posada to Cuba.

Yet, the extradition of Posada could cause Bush’s popularity ratings to drop, because Miami and Florida have traditionally been the main bases of right-wing anti-Castro Cubans, who usually vote Republican.

Florida has a large Cuban community, including Castro’s daughter, who runs a radio station opposed to her father’s rule and encouraging the overthrow of the Cuban leader. They would regard the extradition of Posada to Cuba as a betrayal of Latin Americans living in the United States.

A segment of the Cuban community in Florida supported Democratic candidate Bill Clinton in the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections, but after the Elian Gonzales incident, they switched to the Republicans, and their support was definitely quite influential in Bush’s victories in 2000 and 2004.

In November 1999, six-year-old Cuban Elian Gonzales was accompanying his mother in an attempt to illegally immigrate to the United States when their boat capsized. The mother was killed but Elian survived and was taken to Florida.

A diplomatic incident arose between Cuba and the United States over the repatriation of the child to Cuba, where his father lived. Eventually, the U.S. attorney general issued a ruling to return the child to Cuba. Afterwards, Florida Cubans announced that they would not vote for the Democrats, and George W. Bush reaped the benefits, leading to his victory in the 2000 presidential election.

Now, the Bush administration is facing a dilemma similar to Clinton’s in the Elian Gonzales case.

If the White House refuses to extradite Posada, Washington’s reputation for fighting against terrorism would be damaged in the eyes of its allies, but if U.S. officials decide to extradite the defendant to Venezuela or Cuba, it is possible that the Florida Cubans would withdraw their support for the Republicans during the next presidential election in the United States.

The president’s brother Jeb Bush, who also happens to be the governor of Florida and is said to have presidential ambitions himself, may play an influential role in the Republicans’ decision.

Original article can be found here.