June 19, 2005
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Now compare the Justice Department's casual approach to the Posada case with the treatment of Alberto Coll, a military expert of impeccable pedigree who is a dean at the U.S. Naval War College.
Coll, who made a daring escape from Cuba as a teenager, was a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense during the George H.W. Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney, then the Defense secretary, awarded him a medal for outstanding public service.
For many years, Coll defined himself as a conservative Republican and an anti-Castro hard-liner. (Coll's father served nine years in a Cuban prison for his opposition to Castro.)
In 1987, the late exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa asked Coll to serve as executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation in Washington.
But to Cuba hard-liners in the current Bush administration, Coll committed the unforgivable sin. Deeply influenced by Pope John Paul II's visit to Cuba in 1998, Coll slowly concluded that the U.S. embargo of Cuba was a doomed policy that, in fact, threw a lifeline to Castro.
Worse, Coll occasionally made his views public, infuriating the architects of Bush's Cuba policy, Otto Reich, the controversial former assistant secretary of State, and Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.). Hence, Coll had to be destroyed.
The opportunity came in January, about six months after his 18-year-old daughter died in a car accident, which by all accounts left Coll devastated. Coll visited Cuba, as he has done legally over the years for research and to visit relatives. He noted on his visa that he would be visiting an aunt, which he did.
But he also had a romantic liaison with a childhood friend while seeking "a shoulder to cry on," his lawyer says. Coll did not note the rendezvous on his visa. It is the kind of semi-lie of omission committed routinely by thousands of Cuban exiles since the Bush administration instituted onerous restrictions on travel to the island last year.
Nevertheless, Coll's enemies pursued a vigorous yearlong prosecution — one that may well have cost taxpayers $1 million. Sources close to Coll believe that his liaison was discovered through secret wiretaps by the Justice Department at the behest of influential Cuban hard-liners.
Unbeknownst to most Americans, such Cuba-related investigations are allowed under the Patriot Act because the Bush administration deems Cuba to be a terrorist state.
For added measure, Coll's enemies initiated a slanderous whispering campaign in the Miami media, suggesting that he may have been involved in espionage, a charge without a shred of merit.
With legal bills close to $100,000 and overwhelmed at having to face a protracted trial, Coll agreed to plead guilty to making a false statement on a federal form. He faced five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but an incredulous judge reduced the fine to $5,000 and gave him one year of probation.
Still, he will lose his security clearance because he is now a felon, which also effectively sabotages his future with the military. But he has now made the history books as the Cuban American Dreyfus.
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-- Jim Devine "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20050620/913c3538/attachment.htm>