As for the weapons - Marisleysis was responsible for that, because she was on TV making threats about what might happen to anyone who came to get Elian. She's very lucky that she or one of the other residents or guests in her house didn't get shot, including Elian. I didn't like the guns - I think that was a bad move, but I also think that the Miami family took their protest too far and forced Clinton and Reno's hands. It reaches a point when the Attorney General of the United States is telling you that, absent a court ruling to the contrary, the boy will be returned to his father on a certain date, that you must come to grips with reality and give the boy back.
I found this interesting bit from a Time magazine piece on this topic. I don't care for Bill Clinton one bit, but he is smart, and he is right about the potential ramifications that could have occurred:
While in Miami last weekend, former President Bill Clinton, who occupied the White House in 2000, defended his decision to enforce the law and forcibly give Elián back to his dad. "If I had said, 'I don't like Cuba and I don't care what the international law is,'" Clinton said, "then not only me but no other American President would have been able to say with a straight face, 'You can't kidnap [American children] and keep [them]'" in other countries. The U.S., to cite just one example, would have had greatly diminished standing last year when it demanded that Brazil return nine-year-old Sean Goldman to his father in New Jersey (which it did, in time for Christmas).
I’m sorry you believe such bullshit, because that is what it is.
First, while the court of appeals didn’t prevent the armed raid, the raid was totally disrespectful and opposite the intent of the court’s decision.
Second, no one “caused” an armed raid except Bill Clinton.
Third, this wasn’t a simple “dad wants his kid back” case.
Wake up. The father was brought here by Cuban government agents, while his baby and family in cuba were hostage to a dictatorship.
After being seized at gunpoint, Elian was kept on and not allowed to leave a Cuban government compound, in the “care” of government agents.
The boy’s mother DIED escaping a dictatorship for his freedom. Note that no one can talk to Elian or his father, that he is a propoganda tool.
What Bill Clinton did never had to happen, the boy was with his own family. This easily could have been mediated in some way.
Why don’t you stop down and visit Elian and his dad in Cuba and talk to them about this? because they are in a nation prison.
And if you believe the defensive pure bullshit that flows regtularly from the mouth of William Jefferson Clinton, I feel sorry for you.
Yeah it had nothing to do with Cuba relations, Clinton just happened to decide he should scream and yell at Janet Reno that this kid was going back to Cuba and to launch an armed raid. Presidents do it all the time.
Go talk to Elian about it, maybe someday that will be possible and you’ll wake up to what happens in communist gulags.
No father would have wanted that armed raid when the kid was with his own family. But you can’t figure that out. It was all just a “dad” the communist government agents are invisible to you.
maybe the dad will visit you oh that’s right he can’t except when they bring him here.