A Single Standard for Terrorists - [don't] set an extremely damaging precedent by making a special exception for an admitted terrorist

A Single Standard for Terrorists - New York Times: "Published: May 10, 2005

In the name of credibility, consistency and justice for the 73 victims, Luis Posada Carriles, the prime suspect in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner, should not be granted political asylum in the United States, which he is thought to have entered illegally six weeks ago. Instead, he should be arrested and extradited for trial, not only for the airliner attack, but also for other terrorist attacks that he has acknowledged planning, including one in 1997 that killed an Italian businessman visiting Havana.
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Mr. Bush has made a point of his unwavering moral clarity on the issue of harboring terrorists. But doing the morally clear thing in this case risks retribution at the polls from a ferociously anti-Castro Cuban-American community that has helped swing Florida into the Republican column in recent elections. One way out may be to deport Mr. Posada to a European country willing to try him or to send him on to the International Criminal Court.

The one thing the Bush administration cannot do is to shelter Mr. Posada by granting him political asylum. Since 9/11, the United States has become so zealous in its efforts to exclude potential terrorists from American soil that it has made it much harder for genuine refugees fleeing deadly persecution in their home countries to find sanctuary here. Washington would offend American principles and set an extremely damaging precedent by making a special exception for an admitted terrorist.