Tonight on CNBC: A Secret Flight to Freedom. A documentary on Operation Pedro Pan

Tonight CNBC will broadcast Escape from Havana: A Secret Flight to Freedom, an original documentary on Operation Pedro Pan, which I wrote about earlier. Under Pedro Pan, between 1960-1962, a little over 14,000 children, were airlifted out of Cuba and sent to the US to "save" them from communism. The Secret Escape to Freedom covers the stories of six Pedro Pan evacuees .

I admit I'm not impressed with the show's description:

It was at the height of the Cold War when Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba. It was supposed to be a democratic revolution, but Castro soon turned to communism and dictatorship. Rumors began to spread among the elites and middle class that Castro would take their children away. Throughout the island, parents panicked. Then, the U.S. offered a way out: it would conduct a secret airlift of Cuban children and bring them to America – without their parents. It was an unbearable choice between raising their children in the oppression of Castro’s Cuba, or setting them free to live in the land of freedom, never knowing if they would reunite.

which fails to mention that Pedro Pan was a component of Operation Mongoose, a covert CIA operation designed by the JFK administration to undermine the Castro government. It included using refugees, particularly children as propaganda objectives. In this case, CIA operatives in Cuba created forged documents clandestine radio broadcasts, rumours to spread fear amongst anti-Castro Cubans that the government planned to terminate their parental rights and send their children to Soviet work camps. Ostensibly run by the Miami Diocese, the Pedro Pan childlift was, in fact, a joint effort of the Catholic Church and US government to purposefully break-up thousands of Cuban families to undermine Cuban culture in a PSYOP against communism. That's the real story.

The inclusion of Maria de Los Angeles Torres, childifted by Pedro Pan at age 6, suggests we'll get some of that real story. de los Angeles Torres, a political scientist and director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program at the University of Illinois, Chicago is the author of The Lost Apple: Operation Pedro Pan, Cuban Children in the US, and the Promise of a Better Future. She has been in a prolonged legal fight with the CIA over release of documents and is highly critical of the Pedro Pan evacuation.

A Secret Flight to Freedom will air tonight at 10:00 pm edst.

Even Haiti Doesn't Want Her: Laura Silsby to Return to Boise Today:

Laura Silsby is scheduled to return to Boise around 2:00 PM today. She was released from the Haiti Hilton yesterday after being convicted of "arranging unlawful travel" and sentenced to time served. Obviously, the Haitian government just wants this albatross off its neck and around the necks of the Idaho courts where her ever-expanding business and personal problems have roosted. Better Idaho than us.

As much as I'd like Silsby to spend a lot more time in the slammer, I am not surprised at the release. After all, the Haitians have more dire things to worry about than Bible Barbie. What did surprise me was Charissa Coulter's appearance in court with Silsby. I had to play the tape back to make sure I heard right.

One of Silsby's other partners-in-crime Jean Sainvil, a Haiti-born "pastor" in Atlanta is being tried in absentia, and his status is unknown.

Silsby (showing some leg in court) told the AP "I'm praising God" and apparently made no further comment until she was interviewed at the Port au Prince airport before clearing security. Megan Mattson, spokeswoman at the U.S. State Department, told the press Silsby was looking forward to returning home to her own children. Is that's what known as a "Freudian slip?"

Central Valley Baptist Church is supposed to release a statement, but I can't find one so far.

I don't have any time this morning to comment further, but the video below from KTVB-TV (aka the Official Laura Silsby Fan Club) says more than I could write in the next 12 hours.




Once the legislative season is over, I'll have more to write about Team Silsby and Yoram Puello. I have a lot of material I've not been able to put together. It will be fun. And maybe a partial antidote for the miserable deformist crap that passes for "adoptee rights" we've seen so far this year.

Celebrating Laura Silsby

Laura Silsby neared the three month mark this weekend, and the Central Valley Baptist Church wants to make sure you know it.

Saturday afternoon they threw a We-heart-Laura rally at the Idaho Statehouse. About 100 attended, including her local gang of electric Kool-Aid (minus the acid, we think) testers. A Northwest Cable News-KBTV video of the event is posted at the bottom of this entry. Be sure to watch Nichole Lankford prostrate herself in prayer. Fellow pranksters Paul Thompson and Charisa Coulter are seen or interviewed and more TeamSilsbys were spotted. Coulter, ever loyal to her boss, declared:

She is always on mind. It's a roller coaster. You have highs and lows but our hope is not in government and officials. It is in God.

But so far, God seems perfectly happy to keep Silsby in her own private Haiti Hilton.

"We want people to know that there still is support for her, organizer.'"Randy Jackson said. "If you pay attention to the media, sometimes it seems like there's a lack of support for her. There's still la lot of people who support her and want this whole ordeal to be done and for her to be home with her family. (NOTE TO RANDY: Supporters are not posting many supportive comments in the Statesman.)

Charisa Coulter's best friend and avid Silsby fan Sue Pearce gave us the QOTD:

Laura is a mother. She has three children. She needs to come home and I can't wait to go meet her at the airport when she does."

We have no memory of Silsby evincing concern for her children since her arrest. If she had, she might have come across a tad more sympathetic. Silsby, in fact, didn't show much concern for her children before her arrest either as reflected in her financial and business shenanigans and her dream trip to Haiti.

Speaking of Silsby's children...another Silsby lawyer has thrown in the towel.

The Idaho Statesman reports that Robert Williams, who's been representing her in "child custody issues" filed a motion to withdraw. He joins Gerald Husch, Silsby's Personal Shopper attorney who bolted in March. Williams says he has been unable to communicate with his client. He probably wouldn't have gotten paid anyway.

Silsby's ex-husband Terry Silsby (right) has sued for custody of their two children, living with him since the ex's trip south. She has an adult son who is married.

There are few details, but the Statesman reports that Judge David E. Day ruled on several custody-related issue brought by Terry Silsby. Mr. Silsby asked that the court hold the children's passports out of concern that Laura would take the children out of the country if and when she ever makes it back to Idaho. Day ruled that Mr. Silsby's lawyer Matthew Bohm should hold the passports for now. He also granted Terry authority to register the children for school in his own school district.

More Silsby Drama: Dropped Charges Not Dropped

Mainstream media reported Thursday that charges against nine of ten TeamSilsby members have been dropped. Then the Haitian Attorney General said, hmmm...no, they haven't.

I'm working on other projects and don't have the time to comment. Baby Love Child, though, has. Her Charges not dropped against American Baptist missionaries despite Thursday's reports reviews the latest Silsby (in this case government-media complex) faux pas.

You'd think by now the State Department would figure out its not the arbitrator nor interpreter of Haitan law. Since MSM, does believe State is, however, reporters failed to follow a very basic rule: verify verify verify. And so did TeamSilsby and its legal team who rushed to their keyboards with the great news.

BLC's blog includes a link to Topeka Silsbyite Drew Culberth's 14 minute TV interview made after he got the good news, but before he got the bad news. The interview doesn't reveal anything new about the group's venture in Silsby's heart of darkness, but it is valuable in detailing their jailhouse life.

Culberth still doesn't "get" that the group did anything wrong. They just wanted to give "orphans a better life." Still drinking Silsby's kool-aid, Culbreth says there will be no closure until Miss Laura, who "deserves to have her name cleared" is released.

No regrets. No questions about the note slipped to MSNBC; No opinion about Silsby's stateside "problems." But nobody really asked either.

Laura Silsby: Will God Overcome All This?

I'm in the middle of real Work Hell at the moment and am weeks behind on my Haiti work. I did want to post this recent quote from Silsby, though:

God will release me. I'm confident that God will overcome all of this and ultimately enable me to be released," Silsby said during the interview that was taped several days before Easter.

So what does this do to Silsby's faith if God doesn't "overcome all of this?" Does this mean that Judge Bernard Saint-vil and the Haitian courts, even in shambles, are more powerful than God? Or will she blame it on Voudou?

Clueless in Boise: Charisa Coulter Still Doesn't Get It

The last few days, I've been having difficulty writing about TeamSilsby. The subject has grown cumbersome, and any subset soon takes on a life of its own, then collapses in its own immensity. As a result. I've got several disjointed pieces that go together in some way, but have no logical transition, and grow more complex each time I try to de-complex them. It's enough to give me writer's block.

So, I'll take the easy way out for now and just throw some thoughts out. I'm still working on Part 2 of Haiti Earthquake Glorifies God; Also a piece on the Pickett family. But for now, here's a bit on Charisa Coulter's return.

Charissa Coulter has returned to Boise (via Miami) tearful and Jesused-up. According to news reports she was met by about 30 adoring fans at the airport, including five of her six Idaho cellies (Paul Thompson went missing). Central Baptists and friends after a brief prayer huddle burst into Amazing Grace upon her arrival. Of course, the real welcome will be for Mrs. Silsby. From the looks of the comments in the Idaho Statesman, though, (any article on TeamSilsby will do), when and if she's released, CVBC will be forced to use more than a choir to fend off locals wielding pitchforks and torches. Curiously, the latest version of the church's webpage makes no mention of its wandering member.

Coulter's statements to the press on her arrival in Boise are disturbing. She showed an incalculable amount of arrogance, ignorance, and selfishness about TeamSilsbly's "orphan" mission, the group's flaunting of Haitian law, and the hideous consequences of their actions. Not to mention how the average person anywhere in the world feels about them. Coulter’s “it’s all about loving children” translated into "it's all about me." But as long as it’s "me" that God is calling, it's OK. I guess.

And what about those 33 + a possible other 40 kids you were busy moving around during your phone calls with The Diety? Any care about them and their families?

Several news videos are up of the homecoming. This KTVB-TV report is the most detailed.



Unfortunately, it replaces an earlier video that captured some "interesting" comments from Coulter that were disappeared in the update. Luckily, I transcribed the most egregious parts of the unsanitized version (some of which remain in the current video) below.

Q: What’s your take on what’s going to happen? Any idea at this point?

CC: No, it’s all in God’s hands. I don’t know. We’re just gonna sit
back and we’re going let him do his job. and when he wills she’ll be back. She’ll be here with us.

Q: Are you worried about the charges at all?

CC: We don’t have to worry. It…it’s, ’s like I said, it’s in God’s hands and he wants us to trust him. We are 10 Christians who obeyed God’s calling. And we went to help the nation of Haiti and their children and for reasons unknown to us, it did not go the way we planned, but we realize that God is in control, and that this was what He wanted. It’s hard to understand there’s so much…there’s so much going on that we can’t see.

Q: Do you have any idea of the timeframe of when Laura will come back.

CC: No. I’m not going to speculate. It’s, their processes is different that ours and so we’re just going to let the judge and all those involved work it out

Repeat: We are 10 Christians who obeyed God’s calling.

Apparently:

*** coercing poor, traumatized and desperate parents--survivors of the worse earthquake in modern history--out of their children with promises of child resettlement to upscale living quarters, a pool, soccer field, and school (none of which exist except in TeamSilsby's head) and parental access to the kids via the Internet (!) ; that is, until the kids are adopted and spirited away by total strangers in the Great White Protestant North.

*** sneaking through back alleys and banging on orphanage doors with an entrepreneurial sociopath who can't even pay her own employees and mortgage;

*** lying to Haitian, Dominican, and US government officials about your activities;

*** collecting money through legally questionable fund raising procedures back home;

***diverting attention and funds from a massive humanitarian crisis to feed your specialness;

***and mucking up genuine material aid and medical treatment for thousands of homeless and injured and dying people

qualifies as "God's calling."

Repeat: And we went to help the nation of Haiti and their children and for reasons unknown to us, it did not go the way we planned...

Incredibly, Coulter told KIVI-TV's's Jackie Orozco that she hopes to return to Haiti to "to help in the future."

Homecoming photo from The Idaho Statesman

An Old VIdeo: TeamSilsby: The Ten Musketeers

KTVB-TV has disappeared one of the videos I embedded in the blog I'm finishing right now. While looking for it, I found this BONUS VIDEO: a February 9 interview with Charisa Coulter's father, Mel and Eric Thompson, husband of detainee Carla Thompson. A serious luv fest for Haiti.

Thompson assures us that he loves Haiti--or rather "those people"-- and prays for the government every day to do the right thing by his wife who only wanted to "help children." Nothing about praying for the families his wife helped break up or mention of the illegal activities she engaged in to do it.

Coulter opines that it's "unethical" to separate Silsby/Coulter from the other eight since the lawyers were hired to represent all of them. They went in "ten as one" and they need to come out as one. Gee, funny how Jim Allen claims those lawyers never represented him. And he got out "as one" while the rest of them were left to stew.

Reporter Ysabel Bilbao closed her report saying the men believe that "the country is better because of the group."

I've played the tape several times and don't hear them say that, but it sounds like something they'd say. Or maybe Bilbao was getting her own snark in. If anyone wonders how the Haiti earthquake could have been made any worse than it was, the answer isn't far way.