The 11th circuit court decision was still up in the air,
therefore it was possible that Elian would have his asylum request heard in open court.
A circuit court cannot hear an asylum request, as you know. I suspect that it can't even order an asylum request to be heard. That inconvenient issue of jurisdiction and separation of powers again.
I don't know if you recognize it, but you do frequently tend to discuss the current administration in terms that go well beyond the border of caricature, and intrude into what Rambi appropriately calls "NewsMax Fantasyland". Absurdity begets absurdity.
Your "plausible explanation" seemed most implausible to me, I think I've addressed that at least once. I take occasional breaks from threads (it is, after all, play), and I don't always keep track of what's been answered and what hasn't.
The most plausible scenarios to me, regarding the drugs, is that they were brought primarily for the use of the adults in the scenario (natural for a doctor treating people in a high-stress situation to bring tranquilizers), and that he would have been prepared to use them on Elian in the unlikely event that it was advantageous to do so. Unlikely simply because the Cubans, like everybody else, knew very well that the chance of the INS hearing an asylum request from a 6-year old was about as close to zero as a probability is allowed to get.
I also question whether tranquilizers would do any good in a court hearing. You can make someone fall asleep with tranquilizers, you can make them giddy and goofy, but you can't make them say what you want them to say. In fact, people on tranquilizers are likely to say totally unpredictable things
I see nothing in the scenario that unfolded that would have made drugging the kid seem necessary, though I don't doubt that they were prepared for other scenarios. |
