The US Can End the Killing it Started in Haiti

[DuctapeFatwa]

In willful ignorance and with every bad intention, the U.S. corporate media ask the ridiculous question, Should the US intervene in Haiti, or not? The bloody answer screams back from the Haitian mountains and cities: Washington has already intervened militarily in Haiti, through its surrogates’ armed invasion from the Dominican Republic.

The Americans set loose the dogs of war, and can rein them back in – if Washington chooses. Any discussion that fails to acknowledge the U.S. role in nurturing the several-hundred-man force that has systematically overrun much of the country, is a conversation divorced from reality.

Peace cannot be built on lies – especially lies told by those who initiated the war. It is fully within the Bush men’s power to stabilize the situation in Haiti today, right now. It is obscene that Colin Powell feigns frustration in the current crisis, as if it is a conflict between forces beyond his control. Men who nominally work for the Secretary of State – most notably Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega – have cultivated the closest of ties with the soldiers and secret police of the old Haitian regime, and with the flabbier but no less vicious “political” opposition to Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s popularly elected government. In a February 13 article, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs noted that “the president’s Latin American team headed by the State Department’s Roger Noriega and Dan Fisk, along with the White House’s Otto Reich, all but openly support the unseating of an Aristide government.”

The Americans are on intimate terms with the thugs that have brought war to Haiti. As reported in Hidden from the Headlines: The U.S. War Against Haiti, published by the San Francisco-based Haiti Action Committee, “Groups of former Haitian military have received arms, training and shelter within the Dominican Republic with the clear knowledge of U.S. authorities.” These heavily armed bands have attacked police, infrastructure targets and Aristide supporters along the border areas and deep inside Haiti since the beginning of the Bush Administration, with not a peep from the U.S. State Department....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb04/Ford-Gamble0228.htm

[burythehatchet]

1. Secretary of State Powell

has, yet again, distinguished himself in his gallant service to the American people.

Many thanks General...the leadership you have contributed to our world is sans parallel.

[snoochie]

2. Thank you for posting this

Since this is an election year maybe making a lot of noise will be more effective than it might otherwise.

[MSgt213]

3. The US Media is lame. The current administration is incompetent

The media beat the war drum right out in front of an administration that gave them no answers to questions they didn't have the sense to ask. Bush has been giving presentations since he got in office and some people behind the scenes have been running the show.

But, hey it's not all their fault the democrats have some very weak leadership that has been stumbling along Bush like drunk sailors. I guess we all are going to get what we deserve.

[plurality]

4. My only question is why?

Of what strategic necessity would the government expend valuable resources to overthrow the government of Haiti?

I'm not putting it past them to do it, just wondering why, other than we don't like governments that try and take care of their people.

[wuushew]

6. Exactly

would whatever dubious business profits be worth the political risk of another flood of Haitian immigrants to Florida?

[burythehatchet]

7. CORPORATE INTERESTS

If I had to guess

[plurality]

9. but what corporate interests?

Does Haiti have any resources that we'd be in danger of losing control of with Aristide in power?

[Dirk39]

11. Any left-wing government in Latin-America or the so called

developping countries could set a sign for the rest of the oppressed countries and the victims of the IMF and Worldbank neocolonialism.

With more and more countries resisting, with Venezuela and Cuba along with some tendencies at Brazil and Argentinia, the neoliberal ideology is facing a deep crisis, attacked by a worldwide movement that is questioning the neoliberal ideology, the WTO, the IMF, Nafta, Gatts and the Worldbank.
And more and more people become aware of that the same policy is used in Europe and the USA: the destruction of the welfare system, deregulation and privatization.

The ruling elites are still afraid of the world-revolution. And they will not stop untill the last toilet on this earth is owned by a global player.
I'm serious!

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[plurality]

15. this is believable

I think this is what we need to be dicussing about Haiti, because of its implications and because it makes it more likely to convince the unaware.

I know that one of the reasons Haiti is so impoverished is Western subsidized agriculture is flooding their markets with cheap food and driving their farmers out of business, and the WTO keeps them from responding with subsidies of their own.

We need to be sure and bring this up when discussing Haiti, instead of just saying, "the evil US government is overthrowing another government." Because most people will say that's ridiculous, why would the government care who runs Haiti. By putting it in this context people can see why this would be a needed course of action from the Western powers.

[Webster Green]

12. Cheap labor, for one thing.

It doesn't matter that there isn't a huge wealth of resources. The "rebels" want to seize & control the country. They are bankrolled by evil fat cats & aided by the CIA. Democracy puts control of the country in the hands of the citizens. That alone is enough for ChimpCo. Inc. to be in opposition. All their talk about loving democracy and freedom for everyone is just bullshit. They try to stop it at all costs.

[Webster Green]

8. They don't like Aristide...

That is all the reason they need. Aristide has popular support of the citizens he is trying to help. ChimpCo Inc supports the aristocrats and remnants of the Duvalier regime (including the death squads). The US loves evil dicatators, providing they are willing to protect the economic interests of the very wealthy. (So what else is new?)

[plurality]

10. But what economic interests would said evil dictator be protecting?

Granted I don't know much about I Haiti, but I do know it is the poorest nation in the hemisphere.

Are there any vital resources there that it'd be worth this amount of trouble to control?

I know the government has done some unseemly things around the world, but it has always been for a purpose, protecting resources or business interests or the like. They don't just go around installing dictators for fun, so what strategic reason would the government have for wanting Aristide gone?

[Webster Green]

14. See Dirk39's post #11.......

Global dominance...maybe they want to plant some GMO crappola, who knows? They want to conrol everything. Even if there ain't much there, they still want it all. True democracy is always a threat to the rich and powerful. Look what they are doing to ours!

[Webster Green]

5. The US also intervened by imposing an embargo......

Haiti is unable to get loans or buy arms to defend itself, mainly due to Jesse Helms getting a bill through. The embargo is based on allegations of election irregularities that occured in senate races before Aristide's current term.

On KPFA earlier today, Kevin Pina (journalist in Haiti), said there were huge spontaneous street demonstrations by Aristide supporters, and he had hope that they would be able to defend themselves based on sheer numbers. That would be something to see. Overwhelm the thugs and take their weapons from them.

[bvar22]

13. A whole country of slave labor. This editorial may answer..

...some of your questions. It appeared in the editorial section of the Minneapolis Star Tribune Feb.28.

<snip>
The U.S. occupation was a tragedy of errors that have now become all too familiar: failures to disarm elements of the coup regime or to safeguard strategic sites, channeling all aid money to U.S. contractors who lined their own pockets, and hog-tying the new government with requirements that the nation's economy be surrendered to U.S. investors. Aristide refused. The United States withheld aid and began funding opposition groups, and their contra army, under the guise of "democracy enhancement."


<snip>
One doesn't have to wander far from the Associated Press wires to find abundant information about the United States' enthusiastic long-term "intervention" in Haiti. The so-called "democratic convergence" that has dogged Aristide's elected government is, in fact, a tiny group of malcontents who are working with elements of the Bush administration to turn Haiti into one vast sweatshop zone.

Having been soundly rejected in every election in which they've run against Aristide's grass-roots "Lavalas" party, they've used millions of U.S. tax dollars to organize street demonstrations, buy up radio and television stations, and, most recently, field a vicious army of thugs, styling themselves the "Cannibal Army," who have attacked police stations and set about occupying Haitian cities.

All this has been funded from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), under the guise of its falsely so-called "Democracy Enhancement" program. USAID has long been notorious for channeling money to the tiny pro-business elite and its armed goons. It was USAID money that helped a CIA agent persuade Emmanuel (Toto) Constant to organize the murderous FRAPH in 1991. That terrorist organization was responsible for some 5,000 murders in the wake of the military coup that removed Aristide from his first term as elected president. Constant now lives as a real estate agent in Brooklyn, thanks to the protection of the U.S. State and Justice departments

<end snip>

Much more must read:

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4634298.html