I am watching Bush overthrow Aristide and Haiti?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

"Aristide has resigned, and fled his country, sending Marines, working with international community, new chapter(????)"

Cuba is next, mark my words.

1. Cuba? I vote for Venezuela.

Follow the oil.:evilgrin:

[bahrbearian]

4. Yes, Chimpy is sending Chavez a clear signal..

"You've got one week to get oil..I mean out of Dodge.. I mean Caracus,"

[AntiCoup2K4]

2. What's their motivation in Haiti?

There can't be much oil there. Does PNAC want to corporatize voodoo?

[bicentennial_baby]

3. Cheap/FREE labor

[Raya]

5. Kerry: "Religious and Ideological hatred of Aristide" by Bushco

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

7. they might provide an example

imagine Haiti sending trade representative to the WTO, representatives that they elected themselves. They grow enough food to feed themselves, but they aren't allowed to eat it becaue they need to export it for "trade credit". Meanwhile the population starves.

Bush put an end to any resistance, and armed gangs will enforce the rule of Bush's new appointee.

Nation Endowment for Democracy has been paying the people behind it? I wonder what Clark and Kerry have to say?

[Capn Sunshine]

19. If they control the main source of zombie powder

It's a blow against the Kerry Kampaign

[shance]

6. Thanks to Bush , thousands of innocent people will be slaughtered by thugs

He doesnt care. What DOES our president care about?

Destruction of everything?

Is that his goal?

All I see is destruction everywhere by this administration.

[stldemocrat]

8. Refugees

At a bare minimum we should be prepared to accept all the refugees. I haven't seen whether anyone is making provisions for this. Have any of the Democrats come out to support this?

[revcarol]

25. Bush just sent some backYESTERDAY

TO TOTAL CHAOS!! Maybe to their deaths.

"Compassionate conservatism" in action.We don't want no poor black people.

[stldemocrat]

27. unbelievable

Who is going to stand up for these people?

[bigtree]

9. Who are these rebels that Bush enabled and wants to give power there?

He encouraged arned terrorists in their destabilization of the Aristide government. Who does he think will do better?

[JasonBerry]

10. Haiti's history

Haiti's history is one of great complexity. It is an over-simplification of things to say this is just a U.S.-backed coup. There are countries that, for better or worse, will never be stable. Haiti is one of them.

[bigtree]

12. On what basis did the president authorize Powell to pressure Aristide?

What crimes did Aristide commit to lose his office? Didn't he leave because we said we wouldn't guarantee his safety? Clinton did, and backed it up by our forces. Bush watched him fall and did nothing but pressure him to leave when he was under assault. Why didn't we send forces to support his elected presidency?

Why did we refuse to defend democracy there? Especially one that our country had expended money and military to effect in the first place.

This was one more reversal of the Clinton legacy as Bush, through his negligence and indifference, let the work of the nation and the international community fall by the wayside and fester into a crisis and an emergency that he could exploit to the will of some hack in his mindless cabal.

This is another overthrow of a soverign nation under the Bush doctrine of world dominance. The Aristide government shouldn't be forced by this Bush league to share power with terrorist rebels.

[JasonBerry]

13. Black & White Thinking

It is just another of the all-black/all-white simplistic thinking seen so often at DU anymore. To me, it's obvious what the dominant thinking is here --

Rebels fighting a Right-leaning Government = Freedom Fighters
Rebels fighting a left-leaning Government = Terrorists

Again, I think this is much more complex than a left-right struggle.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

15. if you pretend those "rebels" aren't being paid by Bush's interests

then you can pretend Haiti "can never be stable"

[stldemocrat]

28. oil money

They are probably using Iraqi oil money to pay the thugs.

[bigtree]

33. This makes perfect sense

Why don't we have better oversight of the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Fund?

[no name no slogan]

16. I have a good friend who served in Haiti during the last US occupation

...the one that put Aristide back into power. This was after he had "converted" from the populist poor people's priest into the agent of neoliberal economic policy.

He said at the time that something like this was bound to happen again, because the "US Approved" government we were installing would not hold up for long, as it went against the majority of the people.

The rebellion could have come from the left or the right, as Aristide had done a good job of pissing EVERYBODY off-- trying to appease the international corporations, yet trying to be the "people's president" at the same time.

However, I don't see this going much beyond what is happenning now. Haiti has been a U.S. protectorate for some time-- a 51st state, if you will, that we keep subjugated for cheap labor and captive market purposes.

Just another case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" IMHO.

[bigtree]

18. He's not the one slaughtering people in the streets right now.

The new 'boss' looks like a band of butchers.

23. countries that will never be stable?

what?
NEVER be stable?
that statement is borderline something...

[Ms. Clio]

32. something that begins with a "r" and ends with a "m," perhaps?

Yeah, I think so.

[Edwards4President]

24. I don't agree that Haiti will NEVER be stable, but it's also an extreme

over-simplification to just assume that Bush has an evil hand in what's going on there. You're right - this is a very complex sitation and we do ourselves a disservice by making knee-jerk assumptions about it without fully understanding al of these complexities. Everything is not black and white in this world.

[brainshrub]

11. There is no oil in Cuba.

Plus, as long as Castro is in power, the Cubans in Miami will continue to vote hyper-conservative.

Venezuela, on the other hand, is ripe for the plucking.

[Padraig18]

20. "...Cubans in Miami ...."

The Cuban-American population in Florida is not The Borg. They are as diverse as any other group, so don't buy into the hype that they are all RW-ers, because they're not.

[GreenArrow]

21. Cuban oil

the potential exists.

Note last paragraph of following article:

http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/P1089_0_4_0/

The president of Halliburton Co.'s energy services unit, John Gibson, said two weeks ago in an address to employees the future of oil exploration lay in developing countries, and in those three competitors had a jump start over U.S companies.

[stldemocrat]

30. bushco

This is probably bushco "expanding world trade".

[revcarol]

14. Butchery going on right now.

Pacifica broadcasting live reports. Some major people missing. Go to LBN and GD.:cry:

[bigtree]

17. Rebels slaughtering people in hospitals.

This is better than Aristide?

[Character Assassin]

29. It was going on under Aristide. What's the difference now?

Please be very, very specific.

[bigtree]

31. The Rebels are openly led by Guy Phillippe.

Do you defend the Rebel terrorism?


Rising Stakes In Haiti as Ex-Dictator's Thugs Take Over Opposition
by Jim Lobe
February 20, 2004

The uprising began Feb 5 when a gang – called the Cannibal Army when it was allied with Aristide and later renamed the Artibonite Resistance Front (ARF) – seized the police station in Gonaives, the country's fourth largest city, and subsequently burned and looted other government offices. Several days later, another anti-Aristide gang seized the nearby town of St. Marc, which has since been retaken by government forces.

Tension in Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second biggest city, has risen steadily since yet another rebel group – reportedly led by a former chief of the paramilitary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), Louis Jodel Chamblain – seized the Central Plateau town of Hinche after killing the police chief and two of his officers several days ago. A total of more than 50 people have been killed to date. The emergence of Chamblain, who apparently slipped across the border from the Dominican Republic where he has lived in exile for almost a decade, and several other personalities associated with FRAPH, drew calls of alarm from human rights groups both in Haiti and other capitals. FRAPH, the descendant of the feared Ton-Ton Macoutes from the Duvalier dynasty, acted primarily as a death squad for the military after it ousted Aristide in 1990 until the former priest was returned to power by 2,000 U.S. troops in 1994.

Chamblain himself was convicted of involvement in the assassination of Antoine Izmery, a prominent pro-democracy activist, while he was attending a Catholic mass in 1993, after Aristide's return, but as FRAPH leader, he was also implicated in a number of murders that never went to trial. FRAPH was accused by international human rights groups of killing hundreds of suspected Aristide supporters and attacking entire neighborhoods of towns and cities where Aristide was considered particularly popular during the military's reign.

Reports from Hinche indicated that Chamblain is accompanied by Guy Philippe, Cap Haitien's police chief under military rule, and Jean Pierre Baptiste, alias "Jean Tatoune" who was sentenced to life imprisonment for his participation in a 1994 massacre that killed dozens of people in Raboteau. Chamblain is reportedly planning attacks on Cap-Haitien. Chamblain's forces are said to be equipped with machine guns and other weapons that were apparently cached after Aristide's return. The beleaguered 5,000-man Haitian police force – Aristide abolished the Haitian army in 1995 – is no match for such an arsenal, according to reports from Haiti.

http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=1995


Aristide is in no position to do anything concrete about the violence with his ragtag band of underfunded out weaponed security forces, some loyal, some actively working against his interests. I find it interesting that Bush can bring in troops to oust Aristide and support the Rebels, but he couldn't find his way to help the Aristide government keep order. Instead the Bush cabal stirred up the opposition, promising them positions in the government.

Aristide has not been tied directly to the violence of some of his 'supporters', but Guy Phillippe ( a man who yesterday said Pinochet was his hero) is the avowed leader of the terrorist Rebels who have violently positioned themselves to usurp power with their brand-new uniforms and M16s, weakly opposed by the Aristide forces' pistols and machetes.

[Character Assassin]

35. Oh, please. Why do you think it arose in the first place.

Aristide has had ample time and money, and all he managed to do with it was create his own goon squads.

The man is not an angel, saint or otherwise admirable individual.

He is in kind, but not in degree, on par with most other Haitain strongmen, and good riddance.

[bigtree]

37. So, your views are right in line with the Bush league on this

How revealing and . . . sad.

[Character Assassin]

38. How sorry that you can't reply in kind....

Please, by all means, support your statements.

I assure you I'll be all ears.

[bigtree]

22. I just heard brainshrub on live radio on Haiti. Was that our brainshrub?

Good call.

[MAlibdem]

26. Bush is like a child playing with matches

It's like he does things for the shock value of their existence. Weird guy.

[ButterflyBlood]

34. they won't hit Cuba

need to keep the Florida Cubans voting hard right, which will continue as long as Castro's in power.

[corporatewhore]

36. he is sending a message to chavez