Ja offended US - so what?

[seemslikeadream]

THE LESS the United States officials say about Haiti the better, lest they bring further embarrassment to their administration in the eyes of thinking people.

National Security Advisor Condo-leezza Rice said Jamaica's decision to host former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is 'a bad idea', and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he wished not to see Aristide back in the Western Hemisphere to avoid complicating the situation in Haiti. Other Bush administration officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, have frowned on Jamaica's decision to have Aristide here even temporarily.

Yet, it was this same Colin Powell who called the Jamaican Foreign Minister early on the morning when Aristide had been escorted out of Haiti to ask whether Jamaica would be prepared to take Aristide. The same man who on February 19 vowed that "thugs ­ or even an Opposition" could not be allowed to "simply rise up and say, 'we want you to leave'," in reference to then President Aristide; yet who a few days later said that Aristide "allowed thugs to take over", and was "governing very poorly" and undemocratically.

Here is this same Secretary of State of the most powerful nation in the world ­ a hydra-power ­ opposing a move which he himself a few days before recommended. If Aristide would not have been a threat to the fragile Haitian democracy on the morning of February 29, why is he a threat in mid-March? The Ides of March?

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20040321/focus/focus1.html



Residents walk through the streets in the LaSaline district of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday March 21, 2004. Residents say five young men from the slum were taken away by Haitian police last night and their bound and hooded bodies found dead this morning with gunshot wounds to the head.(AP Photo/Ryan Remiorz, CP)



Haitians pass next to armored French troops in the streets of Gonaives city, north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti Saturday, March, 20, 2004. A key figure in the uprising against Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide said his rebels would surrender their weapons as French troops entered this hotbed of insurrection ahead of a visit by the new prime minister. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)



French legionaires patrol the streets of Gonaives city, north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti Saturday, March, 20, 2004

[zbdent]

1. Wonder if the Repukes planning on a vacation to Hedonism II or III

are going to cancel because Jamaica's letting Aristide stay . . .