BushCo's overthrow of Haiti

[frank frankly]

makes me remember a year ago, before I found DU, when every day there was a different bullshit headline screaming a new reason we had to go to war NOW!

I remember emailing editors and either screaming at them or pleading with them to just tell the truth. Telling them the blood would be on their hands and that they could prevent an illegal invasion and war crimes by just doing their job. If they responded at all, it was saracastic. As we all know, they not only didn't tell the truth, they presented every lie exactly the way BushCo wanted it.

And now we've done it again. BushCo overthrew Haiti and the media printed the day by day "story" of the advancing rebels until the Aristide "fled." No questions of who sponsored these rebels, no analysis of why BushCo offered no official diplomaticsupport, no investigation of what France had to gain, and no mention of the fact we took Aristide out by gunpoint...nothing.

It is sickening and terrifying. I fear the media as much as BushCo, maybe more, since BushCo only functions through deception and the media is their medium.

Nothing new here really, I'm just very angry and angry and angry today.

Good luck to all my Haitian brothers and sisters. Justice will be yours someday.

[evil_orange_cat]

1. just curious, whats the motive?

I'm not a member of the tinfoil hat club :D

[frank frankly]

6. slave labor and drug trafficking

and although you're not a member, i can think of some ways you could use tinfoil.

maybe we'll send you a flier.

[evil_orange_cat]

15. I'm amazed...

I thought we liberals were supposed to be the pragmatists... you know... not jumping to conclusions without proof. :puke:

Personally, I think Bush doesn't give a sh1t about Haiti. It's not his style. Sure, we're in Iraq partly because of oil, reconstruction contracts, etc... But I don't think the reward is necessarily worth the risk for the Bushies.

I think this is like Liberia and they are just gonna send a few ships to sit off the coast for a few weeks then let the UN handle it.

And even if they were giving the rebels money and guns, what is going to stop them from saying, "hey america gave us guns". This is a situation the world is gonna pay a lot of attention to.

[frank frankly]

18. you need to read more

honestly, this Haiti situation does not require tremendous deconstruction.

this isn't tricky.

[frank frankly]

21. Does Scott McClellan know you raid his wardrobe?

McClellan says U.S. abduction of Aristide a "conspiracy theory"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1180547#1180692

[evil_orange_cat]

25. even a broken clock is right twice a day...

plus, if I am so uninformed... post some information rather than conjecture. So far, I haven't seen any information or sources suggesting any of the tinfoil hat theories I'm reading on the DU today.

My skepticism isn't exclusive for the right ;)

[frank frankly]

26. read one of the dozen links on the main page

you are a bore

goodbye

[maggrwaggr]

28. Read the recent history of Haiti. Read Madison Smartt Bell's article

in January 04 Harper's just for starters.

Get yourself informed, then throw out your opinions. I think they'll be a bit different.

[frank frankly]

31. looking forward to hearing from you again when BushCo gets caught!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x393064

[Loonman]

2. You don't need a motive

For tinfoil speculation.

[el_gato]

3. Perhaps a little historical understanding would go a long way

Rather than running behind the usual "it's all tinfoil" denials.

[frank frankly]

4. wow...Loonman!!!!!!!!!!!

haven't ran into you before

where do you, loonman, think the rebels got their weapons?

ah forget it, just keep muddying the water!

you're doing great!

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. Especially since Haiti has been under an embargo

since Bu$hSr.

I hear the rebels all had M-16's and nice new uniforms?

What the US is doing in Haiti is terrifying. In three years Bu$hCo has brought us 9-11, Afghanistan, Iraq and now the overthrow of the Haitian government.

If they can get away with overthrowing a legitimate government in just 3 weeks, what will they do for their next act? Cuba, Venezuela, Syria? It is apparent that nothing can stop them anymore?

[frank frankly]

13. it seems apparent to me, DoYouEverWonder

this and Scalia's hunting club are so blatent!

will these fascists leave peacefully...?

[bullimiami]

16. they already overthrew venezuela

it just didnt stick.

[tom_paine]

17. Don't forget the attempted Coup in Venezuela

But the Imperials have regrouped from that setback and are ready to TRY AGAIN.

I have no love for Chavez, but I certainly understand his resisting the Amerikan Empire.

[frank frankly]

23. exactly

I wonder now if they will try something more overtly overt against Chavez now.

damn.

[tom_paine]

29. I think they are already trying

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1078087921985_30/?hub=World

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1056509.htm

The problem is, BOTH Chavez and the Busheviks, IMHO, are both eminently untrustworthy. The "Old Soviet" dilmena of who to believe when everyone is lying and all information sources are quetsionable.

Sure, the Busheviks are capable, but they are also capable of Gullaging political opponenets in the Arizona Desert, but that doesn't mean they've done it...yet.

[maggrwaggr]

30. as we speak they're trying to destablize Venezuela

It's good for them, drives up gas prices.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/markets_oil_dc

[Mel]

20. I heard Congresswoman Maxine Waters

imply on the House of Reps. floor, last week, think it was Wed. night that the weapons did indeed come from the U.S.

[Indiana_Dem]

5. My recent thoughts exactly!

I was just watching Sen. Charlie Rangel and that Foley senator guy arguing on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. Foley kept saying Robinson's and Rengel's statements were fantasy. Something doesn't smell exactly right, does it? I can't wait to hear Aristide speak but will he be able to speak freely? I don't know....I feel the same way you do.

[Indiana_Dem]

19. Okay, thank you, since I just jumped in...

I see all the other links from earlier today. I found info myself.

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

7. You said it

I don't know what actually is going on or what role the administration played in it, but it is obvious the mainstream media doesn't feel any responsibility to report the truth of it. They are irresponsible and they don't seem to care who gets hurt.

[frank frankly]

8. they don't do their job, they don't ask questions

it is a terrifying state of affairs

[Indiana_Dem]

9. I also have a dumb question for anyone reading who knows.

Why would we be interested in Haiti? I have a lot of historical catching up to do since I've just become a political junkie in the last year or so. Last I remember, Haitians were burning all their trees for energy because they had no other source for cooking the like and it was killing their land and making it desolate. What happened? How do they get their energy needs?

[ewagner]

10. I've been pondering the "why " question also

From all that I've been able to glean from the links and posts I can only come up with this:

1. There is a long, deep-seated hatred for Aristide by the Bush Administration.

2. It was imminently "doeable", so why not "do" it.

3. Aristide was a Clinton creation so undoing a Clinton creation is on the plus side of the ledger for Bush and company.

It also appears that Aristide was in deep trouble with the international community and all the Bushies had to do was diplomatically push him over the edge. That' what I suspect actually happened.

As for the telephone conversations Aristide has had with Maxine and Robinson, I suspect that those conversations have indeed taken place and Maxine has accurately repeated the sense of the conversations, but the one possibility that has to be allowed for is that Aristide was lying. I don't know that for certain but you can't discount the possibility.

What do you think?

[frank frankly]

12. I think all of what you said is true,but this might have been the clincher

read post #38

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1180547#1180692

[Soloflecks]

14. Of course Neo-Cons are behind it!

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/hait-m01.shtml
Aristide’s overthrow is the outcome of a bloody coup orchestrated by the Bush administration and aided by the Chirac government in Paris. It was executed by a band of killers drawn from the disbanded and discredited Haitian army and the CIA-backed death squads that terrorized the population under the former military dictatorship that ruled the country in the early 1990s.

Among those leading the armed bands that overran the country are Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a former Haitian army officer sentenced to life at hard labor in connection with the 1993 assassination of political activist Antoine Izmérym, and Jean-Pierre Baptiste, likewise sentenced to life for his role in a 1994 massacre. Both were leaders of the FRAPH, or Haitian Front for Advancement and Progress, a CIA-backed organization that carried out state terror against opponents of the military regime that ruled the country from 1991 to 1993.

Another leader of the armed bands is Guy Philippe, a former member of the Haitian military who received training from US Special Forces in Ecuador in the 1990s and was then sent back to Haiti, where he became a brutal police chief and sought to organize a coup in 2000. He is suspected of involvement in cocaine trafficking.

These heavily armed terrorists invaded Haiti from across the border with the Dominican Republic. There is convincing evidence that they were trained, financed and armed by Washington, provided with M-16 rifles, grenade launchers and other weapons out of stockpiles originally sent to the Dominican army.

....Just read the whole article at the link above.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/03/01/2003100742

Haiti, once again, is ablaze. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is widely blamed, and he may be toppled soon. Almost nobody, however, understands that today's chaos was made in Washington -- deliberately, cynically and steadfastly. History will bear this out.
snip>
The Bush administration has been pursuing policies likely to topple Aristide since 2001. The hatred began when Aristide, then a parish priest and democracy campaigner against Haiti's ruthless Duvalier dictatorship, preached liberation theology in the 1980s. Aristide's attacks led US conservatives to brand him as the next Fidel Castro.?

They floated stories that Aristide was mentally deranged. Conservative disdain multiplied several-fold when then-president Bill Clinton took up Aristide's cause after he was blocked from electoral victory in 1991 by a military coup. Clinton put Aristide into power in 1994, and conservatives mocked Clinton for wasting America's efforts on "nation building" in Haiti.

[Cooley Hurd]

22. Rumsfeld did NOT deny this!

He said he'd be "surprised" if Aristide was abducted...

Said to reporter, "you must've heard Aristide wrong - I don't believe he said he was kidnapped..."

[frank frankly]

24. WOW

The hubris of these motherfuckers will be their doom I hope!

Rummy, you are going to jail.

[Cooley Hurd]

27. He now says the State Dept was behind the entire operation...

He's being hammered by the press - he's now denying kidnap charges, depsite saying earlier that he had no knowledge of a kidnapping.

We just caught him in a lie! :bounce:

[spanone]

32. Could be the CIA extracting a little revenge???

[frank frankly]

33. could be and it is sure to benefit their drug running

this seems to be a big story. it sure should be!