Found this strong US condemnation on Haiti. How much of it is true?

[time_has_come]

1910, U.S. State Department-National City Bank of New York (now called Citibank) consortium bought the Banque National d'Haïti--Haiti's only commercial bank and its national treasury--in effect transferring Haiti's debts to the Americans. Five years later, President Woodrow Wilson ordered troops to occupy the country i...n order to keep tabs on "our" investment.
1915 to 1934, the U.S. Marines imposed harsh military occupation, murdered Haitians patriots and diverted 40 percent of Haiti's gross domestic product to U.S. bankers. Haitians were banned from government jobs. Ambitious Haitians were shunted into the puppet military, setting the stage for a half-century of U.S.-backed military dictatorship.
The U.S. kept control of Haiti's finances until 1947.
Bled dry by American bankers and generals, civil disorder prevailed until 1957, when the CIA installed President-for-Life Fran... See Moreçois "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Duvalier's brutal Tonton Macoutes paramilitary goon squads murdered at least 30,000 Haitians and drove educated people to flee into exile.
Upon Papa Doc's death in 1971, the torch passed to his even more dissolute 19-year-old son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. The U.S., cool to Papa Doc in his later years, quickly warmed back up to his kleptomaniacal playboy heir. As the U.S. poured in arms and trained his army as a supposed anti-communist bulwark against Castro's Cuba, Baby Doc stole an estimated $300 to $800 million from the national treasury, according to Transparency International. The money was placed in personal accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere.
Under U.S. influence, Baby Doc virtually eliminated import tariffs for U.S. goods. Soon Haiti was awash predatory agricultural imports dumped by American firms. Domestic rice farmers went bankrupt. A nation that had been agriculturally self-sustaining collapsed. Farms were abandoned. Hundreds of thousands of farmers migrated to the teeming slums of... See More Port-au-Prince.The Duvalier era, 29 years in all, came to an end in 1986 when President Ronald Reagan ordered U.S. forces to whisk Baby Doc to exile in France, saving him from a popular uprising.
The U.S. twice deposed the populist and popular democratically-elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The second time, in 2004, was given a free flight to the Central African Republic.

[MineralMan]

1. How much of it would you like to be true?

[time_has_come]

2. The true bits.

[itsrobert]

3. And where did you find it?

Do you have a source or are you know the source is shaky?

[Leopolds Ghost]

7. Um...? This is stuff we learned about in High School.

Right?

The US deposing Aristide twice by Clinton and Bush is current events.

Haiti's government is like that of Mogadishu -- a metropolitan (now defunct due to the earthquake)
US-backed organization intended to project some semblance of legitimacy on what is essentially a
UN trust territory of the US. That's what Haiti is.

[bullimiami]

10. The Bush's deposed Aristide twice. Clinton put him back.

The US has a long history of filthy bloody hands when it comes to Haiti but most of the recent heinous activity can be traced right back to Bush I and Bush II administrations taking care of their powerful friends interests.

[time_has_come]

8. It was on FB, unattributed. Looking now, I see it was Ted Rall. n/t

[NNN0LHI]

19. Here is a link to the entire article. The source ain't shaky

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20100115/cm_ucru/thehaitianearthquakemadeinusa/print

Its worth reading. Hell I forgot about a lot of the stuff we did to Haiti. These things aren't fun to remember.

Don

[donheld]

24. Thanks for posting

It's not pretty, but we need to know this stuff

[KG]

20. there's nothing shaky about it.

[MineralMan]

4. All of the facts are accurate.

This stuff has been posted here many times since the earthquake. It's history. Today is today.

Do you have any comment regarding this information that you posted? Do you have an opinion?

[blondeatlast]

5. +1. nt

[time_has_come]

11. thanks

yeah, I think it's a sad history that should be acknowledged.

What do you think? It should be hidden? Ignored? Anyone relating the information scorned?

You're accusing me of only posting it to bash America, and that I'm part of a group that keeps reposting this and you assume I should have known it had been posted before. It's only been in existence for a couple of days, first of all.
Secondly, lumping anyone who posts it into a "bash America" group, knowing as you say that the facts of it are accurate, you play a chilling game of suppressing any truth you don't like. Why?

[blondeatlast]

12. Self-delete. nt

[MineralMan]

13. It's not hidden. Anyone who knows history knows these facts.

I fail to see the point of posting them at a time when we are heavily engaged in helping the people of Haiti during a disaster. Perhaps you could explain. How does this help?

The USA has not always acted well. We all know that. You may have noticed that there is a new administration and that we are currently acting properly in this disaster.

Yes, it is America-bashing. I'm accusing you of nothing except for posting unattributed material that has no relevance to the current situation. Several others have posted this same stuff. You have joined the group.

[time_has_come]

18. How does it help with the disaster? How does brushing your teeth help..

..with the disaster? Perhaps you should give that up now, since it doesn't directly help.

And your wrong. I posted it to find out if it was accurate. It was BECAUSE it was unattributed that I sought that feedback.

Since it's the truth, I would say this is the perfect time to post such things. It's precisely the time people will pay attention.

Nothing would please me more than to see this become part of the national discourse on mainstream media. Not that posting it here will accomplish that, of course.

You resent it....why? I can only assume you wish it stayed hidden. Out of the public eye. It's the truth, but it upsets you. It's inconvenient.

[Leopolds Ghost]

28. Are we currently acting properly? Tonight, on ED show, it was all about Admin officials saying

We need security, we need to prevent a failed state in Haiti, this is about providing security and infrastructure VERSUS humanitarian relief, Sen. Melendez's words not mine, Clinton and Preval appearing together on-air saying the reason "all these militaries" are coming together is to "prevent a failed democratic state in the Caribbean". This is all realpolitik to them, that is why they are diverting aid flights, the military is playing buraucratic fiefdom games and saying "this is OUR territory, WE will provide security and THEN WE will permit Doctors Without Borders to enter." You know, like Sudan tells Doctors Without Borders in Darfur, an area where the ongoing danger is the main thing. Pure and absolute unmitigated corruption of our ideals and why we want them to be there.

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. Um, why is this thread unrecced?

It's simply a history of Haiti in the 20th century.

[MineralMan]

9. It's the America-bashing intent of posting it that is the

reason for the unrecs. Posting this over and over again is the hallmark of a certain group here on DU. It's all history. The reason for posting it at this time is the question, and one which goes unanswered.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

23. "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

This is why learning the history of Haiti is important. There is an hard earned opportunity for the Haitian people
to take back their country. Everything in the OP is common knowledge to those familiar with the history of the
island of Hispaniola.

Anyone following the news has heard how many prominent people associated with relief agencies have been killed,
Shouldn't we wonder why a place with so many resources and money being poured into it remains one of the most
destitute places on earth?

[Hannah Bell]

36. Shouldn't we wonder why a place with so many resources and money being poured into it remains one of

the most destitute places on earth?

Exactly.

& it's not true, as the other poster says, that most people know the history. Most americans DON'T, i'll best most other people don't either.

Know that Citybank OWNED Haiti's Treasury for 30 years? Of course most people don't know that.

Most people "know" Haiti's poor & we are "helping" them. That's *all* they know.

If they actually knew the history, they'd know *why* it's poor, *why* so many buildings were built so poorly, & give some warranted scrutiny to our help.

That's why the history matters.

[Leopolds Ghost]

29. "America bashing" -- where have I heard that before? What happened to support for UN? Please.

People who do not learn from history -- and most DUers (never mind most Americans) are entirely ignorant of said history and subject to being patsies of the media when they do not realize that the military has a fiefdom building strategy at play, they regard this as THEIR territory and they want US to be in command of the country MILITARILY during the relief effort. And so does the Administration.

[EFerrari]

31. Well, I just read on another thread that this is OUR hemisphere

so the propaganda is working pretty good. :)

[Leopolds Ghost]

33. Obviously they got to the part about Monroe Doctrine in school before they tuned out

And became more concerned about politics and surface appearance of making our efforts instead of policy.

"I thought you were one of us, someone who wanted to blog about our ideals!"

"I LOVE blogging!"

"Sweeet."

[EFerrari]

30. Not at all. The reason to provide context now

is because people are attending to Haiti, which doesn't happen very often. And of course, because this isn't "history". It's not even "past".

[jaxx]

14. What does this have to do with a natural disaster that happened on Tuesday?

Nothing?

Ding Ding!

[MineralMan]

15. It's just yet another iteration of this being posted here since

the earthquake. Anything to bash the United States will do.

[jaxx]

16. I know, but after awhile it pisses me off.

My guess those people in dire straits don't give a shit about politics today.

[EFerrari]

26. "Politics" is why they had no functioning government to respond

to the quake, why their infrastructure was so vulnerable, why there aren't enough medial personnel there.

Do you think they don't know that?

[Leopolds Ghost]

34. The gov't of Haiti was a US installed UN protectorate, no one mentions that on TV, why?

And now we are keeping the Brazilians and Bolivians from command and control since their mission was decapitated, why?

We want to prevent Haiti from joining the Bolivian-Brazil-Venezuela-Cuba axis of lefty Latin American trading powers...
or worse, prevent a "failed state" on the "US's doorstep". Which Clinton said was "why all these countries were bringing in military to help" in a "pep talk" with Preval (who he helped install) on the tarmac today.

[Hannah Bell]

37. Since this discussion is taking place far from Haiti, I'm not sure why it matters

that Haitians are currently more interested in survival.

But you can be sure that their survival is intimately connected to politics.

[Canuckistanian]

17. It has a lot to do with the death toll

The fact that since since rural agriculture collapsed, the capital of Port-au-Prince has become a such densely populated city certainly contributed to the number killed.

And the lack of infrastructure, shoddy building practices and pititful government services have exacerbated the problem.

[CanSocDem]

22. Indeed.

More 'chickens coming home to roost'.

.

[Leopolds Ghost]

35. Where were these military helping plant trees and import fuel (like the evil Venezuelans)

To restore Haiti's rural economy and sustainable land use practices, so they would have somewhere to go outside the city that is not a moonscape?

Too busy providing security and shooting up funerals of Aristide supporters (to be fair, the Brazilians did that too.)

[Spazito]

21. The US, Canada and France have behaved despicably wrt Haiti...

so, imo, are those who point out this despicable behavior, at this time, wanting the US to refrain from helping now? I hope not as I doubt the Haitian people care, at this critical time, who is helping them, they NEED all the help the world can give them.

[time_has_come]

25. It's important to understand how past policies have contributed to this disaster...

...creating the densely populated urban areas and the poverty that has left the population so vulnerable to the effects of the earthquake.

That's what is valuable about pointing it out.

[EFerrari]

27. Would you please link to the posts of those who are asking the United States

to refrain from helping Haiti?

Thank you.

[Leopolds Ghost]

32. No, but issue is, why Admin officials on Ed show apologizing for diverting/preempting foriegn aid?

And JUSTIFYING it bysaying this is about "security first, then humanitarian assistance, WE CANNOT ALLOW a failed state in Haiti?" This is Clinton coming on air repating all the failed neoliberal foreign policies he never should have adopted in Haiti and Somalia 15 years ago. We've learned nothing. It's all about securing the country first, protect the (white) relief workers, protect the Haitian elite, while letting the few foreign aid workers already in-country do the heavy lifting. Colonels even said they would keep 90% of the troops offshore, only 10% would be boots on the ground, they are only there in case "something goes wrong".