U.S. troops in Haiti to prevent Aristide’s returnBy Wayne Madsen Jan 19, 2010, 00:20 |
(WMR) — President Obama, in keeping with his CIA lineage, has permitted the Pentagon under Robert Gates to take charge of the humanitarian relief efforts in Haiti.
As Cuban and Venezuelan field hospitals were already rendering first aid and trauma care to Haitians injured in the mega-quake, Obama was gathered at a White House photo op with Vice President Joe Biden and other Cabinet officers to state that U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft would fly over Haiti to assess the situation from the air. A U.S. P-3 Orion spy plane from Comalapa air base in El Salvador was dispatched to conduct the surveillance operation, an act that was already being accomplished by earth satellites, the images of which were available on Google Maps.
As Obama was garnering praise from such sycophantic White House outlets as the largely-discredited Washington Post, a 37-person Icelandic search-and-rescue team was pulling trapped earthquake victims from the rubble of collapsed buildings in Port-au-Prince. Iceland, a nation bankrupted by Obama’s banker pals on Wall Street and in the City of London, was able to react in a way that the slumbering and oafish dying super-power, the United States, could not — with action aimed at providing immediate assistance to the Haitian people.
Obama’s generals and admirals, who are mostly more concerned about their appearance than in taking charge and moving out, were still scratching their heads about where to land the U.S. Marines and 82nd Airborne. In fact, military aircraft carrying weapons and other war supplies crowded the airport aprons at Port-au-Prince airport that could be used by planes from other countries carrying much needed food, water, and medical supplies. Argentine doctors already on the scene in Haiti complained that they were running out of simple sewing kits being used as stitches for the injured who had undergone surgery.
When U.S. Special Operations forces hit the ground at Port-au-Prince airport they pointed their weapons at desperate Haitians at the airport perimeter who wanted help not a gun pointed in their faces. Russia, Spain, Mexico, Chile, and Guatemala were rushing in food and water for Haiti.
Meanwhile, Obama was phoning former President George W. Bush to ask him and former President Bill Clinton to launch a fund drive for Haitian earthquake relief. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was partly behind engineering the 2004 coup that deposed democratically-elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, attended a Haitian relief fundraiser at a Washington hotel called “W.” The symbology could not have been worse — it was Bush who showed the world that he was totally disinterested in the 2004 Asian earthquake and tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that decimated New Orleans and surrounding areas.
Apparently, the so-called media-savvy Obama failed to realize the revolting nature of asking Bush to do anything related to Haiti when people remembered his lack of action over Katrina. Bodies of African-Americans floating in the streets of New Orleans became juxtaposed with the bodies of Afro-Haitians piling up in the streets of Port-au-Prince. But, of course, Obama is the “Max Headroom” of America’s political leadership — a talking head — whose rhetorical flourishes speak louder than principles or concrete action.
Aristide, from an exile in South Africa imposed by the United States, France, and Canada, vowed to return to Haiti to be with his people in their time of stress and despair. Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, served the people of the Haitian slum of La Saline and he understands best the plight of his people. On the other hand, Rene Preval, the U.S. stooge who was placed in power twice by the CIA and the U.S. Southern Command to replace Aristide, once in a fraudulent election (Preval won in 1995 with 88 percent of the vote in a 25 percent voter turnout) and the other in a coup, could only complain to CNN’s Sanjay Gupta about not having any place to sleep for the night, “I cannot live in the palace. I cannot live in my own house, because the two collapsed.”
Preval has been reaping all sorts of “free trade” deals that caused Haiti’s agrarian population to stream into Port-au-Prince to work in the sweat shops heralded as “progress” by the likes of George Soros and his gang of thieves on Wall Street. Because of Port-au-Prince’s swollen population of sweat shop workers, the death count from the earthquake will be much higher as the result of collapsed tenements that housed more people than they were designed for.
Dr. Gupta, who was Obama’s first choice to be surgeon-general of the United States, was more interested in using dying Haitians in makeshift hospitals as stage props for CNN’s ratings than in rendering medical assistance to the injured. Imagine, being one of the few doctors available to the severely injured and breaking away to go on camera and tell some old fool like Larry King or some Israeli agent of influence like Wolf Blitzer about how awful the situation is in Haiti.
However, Gates and his military brass will ensure that Aristide will not show up to threaten Preval’s continuing disastrous leadership of Haiti. It was Gates, who was George H. W. Bush’s nominee to be CIA director, who helped plan the military coup that ousted Aristide the first time in September 1991. Gates, at the time, was Bush’s deputy national security adviser.
Clinton helped Aristide regain his presidency from the CIA-backed coup leader General Raoul Cedras in 1994. But Clinton’s disastrous flip-flopping on Haitian refugees from the Cedras dictatorship plunged his new administration into a major crisis. It is certain that when Haiti’s earthquake struck, people like Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel were conducting focus group polls to find out how U.S. assistance to Haiti would be received by the public. Although a clear majority of Americans favor helping the beleaguered people of Haiti, and many feel that Obama’s assistance has been extremely slow, Emanuel only seems to be concerned about the handful of Americans, including Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck, who have uttered racist language in reacting to the Haitian tragedy, are worth listening to. But Emanuel does not view things through the enlightened lenses of America’s founders but through the religious myopic eyesight of Talmudic interpreters.
Haiti under Aristide and Preval, was forced by Clinton to agree to horribly one-sided “free trade” deals that saw Haiti’s workers press ganged into toiling away in Port-au-Prince sweat shops to produce clothing for America’s major retailers like Disney. Haiti had no choice — Clinton imposed devastating economic sanctions against Aristide to force his compliance with the diktats of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Clinton sweetened the pie for his Arkansas rice-growing cronies by ensuring that Haiti went from being an exporter of nutritional rice to an importer of expensive bleached and genetically-modified “junk rice,” primarily from Arkansas.
When Aristide regained the presidency in 2000, he took immediate steps to improve the lot of the Haitian workers — he raised the minimum wage to two dollars a day. Bush decided it was time for the CIA and the Southern Command to remove Aristide, which they did with the help of France and Canada. Aristide was exiled to the Central African Republic and then South Africa.
Preval regained office in 2006 after a phony election engineered with the help of the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), two CIA contrivances acting under the aegis of the U.S. Republican and Democratic Parties, respectively. Soros has adopted Haitian politicians like former Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis who continue to advocate disastrous “free trade” policies and provides them with funding and travel expenses through his Open Society Institute (OSI).
UN “peacekeeping” forces in Haiti have ensured that Aristide and his Lavalas Party does not regain power. One of the methods the UN uses is periodically raiding pro-Aristide slums and killing Lavalas activists in their homes. Bill Clinton was rewarded last year for his guile and deceit committed against Haiti by being named by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as the UN’s Special Envoy for Haiti.
When Honduran President Manuel Zelaya also raised the minimum wage in his country, the CIA and Southern Command arranged for a military coup to remove him. Obama has now decided to place the Southern Command, headquartered in the right-wing Latin American exiles’ rat’s nest of Miami, to coordinate humanitarian relief in Haiti, along with the head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) a CIA pass-through headed by Rajiv Singh, a one-time political hack for Pennsylvania’s corrupt Democratic Governor Ed Rendell.
The perfidy that is America’s relationship with Haiti extends to Bill Clinton’s wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She has appointed her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, to oversee America’s role in Haiti. Mills has stated, “We actually see our role as ensuring that the leadership of Haiti is able to provide the leadership that the Haitian people properly expect them to provide.” That represents an endorsement of the hapless leadership of Preval and a thumbs down to any return for Aristide.
Note: The editor’s book, “Jaded Tasks” is named for the covert Pentagon and CIA operation that removed Aristide in 2004: Operation Jaded Task. Aristide was presented a signed copy of the book in South Africa with a note that states I hope he is rightfully restored to the presidency in Haiti. Haiti needs Aristide more now than it has ever needed him in the past. People like Obama, Gates, Emanuel, the Clintons, Mills, and Southern Command commander General Douglas Fraser need to step out of the way and allow the legitimate president of Haiti to lead his people out of the rubble of their country, “moving from misery to poverty with dignity,” as he said from Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg awaiting permission for a return to his native country.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2010 WayneMadenReport.com
[Isn’t it time to get everyone you know, from your Grandma to your best friend’s dog, into the streets to preserve our Constitutional rights? If Americans are not completely brain-dead, this should prove to be a long hot summer for Obama.]
Those of you familiar with this column are no stranger to what I believe is the sometimes criminal misuse and abuse of the Constitution and its rights by Congress and the President (the Ruling Elite) in administrations than span decades.
Continuing on that seemingly unalterable path and now early in 2010, it is apparent that candidate Obama’s multiple lofty claims while running for President, that “transparency” would be the order of the day for “We the People” during the healthcare overhaul, was nothing but a lie. Even C-Span had to call him, and Congress, on it. But then again, maybe his handlers can convince him and the Dems to play straight with the American people, at least on this issue.
As President, Obama, like Bush and many others, has joined the elite fraternity of chief executives who can’t seem to keep various promises. But why should they? And why should Congress?
They are our Ruling Elite because “We the People” allow them to assume that posture generation after generation. They continue to violate the Constitution with impunity while the people grumble but do nothing. When it comes to standing up for our rights, many Americans act like wimpy adults who more closely resemble whiny little children.
Is it our destiny as a nation that federal oppression continues its march into every facet of our lives? Consider the following words that some of the Ruling Elite today may find antiquated and irrelevant.
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” So says the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in February 1795.
It is nothing less than criminal that the U.S. Congress today, and for generations, has avoided, violated and essentially nullified this portion of our most precious national treasure.
Yet it may be the 10th Amendment that holds out the greatest hope for rescuing our nation from the central planners who, regardless of their words to the contrary, continue to abrogate the liberties contained in the first 10 amendments.
Consider the final words of the Star Spangled Banner “… o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” America does have many brave citizens, but it is being depleted of free citizens. And as the erosion of our freedoms continues, I sometimes wonder how long it will take, if ever, for Americans to be sufficiently fed up to force a change that Washington will be unable or unwilling to combat.
So the incremental slaughter of the Constitution continues and it seems to me that the people and the states always suffer. Yet there are a growing number of anti-party establishment, anti-federal government-control and pro-states’ rights movements afoot in the U.S. that seem to be forging a real foothold in state and national politics. I for one hope they continue.
Some states’ attorneys general are exploring the idea of taking on the Ruling Elite on healthcare. A few other states are looking at one or more forms of sovereignty legislation.
Good. I wondered the other day what other things the states could do to stand up for their citizens since the central government and its Ruling Elite will not. Maybe it’s time to have the Gadsden Flag flown from every statehouse in the land.
Off the top of my head I wondered if it would be legal and possible for like-minded states that really intend to stand for citizens and sovereignty to act collectively to benefit each other while, simultaneously, not violating the Constitution.
Could those states form some type of economic or other confederation (no wait, confederation sounds too much like what led to our first Constitution) that would include provisions or incentives to help each other on top of anything already available federally?
It sounds kind of silly, but what about something like a real or symbolic “Most Favored State” status like the one the U.S. uses with international trade?
Or maybe this coalition of states, something like a 10th Amendment Coalition, could find other means to come together out of a like mind on issues with a broader scope, issues like sovereignty, excessive federal taxation and past, present and future federal constitutional violations relating to the 1st, 2nd, 4th and, of course, 10th amendments. Such a coalition may not work or it might not be legal, but at least it’s a thought.
One thing is for sure, at least in my opinion. Generally speaking, I believe the Ruling Elite is unwilling to properly advocate and legislate for the American people. This is due to the self-serving nature of the two parties and their allegiance to and complicity with the large financial and industrial corporations for which they have prostituted themselves, at our expense, since long before President Eisenhower’s stern warning to us in January 1961.
These corporate entities, treated under law as living human beings, hold rights that far supersede those of actual humans. The actual humans, you and I, live under a form of economic servitude that has been building for several generations. More than ever, federal debt has crippled the economic future of your grandchildren. And there is more to come.
I believe it is long past time for our servitude to the criminal Ruling Elite to end. And, as I said last year, I believe many are guilty of economic treason and I’m still wondering if history will record the U.S. Slave Rebellion of 2010.
[Fascist Dems have lost the power to cram it down our throats. Hard to believe that now we are forced to cheer Republicans.]
Republican Scott Brown has won a shock victory in the race for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts left vacant by Democrat Edward Kennedy’s death.
The result is a huge blow to President Barack Obama, whose healthcare reform programme is now in doubt.
Democrat Martha Coakley conceded she had lost the race after early results gave Mr Brown a healthy lead.
The Republican win has robbed the Democrats of their filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate.
This will make it much harder for Mr Obama to pass a healthcare reform bill – the most important domestic policy objective of his first year as president.
 |
 The independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken – the voters of this commonwealth defied the odds and the experts  Scott Brown
 |
The BBC’s Paul Adams, in Boston, says Ms Coakley’s defeat is a humiliating blow for the Democrats and their agenda, and a deeply unwelcome anniversary present for President Obama a year after his inauguration.
He adds that it is one of the biggest political upsets in years, and a devastating blow for the Democrats in a seat held for almost half a century by Edward Kennedy, a colossus of the party.
In a celebratory speech, Mr Brown said that the voters of Massachusetts had “delivered a great victory”.
He said: “Tonight, the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken. The voters of this commonwealth defied the odds and the experts.”
|
FILIBUSTERING
A method used to delay approval of laws by prolonging debate
May include large numbers of amendments, spurious points of order and very long speeches
If the session runs out of time, motions cannot be voted on
|
He also criticised President Obama’s healthcare reform proposals, saying they would raise taxes, destroy jobs and increase debt.
Speaking to her supporters after conceding the election in a telephone call to Mr Brown, Ms Coakley admitted that she was “heartbroken at the result”.
Mr Obama had campaigned personally on behalf of Ms Coakley.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said he would welcome Mr Brown to the Senate.
He added that senators “will move to seat him as soon as the proper paperwork has been received” from Massachusetts officials.
Lacklustre campaign
Analysts say the race should have been an easy win for Ms Coakley in a state which traditionally has voted for Democratic candidates for the US Senate.
Martha Coakley vowed “to get up tomorrow and continue the fight”
|
But a lacklustre campaign allowed her Republican opponent – with vigorous support from conservative activists – to wrest the seat from her party.
Ms Coakley said she had received a telephone call from President Obama, who had told her: “We can’t win them all.”
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Obama had called Mr Brown to congratulate him and to tell him he was looking forward to working with him.
Analysts say that with opinion polls showing that nearly half of all Americans think President Obama is not delivering on his major campaign promises, the Massachusetts race could be seen as a referendum on his first year in office.
“Spirit does not toss itself about in the external play of chance occurrences; on the contrary, it is that which determines history absolutely, and it stands firm against the chance occurrences which it dominates and exploits for its own purpose”. (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831)
PM Netanyahu was quoted by the Israeli Ynet last week saying that the “whole of Israel would be surrounded by a fence eventually”. According to another report he said “there will be no choice but to fence Israel in on all directions”. What Netanyahu means by ‘fence’ and ‘all directions’ may be left open for the time being. However, PM Netanyahu has managed to bring to light an Hegelian interpretation of the notion of ‘Jewish spirit’ as a relentless inclination towards segregation and isolation. It is the tendency to keep oneself apart that determines and shapes Jewish collectivism. Whether it is the Zionists and their walls, the Orthodox and their Kosher universe or even Jewish anti Zionists and their racially segregated miniature activist cells, somehow every form of Jewish political engagement is there to set the Jews apart.
“For Hegel” says Francis Fukuyama, “the contradictions that drive history exist first of all in the realm of human consciousness, i.e. on the level of ideas”. It is reasonable to argue that from an Hegelian perspective, all human behaviour and human history is rooted in a prior state of consciousness. For Hegelian thinkers such as Alexandre Kojève, understanding the underlying processes of history requires understanding the realm of consciousness for it is consciousness that will ultimately remake the material world into a mirror image of its own spirit. In short it is the spirit that would eventually shape the material reality as a mirror of itself. Accordingly, the Jewish state, could be realised as a reflection of the Jewish spirit for it is the Jewish spirit that shapes the reality of the Jewish state.
For Hegel history ended in 1806. For him mankind reached its end with the French and American Revolutions. Whether Hegel was correct or completely deluded in his reading of human history and mankind’s evolution is a matter for an ongoing philosophical debate. The Jewish state, however, can be easily interpreted in Hegelian terms as the ‘end of Jewish history’. Zionism presented a dream, it set itself a serious challenge: it promised to transform the Jew into a ‘civilised and authentic human being’. It vowed to make the Jews people like all other people. Zionism was in fact a call of defiance against the hitherto Jewish spirit. Yet, the current state of Israel proves beyond doubt that the spirit has defeated the Zionist proclaimed fantasy. The will to be ‘fenced from every possible direction’ prevailed. The aspiration to be ‘people amongst people’ is a matter for historical enquiry, it has no support on the ground whatsoever. The spirit won over the rational ideological fantasy.
As tragic as it may sound, it would be almost impossible to reflect on Jewish history without Israel. It would be impossible to understand how one people managed to bring so much hate on themselves. Israel is, no doubt, a unique social experiment in Jewish history. It is in the Jewish State where the people of the book have managed to liberate themselves of any inhibitions. It is in the Jewish state where “kosher” bus lines feature “separate seating for men and women”. It is in Israel where Jews live their spirit to the max. It is where Jews celebrate their cultural, material, spiritual and ideological symptoms. But it is also a place where Jews live happily on stolen land while oppressing and starving the indigenous population. As it happens, in the Jewish state Israelis celebrate their national ‘home coming’, and they do it all behind fences and at the expense of the Palestinians.
In Hegelian terms Israel is a product of Jewish spirit. Yet, Israel is NOT a representation of Judaism as Israel is not a Halachic State*. It is not the state of the Jews as the majority of Jews prefer to live amongst the Goyim. However, Israel defines itself as the ‘Jewish state’. It is the place where Jews freely explore the meaning and pride of being Jewish. Hence, the reality of the Israeli state and its categorical ethical failure leads us towards an Hegelian critical confrontation with the notions of Jewish consciousness, ideology (Jewishness) and spirit.
The failure of Zionism to erect a civilised humanist Jew is an accepted fact. It instead managed to raise an extremely brutal version of the ‘Diaspora’ tribal subject it aimed to amend. Needless to say that Israeli war crimes are not an isolated rare event, they are actually institutional and committed by a popular army (IDF) that is following orders given by a democratically elected government. As if this is not enough, the Israeli crimes are supported by the vast majority of the Israelis. The fact that at the time of the Gaza war 94% of the Israeli Jewish populationsupported the genocidal crime is more than enough to incriminate the entire Israeli society as a collective. But it goes further, the Israeli crime is supported institutionally by world Jewry. It would be intelligible to argue that from an Hegelian perspective Israel is the end of Jewish history as much as the French revolution was the Hegelian end of history of mankind. Israel is the materialisation of the Jewish consciousness.
Netanyahu’s recent admission that Israel will be fenced from every possible direction is far more than mere symbolism. It is there to expose the solid kernel at the heart of the Jewish collective tribal desire. As Hegel suggests, it is “spirit that determines history” or to be precise and concrete, it is the Jewish spirit i.e. the inclination towards isolationism that determines Jewish history and the reality of Israeli barbarism.
Listening to Netanyahu and looking at the reality of Israel makes it obviously clear that rather than the Goyim, it is actually the Jewish spirit that imposed the Ghetto on the Jew. Emancipation of European Jewry provided Jews with an opportunity to leave tribalism behind. Needless to say that many Jews bought into the idea and found their way into the crowd. Many Jews had become voices for humanist causes and thoughts. However, many others decided to maintain a spiritual partition. In order to do so they invented a phantasmic cultural ethos. They may have even invented ‘victimhood’ and ‘anti Semitism’ just to justify their state of self imposed alienation. Observing Israel and any other form of Jewish politics makes it too easy to grasp how and where it all goes wrong.
As things stand there is no easy remedy for the secular Jew for there is no safe haven for Jewish secular collectivism or identity that fits into the notion of humanism or universalism. If Jews insist upon being secular and humanist they may have to drop their ‘J’ prefix and to operate as ordinary people. This is the only alternative to Zionism and it can also be a beginning of a wonderful friendship (with others as well as nature).
* The concept of a Halachic state refers to a theocratic state based upon Jewish Law.
Dark as a Dungeon: A Brutal System Stripped Bare
Chris Floyd
|
:: Article nr. 62316 sent on 19-jan-2010 03:32 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=62316
 |
| A U.S. soldier monitors a crowd of people waiting for aid in Haiti (Fred W. Baker III)
January 19, 2010 Ashley Smith explains why help hasn’t reached most of the victims of Haiti’s earthquake–because the priority of the U.S. government is on imposing its control. WHEN HURRICANE Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, George W. Bush displayed a callous disregard for the Black victims of the disaster. When his administration finally responded, it deployed the National Guard and armed Blackwater personnel to impose order, rather than putting the priority on providing food, shelter and safe water. Kanye West’s words during an NBC Concert for Hurricane Relief–“George Bush doesn’t care about Black people”–were proved right. On the surface, the response of the Obama administration to the horrific earthquake that struck Haiti last week couldn’t seem more different. “I have directed my administration to respond with a swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort to save lives,” Obama declared. “The people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble, and to deliver the humanitarian relief–the food, water and medicine–that Haitians will need in the coming days.” His words were a stark contrast to the ravings of the racist right. Rush Limbaugh claimed that Obama’s speech was an attempt to win support among “both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country,” and that “we’ve already donated to Haiti. It’s called the U.S. income tax.” Writing in the New York Times, conservative columnist David Brooks dismissed the idea that aid could help Haiti in this crisis–because Haiti’s culture is “more progress-resistant than others.” Compared to such statements, Obama’s sympathetic response and promises of aid may seem decent and just. But in the week since the earthquake, it has become clear that the U.S. isn’t pursuing a humanitarian policy. Though it is an opponent of the Obama administration, the conservative Heritage Foundation accurately described the aims that are driving U.S. policy in Haiti:
However impolitic–the piece was quickly removed from the Heritage web site–this actually describes the policy that Barack Obama is carrying out. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – IF THE Obama administration were pursuing a humanitarian policy in Haiti, it wouldn’t have appointed George Bush to join former President Bill Clinton in overseeing fundraising for disaster relief. Not only did Bush spectacularly fail the victims of Hurricane Katrina, but his administration orchestrated a political destabilization campaign against Haiti’s democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Bush imposed sanctions on the country that undermined Aristide’s presidency and impoverished the masses. The U.S. then backed a right-wing coup that toppled the government in 2004. Appointing Bush to oversee aid to Haiti is like putting Nero in charge of the fire department. Then there’s the mismatch between Obama’s words about “full support” and the pittance his administration plans to spend to address the crisis–just $100 million. As Bill Quigley, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, wrote, “A Kentucky couple won $128 million in a Powerball lottery on December 24, 2009. The richest nation in the history of the world is giving Powerball money to a neighbor with tens of thousands of deaths already?” Moreover, a week into the disaster, while U.S. officials, privileged Americans and rich Haitians received quick relief, the promised aid hasn’t reached the mass of Haitian people. Amid a crisis where the first 48 hours are decisive in saving people’s lives, the United Nations–and the U.S. in particular–failed to come anywhere near addressing the needs of the 3 million people impacted by the earthquake. Every minute that aid gets delayed means more people dying from starvation, dehydration, injury and disease–and yet by Monday, the UN only planned to distribute food and water to 95,000 people. An estimated 1.5 million people are homeless and sleeping in the streets, as many as 200,000 have died, and with each tick of the clock, the toll grows higher. Why could the U.S. not rush aid to Haiti. Why were American helicopters and transport planes so late in starting aid drops. The U.S. and UN claimed that damage to Haiti’s airport, port and roads impeded delivery of doctors, nurses, food, water and rescue teams. But the U.S. always seems to find ways around such obstacles when it comes to invading countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Clearly the means exist to deliver aid quickly to a country an hour away from Florida. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – SO DID the U.S. relief operation fail to live up to its mission? The truth is that disaster relief for the poor is not the mission in Haiti, just as it wasn’t the priority in New Orleans or any other disaster. Instead of rushing aid to Haiti’s poor, the Obama administration has prepared a military occupation, claiming that armed forces are necessary to control what they expected to be angry Black people. The corporate media coverage shifted from its initial sympathy with victims of the disaster to churning out scare stories about looting. “[M]arauding looters emptied wrecked shops and tens of thousands of survivors waited desperately for food and medical care,” Reuters claimed. “Hundreds of scavengers and looters swarmed over wrecked stores in downtown Port-au-Prince, seizing goods and fighting among themselves.” In other words, the media took a few isolated conflicts and blew them up into an implication that Haiti’s poor are a violent threat–and the real obstacle to relief efforts. These scare stories in turn became a justification for not delivering aid. Writer Nelson Valdes reported:
When asked why the U.S. hadn’t used its C130 transport planes to drop supplies in Port-au-Prince, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, “It seems to me that air drops will simply lead to riots.” Of course, precisely the opposite is case. People will riot because they lack food and water. The real situation is quite different. As author Richard Seymour wrote:
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez rightly describes Obama’s military intervention as “occupying Haiti undercover.” The U.S. has taken control of Haiti’s main airport and seaport, and is the process of deploying 10,000 U.S. troops to bolster the 9,000 UN troops already occupying the island. Half of the soldiers will police Port-au-Prince and half will be deployed on military vessels surrounding the island. In a puff piece meant to support this occupation, Time magazine perhaps unintentionally revealed the colonial nature of the operation. “Haiti,” they write, “for all intents and purposes, became the 51st state at 4:53 p.m. Tuesday in the wake of its deadly earthquake. If not a state, then at least a ward of the state.” The U.S. is using its position of power to impose its control over the country and impede relief efforts, turning away planes from Doctors Without Borders, the Mexican government and the Caribbean Community and Common Market. Jarry Emmanuel, the air logistics officer for the World Food Program, complained, “There are 200 flights going in and out every day, which is an incredible amount for a country like Haiti. But most of those flights are for the United States military. Their priorities are to secure the country.” In a stunning video report from Port-au-Prince, an Al Jazeera reporter said:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – AS ANGER among Haitians simmers over the lack of real relief, it is only a matter of time before heavily armed U.S. and UN forces open fire and kill innocent Haitians. Already, on Wednesday evening, CBS News reported, “Controlled chaos turned to confrontation near the airport in Port-au-Prince today, when UN peacekeepers were ordered to clear the street filled with Haitian men seeking jobs. The force was made up of Jordanian, Pakistani and Indian forces that were unable to speak Creole, English or French. They did their talking with nightsticks and rubber bullets. At least one rubber bullet was seen fired into the crowd. No one was seriously injured.” U.S. ships are in the process of surrounding the island. Some will provide floating hospitals. But they are also there to prevent an exodus of refugees out of Haiti. Under some pressure, Obama granted Temporary Protected Status to Haitian refugees currently in the U.S.–but only for 18 months. At the same time, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has announced that any Haitians who attempt to enter the U.S. will be returned to Haiti. The Obama administration is already coordinating plans for the restructuring of Haitian society–in the interest of international capital. It is implementing what author Naomi Klein calls the “Shock Doctrine”–when capitalist powers use economic or natural disasters to impose neoliberal programs, such as opening up national markets to multinational corporations, privatization of state-owned companies and cuts to the minimum wage. The UN’s special envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton, had been hard at work implementing such proposals before the crisis. He cut deals with cruise ship companies to dock on Haiti’s northern coast, and pushed the re-development of the Haitian sweatshop industry. Now Obama, Clinton and Bush will further impose neoliberal “reforms.” Already, the International Monetary Fund has extended $100 million in loans to Haiti during the crisis, and all that of money comes with strings attached. As theNation‘s Richard Kim wrote:
While the U.S. sends soldiers to police Haiti instead of providing humanitarian aid, Haitians in the U.S., Haiti solidarity activists and unions are mobilizing to meet the needs of the Haitian poor–and help empower them to take control over their society. In one powerful example, the National Nurses Organizing Committee is in the process of mobilizing 7,000 nurses from the U.S. to volunteer in Haiti to provide medical care. As activists continue to donate money to organizations like the Haiti Relief Fund and Partners in Health that aim to empower Haitian grassroots institutions, we must make several demands on the Obama administration. First, we must demand that Obama immediately stop the military occupation of Haiti, and instead flood the country with doctors, nurses, food, water and construction machinery. Soldiers with guns will only make the situation worse. Second, the U.S. must also end its enforcement of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s exile and the ban on his party, Fanmi Lavalas, from participating in elections. Haitians, not the U.S., should have the right to determine their government. Third, we must demand that the U.S., other countries and international financial institutions cancel Haiti’s debt, so that the aid money headed to Haiti will go to food and reconstruction, not debt repayment. And we must agitate for Obama to indefinitely extend Temporary Protected Status to Haitians in the U.S.–and open the borders to any Haitians who do flee the country. Only through agitating for these demands can we stop the U.S. from imposing its Shock Doctrine for Haiti at gunpoint. |
ThereAreNoSunglasses 