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Why Washington Cares About Countries Like Haiti and Honduras
US interference in the politics of Haiti and Honduras is only the latest example of its long-term manipulations in Latin America
Unfortunately they do care. A lot. They care enough about Haiti to have overthrown the elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide not once, but twice. The first time, in 1991, it was done covertly. We only found out after the fact that the people who led the coup were paid by the US Central Intelligence Agency. And then Emmanuel Constant, the leader of the most notorious death squad there – which killed thousands of Aristide's supporters after the coup – told CBS News that he, too, was funded by the CIA.
In 2004, the US involvement in the coup was much more open. Washington led a cut-off of almost all international aid for four years, making the government's collapse inevitable. As the New York Times reported, while the US state department was telling Aristide that he had to reach an agreement with the political opposition (funded with millions of US taxpayers' dollars), the International Republican Institute was telling the opposition not to settle.
In Honduras last summer and autumn, the US government did everything it could to prevent the rest of the hemisphere from mounting an effective political opposition to the coup government in Honduras. For example, they blocked the Organisation of American States from taking the position that it would not recognise elections that took place under the dictatorship. At the same time, the Obama administration publicly pretended that it was against the coup.
This was only partly successful, from a public relations point of view. Most of the US public thinks that the Obama administration was against the Honduran coup, although by November of last year there were numerous press reports and even editorial criticisms that Obama had caved to Republican pressure and not done enough. But this was a misreading of what actually happened: the Republican pressure in support of the Honduran coup changed the administration's public relations strategy, but not its political strategy. Those who followed events closely from the beginning could see that the political strategy was to blunt and delay any efforts to restore the elected president, while pretending that a return to democracy was actually the goal.
Among those who understood this were the governments of Latin America, including such heavyweights as Brazil. This is important because it shows that the State Department was willing to pay a significant political cost in order to help the right in Honduras. It convinced the vast majority of Latin American governments that it was no different from the Bush administration in its goals for the hemisphere, which is not a pleasant outcome from a diplomatic point of view.
Why do they care so much about who runs these poor countries? As any good chess player knows, pawns matter. The loss of a couple of pawns at the beginning of the game can often make a difference between a win or a loss. They are looking at these countries mostly in straight power terms. Governments that are in agreement with maximising US power in the world, they like. Those who have other goals – not necessarily antagonistic to the United States – they don't like.
Not surprisingly, the Obama administration's closest allies in the hemisphere are rightwing governments such as those of Colombia or Panama, even though Obama himself is not a rightwing politician. This highlights the continuity of the politics of control. The victory of the right in Chile, the first time that it has won an election in half a century, was a significant victory for the US government. If Lula de Silva's Workers' party were to lose the presidential election in Brazil this autumn, that would be another win for the state department. While US officials under both Bush and Obama have maintained a friendly posture toward Brazil, it is obvious that they deeply resent the changes in Brazilian foreign policy that have allied it with other social democratic governments in the hemisphere, and its independent foreign policy stances with regard to the Middle East, Iran, and elsewhere.
The US actually intervened in Brazilian politics as recently as 2005, organising a conference to promote a legal change that would make it more difficult for legislators to switch parties. This would have strengthened the opposition to Lula's Workers' party (PT) government, since the PT has party discipline but many opposition politicians do not. This intervention by the US government was only discovered last year through a Freedom of Information Act request filed in Washington. There are many other interventions taking place throughout the hemisphere that we do not know about. The United States has been heavily involved in Chilean politics since the 1960s, long before they organised the overthrow of Chilean democracy in 1973.
In October 1970, President Richard Nixon was cursing in the Oval Office about the Social Democratic president of Chile, Salvador Allende. "That son of a bitch!" said Richard Nixon on 15 October. "That son of a bitch Allende – we're going to smash him." A few weeks later he explained why:
The main concern in Chile is that [Allende] can consolidate himself, and the picture projected to the world will be his success ... If we let the potential leaders in South America think they can move like Chile and have it both ways, we will be in trouble.
That is another reason that pawns matter, and Nixon's nightmare did in fact come true a quarter-century later, as one country after another elected independent left governments that Washington did not want. The United States ended up "losing" most of the region. But they are trying to get it back, one country at a time. The smaller, poorer countries that are closer to the United States are the most at risk. Honduras and Haiti will have democratic elections some day, but only when Washington's influence over their politics is further reduced.
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64 Comments so far
Show AllThis is right on the mark. It is corrupt big power politics of the US power elites at play here to keep as much power as they can in these Latin American countries and is also true of other Third World countries.
AD
Are starvation and terror really the only means by which the United States can create "friends" in Latin America?
"In Honduras last summer and autumn, the US government did everything it could to prevent the rest of the hemisphere from mounting an effective political opposition to the coup government in Honduras. For example, they blocked the Organisation of American States from taking the position that it would not recognise elections that took place under the dictatorship. At the same time, the Obama administration publicly pretended that it was against the coup."
Classic Obama bait and switch. With just this example alone--and there are many others on a growing list, how anyone can continue to support him or advocate that he needs more time, is in dangerous denial. The trumped-up extremes of the clueless Right, constantly emphasized and regurgitated by the media--as in the case of Sarah Palin, with her dream of celebrity, keeps her forever in the spotlight. Why give her so much attention? It is only in the comparison, that Obama and the pathetic corporate whore Democrats can present themselves as more reasonable. And so many Progressives--especially those filling the comfortable niches of the established Left, rally to back Obama as representing their class.
As everything detoriates, is this really as good as it gets? Like those poor little countries--the worse off we are--the more powerless we are, the better for those in power.
In the US the social hierarchy is increasingly controlled by class--with those on the bottom, powerless and made to feel ashamed, while criminals at the top glory in their wanton greed.
In the end the revolution will be about class. It always is.
We're so much like China in this regard. They don't want a free Tibet or Taiwan because it would mean a collapse of their empire (as other regions followed suit). The US is used to dominating the American continents, and even the tiniest glimmer of independence from one of our possessions spells trouble. Little Cuba has caused big problems for its superpower to the north.
This is not about Obama, it's about the empire we have built that allows us to have the lifestyle we love. The only way for real change is for the people of the United States to turn off the 46 inch flat screen TVs and start paying attention to the crimes being done in their name. It is easy to blame one man who has very little power. How about looking at your friends and family, your neighbors, and possibly yourself and seeing where the true fault lies?
I know you mean well--but this is a BS response because you are blaming the victim. Communities are increasingly struggling, people are losing homes, jobs, can't offer their children a future, while the wealthiest own the government, the airways--and even though they failed miserably and have been exposed as frauds with their free market privitization mantras, it is your family and neighbors and yourself who are shouldering the load. In essense you are saying that Americans do not deserve a decent standard of living--because that is what fairness is all about--Not just rewarding the undeserving at the expense of the all, but rather all contribute to the common good. And your cover for Obama, with the pathetic line that he is just one man. Poor little Obama managed to deliver the goods for the class he serves--and unlike FDR who was also one man and considered a trader to his class, who Obama serves, ain't us.
"it's about the empire we have built that allows us to have the lifestyle we love."
Our lifestyle just after WW2 was gotten mostly by our turning raw material into salable products to other countries who no longer had a manufacturing sector. The American people had no say then, as now, in whether we would make our money through foreign sales or through domestic build-up.
If I had my way I would isolate the country, keep the profits here, untangle all foreign entanglements, cut the military by 90%, and have foreign trade only when it's in our countries interests and not solely in the interest of exporters. Come to think of it, isn't that what China is doing?
Not this again. Don't blame poor little powerless Obama. It's OUR fault because some of us have big TV sets. And "we" built this rapacious empire, all us little nobodies with no power to decide a goddamn particle of public policy--we did it! It's our couch potato lifestyle, not what politicians, chambers of commerce, or corporate CEOs have done. Stop blaming them and take a look at your grandma! Then look in the mirror. See that guy who hasn't had a job for years? It's HIS fault! He's been building this criminal empire as he sits there watching TV and all you can do is blame your innocent, powerless leaders! Wake up America!
Obama may have his faults but our traditional lifestyle is also responsible for where we got. You could say that Europe is great but that is because both the policies and lifestyle are much better than here in the US. We could replace both parties with third party progressives and we would still be stuck with most of the same problems. You can't blame Obama for everything. If people weren't watching their TVs, we would see more massive protests on the streets just like hear in Europe.
I've never been able to figure out why the U.S. has to be a psychopathic bully when it comes to foreign relations.
Why don't we assist the populations of Central and South America so that the people will have more money to spend on our products, so that they will look at us as benefactors instead of murderers, plus it would make it harder for Communists to plead their case to the people.
Could it be that our business men are so greedy, that they want low wage workers so badly that they are willing to place the face of a monster on all of us. Shouldn't it be the responsibility of the President and the State Department to reign-in those rough-shod practices of the corporations for the good of our country?
I realize these practices started hundreds of years ago but has no one in the recent past asked whether these policies should be reviewed and amended because it's in our own best interest?
Look at China's dealings with Venezuela and Brazil. Did they rush down there and grab them by the throat and say, this is what you're going to do! No, they made some trade deals that benefited each other.
What absolute scum we have running this country.
Well, we can't have them benefit from their own natural resources, aka America's interests. The case the Left makes is the people should benefit from their own natural resorces to improve the quality of their lives and allow them to benefit from trade.
What American products?
American cars? Besides the American brand is more likely to be made in China. Weapons?
People have to realize our Government, including president, are not on our side--and they are not on the side of anyone, anywhere--except the corporate class whose interests they represent as the final corrupt ruling class of a flailing empire.
I think you make a good point aremagen about the desire for new markets. Even when products like iPods are made in Asia much of the profit returns to corporate entities since they have the property rights of the technology.
Perhaps the reason that the global chess game played by governments and their corporate henchman are self defeating is due to the inertia of short term bottom line driven goals. How do we turn off the trillion dollar war industry when so much our system depends on the entrenched influence of these pursuits?
Though corporations desire to obtain labor and resources at lowest possible rates, when you consider the true cost say of war in Iraq to assert control over oil, is this not a lose lose situation for most players in the long run?
Certainly our own decisions as to life style have a big impact on the market.
There are plenty of other cool and unique products like electric bikes with lithium batteries that use regenerative charging. They could easily be the primary transport to work.
Why not design a stretched, stylish and chauffeured version of the e bike for dignitaries!/?
You say, "when you consider the true cost of war... is this not a lose lose situation..."
If you look at the estimated trillions in cost to us I guess we have to ask, who is actually going to pay? Aside from the strategic position of having physical control of the oil in Iraq we must also ask the question who will get the profits from that oil? In other words why would the elite worry about bankrupting us as long as they get the profits?
These corporations really are anti-American.
Your reply said a great deal in just a very few words. Well done.
Yours is a really good answer Rich M. It also applies increasingly to domestic policies, why we have shifted away from Henry Ford's idea that a well paid working class is a boon to industry and to the national health. If we were rational, we might decide to take the path of sharing the wealth and developing economies slowly and responsibly instead of bullying and impoverishing other countries. But unfortunately, we no longer have nationally based industrial capitalists in charge. (I never thought I would say that sentence!!)
Instead, industry knows no national boundaries and moves toward the least empowered working classes to escape any and all restrictions and to make an immediate super profit. Of course banking and war industries work in a similar way too. The philosophy of global capitalism today does not consider the common good of the average person nor longer term sustainability in any country. War and fascist-like mentality are what rule although it drains everything except the wealth and power of an inner circle.
I believe the rich could still be rich enough if they changed their ways toward peace and more economic justice. But you know some people have that Mussolini bent and that is what they prefer. Unless we change course, their grandchildren too will live in the nightmare of ecological and social ruin. It will be sad.
Joe
Good points. The USA is an Imperialist power much like the Old British Empire was.
The US picks a small segment of the population that it helps keep in power as "The Wealthy elite" These despots can generally get a segment of their populations to help prop them up in return for favor.
The Brits used to pick an ethnic group that was generally weaker then others in the region and put them into power. They tended to have enough of a population to supress the majority as long as the British army there now and then to "Steel Thier resolve".
Both the brits and the US will send in their own agents into those regions to commit acts of violence so that such can be blamed against any segment of the population they deem a threat to their grip on power.
This then "Justifies" aiding an existing government to suppress them directly or with massive Military aid.
Thus you have a Reagan supporting the Brutal Government of the Honduras who slaughtered Hundreds of thousands of the lands poorest people SMILING at the TV Camera as he calls the brutes defenders of freedom and liberty.
It one great big scam and a murderous swindle , all in the name of Profits. Reagan had it partways right when he compared the Brtual Military dictatorship of the Honduras to "Americas founding fathers".
Those are the tactics those founding fathers used to murder the native Americans, steal their lands and grow rich off theft and slavery.
Another way to answer your questions is look at our foundational history. For over 500 years the Americas have been the subject of imperialism. The United States itself began on a steady diet of conquest, theft, genocide and slavery. The former colony early on wanted to become an empire. That trajectory has continued unabated to the present despite the "City on the Hill", "Manifest Destiny" and "benign empire" defense of the indefensible. The very existence of empire represents extreme coercion and violence. The citizens of empire must be highly indoctrinated, otherwise, they could not support what empires do.
Several weeks ago on The Wayne Marsden report it was claimed Obama had authrorized the destabilization of Venezuala. This would follow the same model as in Chile and Iran wherein us NGOS like the NED would help fund and organize large scale street protests and strikes.
This protests have begun in earnest. The USA feels it has to reverse the trend towards socialism and the states control of resources on behalf of their people so they can replace these with Coporate power and enrichment of the same.
Not only is it vital to their Coportate masters that he Doles and Exxons can exploit these nations, it is vital that the people of the United States do not clue in either which they might begin to do should the Venezuala's and Bolivias begin to prosper.
Nanoo
Exactly, why let true democracy appear anywhere.
Yes, this is one of those secrets that is right out in the open, like when the Mob leaves a fish on your doorstep. You start behaving differently. And when the Capo di tutti Capo says, while slurping his clam sauce, that you are a threat to the peace of the community, you get downright jumpy. Your friends may start backing away... This is what the U.S. of A. plans for Venezuela.
Our MIC Capos and their government minions get extreme indigestion, even worse than from bad clam sauce, at the thought of their own proles embracing socialism.
So lets embrace it en masse, and give them a stomach ache they won't forget.
I'm sure Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams will also report on this to enlighten the public and hold the government accountable. (sarcasm)
I beleive that Chomsky referred to what this article decribes as "the threat of a good example". Any successful example of independent democratic socialist economic development must always be sabotaged, first covertly, then more overtly through economic actions, then in the few cases where that doesn work, the Marines.
Aside from some nordic countries, I know of no attempt at socialist developemnt that was EVER given a far shake.
Every attempt at socialist development immediately sees covert war, economic war and just plain war waged against it by the US and it's allies. This forces the country onto a war footing, and like any country at war, civil liberties and material needs get curtailed (but to a degree that didn't begin to approach that of US friends like Suharto, Pinochet or the Argrentine Junta). Then, in an act of gall that the word "chutzpah" falls far short in describing, the Capitalists then say "See? Socialism doesn work, and is run by brutal dictators!"
Nearby, Cuba, of course is the prime example of this. But the Soviet Union is another.
We have to practice on the little guys, so when it comes to Iraq and Afghanistan, we get it right.
-"even though Obama himself is not a rightwing politician"
Yes, that caught my eye too. In any universe I've lived in, what the Democrats in the US are doing is very much "rightwing".
good point. When crudely compared to the govts. in dozens of other countries who have some form of democracy, the USA is well to the right of all of them. For example, Angela Merkel (Germany CSU) and Nicolas Sarkozy (France UMP) both from right of center parties, are well to the LEFT of the D party in the USA.
In the USA, the only "choice" you have is between two right-wing corporate-sponsored imperialist parties.
And of course the US has a long tradition of intervening in the region, Monroe Doctrine and all that. False flag operations (Remember the Maine) to start a "war" and seize lands for economic exploitation.
An excellent artilce about the region appears on globalreasearch.ca:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17287
"even though Obama himself is not a rightwing politician.": An assumption disproven by the whole article.
OF COURSE Obama is a right-wing politician, and the Democratic Party is a right-wing party. Despite cosmetic fiddles around the edge, policies have hardly changed since the Bush administration. And Democratic policies are way to the right of a majority of Americans, according to issue polls over the last decade.
The real question is, what the Hell are we going to do about it?
"The real question is, what the Hell are we going to do about it?"
Nice observations followed by a most interesting question.
The answer is to get together and form a national, non-partisan progressive movement. It'd be nice to have a site where we could talk this over and decide just how we will go about doing this. This is not an insoluble problem. If not us, who will get the ball rolling?
QUOTE: "...even though Obama himself is not a rightwing politician."
Laugh out loud.
In case anyone doesn't know, Haiti has not, in the last 100 years anyway, had anything other than a right wing, corrupt government. Aristide never got anything significant passed into law before he was deposed (twice!) so that would not really count, would it? Whereas the countries in the region that have not been so relentlessly right wing are far more prosperous than Haiti. Both Jamaica and the Dominican Republic have attracted more than 22 times the foreign direct investment that Haiti has.
"... Obama himself is not a rightwing politician." (yes, I see how many people already quoted this, and that is quite encouraging to see actually)
" ... Obama himself is not a rightwing politician."
Realize this - There is NO difference in American Politics, Not for the people in charge anyway. Sure, maybe the people on the ground get fooled by this party bickering stuff, but those in charge, the President, the Federal Reserve, they do Not play Party politics, that is all for show, to confuse and divide the people on the ground.
I am not saying, say like CD socialists or say Bill O'riley fans do not believe there is a difference between Left and Right differences, and sure there are, even in Politics to some degree, BUT regardless of the Slight differences the Main Goal from BOTH Parties the Democrats or The Republicans, Socialists or Fascists, the GOAL is CONTROL. They BOTH want to tell you how to run your life, what insurance to buy what to think etc etc etc, they BOTH want to control things they just might have slightly differing ways of getting that control.
saying ... Obama himself is not a rightwing politician., is a naive way of looking at American politics. it is believing the smoke and mirrors game, that because you get to cast a vote, that you are actually making a decision.
I am sure that everyone here that voted for OBOMBer (not me) thought they were voting for a guy of PEACE (real Peace not some obviously meaningless prize) they thought they were voting for CHANGE for the Better not just a change of the face of the power of the status quo, But unless you are totally blind you have woken to the fact that you were Bamboozled - and I hope you understand that this whole system is a Bamboozle. I don't care if you are a Dem or A Repub, both the parties are corrupt.
This is why the Real, The Honest people of these parties, Ron Paul, Dennis kucinich, they get no love from the system - Because the game is fixed! Its actually broken, but thats why or how it is so easily fixed.
I give a hell of a lot more credit to the comment posters here on CommonDreams than I do to the writers of the articles. At least it seems the comment posters are mostly awake to the fact that OBOMBER is a Stinking LIAR - but most if not all the writers of the articles seem to be Apologists, Naive or maybe they are controlled by the parties and are here to keep the divide alive, to keep the wedge between the so-called left and right, to blame everything on the Republicans and not look at the real problems, the System itself, the Federal Reserve, the printing of DEBT Money out of nothing, the perpetual ENDLESS WARS, the Military Industrial Complex, the Government subsidies of the Too BIG To Fail system, the strangle hold of the poor via the supposedly to help the people entitlement programs, the corporate welfare programs in the Names of Bailouts and Stimulus packages, and the list goes on and on.
The system is rigged from the inside. The left/Right paradigm is used to divide people like classism and racism and all the others.
Until this is understood and corrected, the problems will only continue.
The reason that the left-right paradigm is largely meaningless in the US as you say is that the US system has collapsed to the point where that paradigm is beside the point. It's all about survival now, particularly of course for elites. Nuanced and sophisticated left-right discussions are not relevant in a society as damaged as the US one is.
If you want to get perfectionist and technical, you can argue that the left-right paradigm is not yet completely irrelevant in the US and that the economic and political systems are not yet completely collapsed, but all of those things are heavily damaged and hanging by a thread.
In Germany between the two major World Wars, Hitler and the Fascists came to power precisely because that society was damaged to the point where the left-right paradigm became irrelevant. When the left-right paradigm goes away, dictatorship can and very often does follow.
Today though, in many, many other countries, including almost all of the well off ones, the left-right paradigm is still very much alive and well. Needless to say, all truly well off countries feature parties of the left who actually win at least some national-level elections. Also, it should be noted that whether a left-right paradigm exists or not in a nation's political system is one of many tests to determine whether that country is effectively a third world country or not.
For the record, as the US fell apart since 1980, the Republican party moved from right to far right and the Democratic party moved from center or more precisely center right to plain old right. Now they are stuck where they are because the system has collapsed to the point where the elites can't make any big changes or they will be thrown into unemployment and as we all know, unemployment can be basically permanent now and the elites definitely don't want to be permanently unemployed.
In other words, you need a decently functioning economy, a decently functioning political system, and overall a decently functioning society to have a left right paradigm operating. The US has collapsed to the point where you can say it does not have those prerequisites. The US is mostly about looting nowadays, which in non-collapsed countries both the right and the left will oppose and, more importantly, will prevent.
I agree. the bottom line is the US Politics IS a rightwing politics. it always has been since its inception with "private property rights" glorified above all...and a system that is based entirely and like gospel on the "almight dollar"...where , with its influence, the global economy is based on profit, monetizing, and of course capitalism which IS right wing.
General Smedley Butler, US marines, 1933 -- called this "OUR BIG BOSS -- our supernationalistic Capitalism...our armed forces' true purpose is to make the world safe for our Capitalism and our cultural and economic assault"....
RIGHT WING economy, RIGHT WING political leaning, RIGHT wing cultural leaning.
from "discovering america" to Genocide of Native Indians, to trading and "creating wealth" upon Slavery -- all in the tens of millions of destroyed human beings . to the stealing of lands or resources and destroying national sovereignties: from mexico , to south america, to asia , to the middle east..everywhere practically...
RIGHT WING Country. "left" in america is an aberration, rather than the rule, or EVEN merely a "significant minority" ....
america IS a rightwing country.
even the most CONSERVATIVE norwegian ministers said LAST year - after obama's election and subsequent acts and decisions:
"OBAMA would be considered FAR, FAR RIGHT here in norway, EVEN by our Conservatives".
and if obama is "as far as it gets" in being "not a conservative or right wing"
can you imagine how RIGHT WING the united states REALLY is and ALWAYS has been?. and will YET become?
we are talking here about PURE TOTALITARIAN FAR, FAR RIGHT wing
NO LESS and even more efficient and brutal and cruel than BENITO MUSSOLINI's OWN FASCISM.
"FASCISM SHOULD MORE PROPERLY be called Corporatism...for it is really the marriage between the Corporations and the Institutions of the State to Advance the Agenda of the FAR RIGHT"......BENITO MUSSOLINI.
what IS the USA ? it is a CORPORATIST country. FAR RIGHT.
TOTALITARIAN ''"security police" state...with a WAR economy...FAR RIGHT...
and absolutely - for all intents and purposes - a FASCIST -- a RIGHT WING country.
no other qualifications apply.
China 2,000 years before Christ they had the concept of Tao: Yin and Yang and that the two opposites are both out there and importance is balance and to accept change and they understood the art of war- basically how to avoid it.
This of course is sorry to say not the China of today were human rights is denied and people work like animals.
But if they ever got back to their wiser ways of Tao, they might be a better leader in the world than the US.
The US had a good idea about "we the people" but now this has been changed into "we the corporation" and just like China-
both the US and China does not have answers....
Is there a wise group of people out there that understands real leadership? Maybe we are doomed.
In all this I do not see Obama as the wrong guy in office, at least he is intelligent and that is one requirement for leadership and I just think his values are not all that bad- we cannot have perfection and we have worked hard to get Obama in office-- lets hope this is at least a part of the solution.
We are living in dangerous times.
"if they ever got back to their wiser ways of Tao"...They've never been *in* the wiser ways of tao.
"In all this I do not see Obama as the wrong guy in office, at least he is intelligent and that is one requirement for leadership and I just think his values are not all that bad- we cannot have perfection" we have worked hard to get Obama in office..."
I'm wondering about his intelligence lately, myself. If you don't think his values are bad, I guess your interest in civil liberties, the environment, the MIC, the military budget, wars, Friedmanomics, the distribution of wealth and power, etc. is not very strong. The man is precisely who we don't need at this crucial time. He's blocking any change of direction just when it is vitally necessary for the direction to change. In that respect, he is even worse the Bush.
"we have worked hard to get Obama in office..." No, *we* didn't.
I'm sure you are a nice person, but this wishy-washy stuff has gone beyond something we can shrug off. It is an impediment to building any kind of popular movement and it is based upon nothing but blind wishful thinking.
Bill Clinton who gave us Nafta in a deal that outsourced our industrial base to China, and destroyed the working classes, arrived in Haiti at the hight of the problem, along with his daughter Chelsea, to do what? Was Chelsea digging for survivors? Or was Bubba looking out for Wall St Investments?
This behaviour is typical of American leadership gone astray.
Where is Move-on and the rest of the Progressives?
Who will tell the people?
Interesting observations.
Yes lots of "ink" as you say about the people in power, the Dems, the Repubs, the people that, supposedly, CDers are very unhappy with, the people that made this mess.
Not so much "ink" about the people who were right when the Dems and Repubs were wrong, who have alternative answers to our questions, who are running as Green or progressive candidates, Who need the exposure and support of the CD community.
Curious, isn't it?
Who will tell the people?
Who indeed.
I think it's nigh-on impossible, short of radical meltdown of society, to tell A People anything they've been rigorously trained to Not Want To Hear.
I think what most Americans suffer from is that disease W.C. Fields mentioned a long time ago, in The Bank Dick.
No, not Malta Fever.
The other one: Mogo on the Go-Go-Go.
It's a fatal condition in almost all cases.
Chomsky says it is "the threat of a good example".
The USA continues to be the source of all evil in the world.
"OUR FOREIGN POLICY HAS ALWAYS BEEN GEARED . .. .towards gathering as much of the world's resources unto ourselves...at the expense of others...we are a nation run by Big Money, Big Corporations, Big Banks, Big Finance...they have their Brains men...people who identify those to be destroyed...and they have their Big Muscle...our Armed Forces...so you can say that I was the Chief High Class Muscle Enforcer for our Money and War Racketeers....and I was , in effect, the Gangster for Capitalism....it has nothing to do with freedom or democracy.
the Trouble with US americans is, if our Dollar can't buy more than 6% of its value at home...we get uneasy , so we go abroad so it can buy 100% more..and where the Dollar goes, our Flag Follows, where the Flag goes, our Army follows..the True purpose of our ARmed Forces is to make the world safe for our BIG BOSS...our supernationalistic Capitalism...and our Cultural and Economic Assault...for 30 years I suspended my own conscience, knowing that what we do is EVIL...i will have nothing more to do with it".
GENERAL SMEDLEY BUTLER, US MARINES...1933.
"What most Americans do not really understand or admit is: we are living our lifestyles ONLY because it is part of a very, very Vicious system of exploitation that dehumanizes and enslaves people everywhere....this is our Project of Empire..we are the world's largest empire in history..and we have gotten away with building this empire through manipulation, torture, blackmail, assassinations, fomenting insurrections and instabilities against countries uncooperative to our WILL and the will of our Chamber of Commerce...I was part of that project of Empire..our Foreign Policy is designed to render weaker nations permanently subjugated to our will and that of our Chamber of commerce"...
JOHN PERKINS -- former CIA "Economic Hitman". 2000's
The shortest distance between Haiti and Cuba on sea is around 45 miles. The Guantanamo base is actually facing Haiti. Haiti's occupation has a regional context.
I tried to imagine an article like this that challenges the myths of US government benevolence in the US mainstream media. But I couldn't.
I want to see the book and the movie. And the psychoanalysis of all parties involved.
The references to Chomsky's "good example" analysis reminds me that this strategy was succinctly expressed by the odious Michael Ledeen as: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small, crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.”
So says the equally odious Jonah Goldberg, who claims to have heard Ledeen say it in a speech and dubbed it the "Ledeen Doctrine".
· Yr Obd't Servant
The sweatshop owners in Haiti are salivating. Nothing like a devastating earthquake to stimulate and grow their business.
They and their partners in the US and the UN just need to starve the Haitians perhaps just a week or two longer and the time will be ripe for them to start the forced relocation of people from the slums.
Welcome to the new sweatshop industrial park in Port au Prince.....the real reason for all the troops in Haiti. Let the bulldozing of the slums begin!
You thought perhaps it was a humanitarian mission because Obama said so?
Below are a few interesting articles re: other possibilities for so many troops with guns in the hands instead of rice:
"There is evidence that the United States found oil in Haiti decades ago and due to the geopolitical circumstances and big business interests of that era made the decision to keep Haitian oil in reserve for when Middle Eastern oil had dried up."
http://tr.im/Lzox (French original)
http://tr.im/Lzpb (English translation)
Fort Liberte, Haiti as transhipment terminal for US oil tankers.
http://tr.im/LzpK
Mining
http://tr.im/Lz50
Does Mining Cause Earthquakes?
http://tr.im/Lzie”
Looks like CD posters are on to Empire USA and its exploitation of Honduras, Haiti & other developing nations, not to mention aits exploitation of us here in the homeland. So the question isn't what, how or why Empire's doing what empire's do, it's what are we going to do about it? And here's where there seems to be a split among progressives (assuming that CD posters are representatove of the progressive community), with some of us still wanting to play the cards (for example, emailing one's elected representatives and these once in 2-4 years elections) dealt us by the founding fathers, whose intent was to thwart rather than enable radical change, and with others among us calling more or less for a turnabout. What makes this split so crucial is that perpetual war + global warming + economic meltdown = doomsday, and time's running out, which seems not to bother the play the cards dealt us by the founding fathers progressives, even though the direction of change for the past 30 years has been nothing but stay the course backwards, with no reversal in sight and despite the clock's tick, tick, ticking away. Which means that by default it's up to those of us who see a nonviolent turnabout as the only road to a just and peaceful world and that there is no alternative.
Not all of the founding fathers were progressive. George Washington and Alexander Hamilton were federalist conservatives. If we can still do our part to avoid depending on those nations, we can slow the exploitation.
gnken
I often been amazed by the Poverty in Haiti. I was aquainted with a "just say" person I know and his business partner (relative by marriage, build a compound type of resort called Hotel Rio Christopher in Cap Haitian Haiti. In the early 70's I remember conversations of "just got back from Haiti and oh, Cliff Roberston was down with his wife or some other known politician or celebrity" were there. He told me of the poor living all around. He was also a Military Advisor for the Haitian Government. In 1973 he told me then at $25.00 was a years wages for a Haitian. 40 years later no change. You have the rich tourist and dirt poor people living all around. I find the whole matter disgusting with what is happening in Haiti and the U.S. seems to think they are in Charge as usual and bully everyone else there.
Brilliant, chilling analysis of US foreign policy.
Obama isn't a right wing politician?
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck.
tanguero
**We're so much like China in this regard. They don't want a free Tibet or Taiwan because it would mean a collapse of their empire **
JuergenHartl
**the order of listing on this page is kind of sad:
New Device Makes Guns More Accurate (USA)
and then
World's Fastest Train Unveiled (China)
Now what does that tell us?
http://tinyurl.com/yeexdcb