I don’t hold with all that; I agree that there’s little money to be made in Haiti.
But there seems to be support for the notion that guys like Roger Noriega and Otto Reich would be willing to do a great deal to undermine a leftist leader such as Aristide, and had the opportunity to do somewhat of that. Especially while Colin and Condi were eating, sleeping, and breathing Iraq.
And given Powell’s absurd retroactive case for regime change, it’s clear that they’re ready to defend their actions that helped this day arrive. They may not have engineered the coup itself (although I wouldn’t put it past them), but it sure looks like they did what they could to make sure one eventually happened.
Or maybe it’s just that we’ve been lied to so often, so regularly, and so consistently by this crew that there’s absolutely no remaining reason on God’s green earth to give them the benefit of the doubt, to accept their version of reality at face value.
Doesn’t mean I believe Aristide either, but if he says one thing and the Bushies say another, my conclusion is that we can’t be sure of who, if anyone, is speaking the truth.
I find it incredible that you’d believe that Dubya actually thought about this one for more than fifteen seconds. What I believe is this: Cheney or someone came in and said, here’s the problem and here’s what we think should be done, and Bush said, sure, go do it.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here, Shodan. Because if you’re in effect asking, why would the US government support Aristide then, but undercut him now?, you can find the answer in the difference between who was in charge then, and who now.
If you’re trying to make a different point, I’ve got to admit I’m missing it.
None, but the $500M in IMF/IADB/etc. aid Jeff Sachs mentions that was held up by the Bushies might’ve helped.
If you’re lumping Aristide in with the likes of Castro and Kim Jong-Il, shouldn’t we at least allow for the possibility that claims that Roger Noriega and Otto Reich did the same, hence the heat of their desire to rid the Western Hemisphere of him?
Geez, I’d totally forgotten about that. Remind me, was the US under the same leadership then as it’s under now? Has anything, no matter how small, changed in the US administration since 1994? Help me out here.
Gee, I dunno. How about not blocking humanitarian aid to the country? Maybe if you didn’t do that, then people would get aid, and they would be able to start inching out of poverty. Maybe then people wouldn’t turn in desperation to join the private militias of drug lords.
Maybe you could, I dunno, sign treaties with the government promising to help them out if criminals try to take over the country. You could even make such agreements contingent on a clean bill of health from human rights organizations, thereby further fostering democracy in the country. “Don’t use roving bands of thugs yourself,” you say, “and you’re welcome to a small US military base there, just to keep the drug lords from getting any fancy ideas about overturning democracy.”
Or, alternately, you can watch the leader succumb to corruption and then play it up in the international arena like he’s no better than the murderous thugs who were in power before.
I’m not saying I believe Aristide. I’m not saying I believe he was an angel. But he was no Papa Doc, either, and the US is standing by and letting an already wounded democracy in its back yard get completely shredded.
Bush had a chance to do something right, here. He could’ve sent Aristide a contingent of, ahem, military advisers. He could’ve decided that this was the time to help Aristide with the drug problem in the countryside. I would’ve even grudgingly supported Bush on such an action, as I supported him in Afghanistan.
But instead he let Haiti collapse, and now the country is rapidly going to hell. It was bad before, but it’s getting much worse very quickly.
Shodan, forgetting that Aristide was elected and putting him together with people like Castro and Kim actually weakens your case, what was the pitiful point you tried to make there?
And unlike some head buried in the sand people I see that there is nothing to contradict a forceful removal of Aristide with his lack of willingness to return to Haiti.
BTW: kindly observe that I mentioned that Aristide is not to be trusted much, and I see very pompous exaggeration from your part by trying to put me together with the tin foil crowd, as I showed before in different lain American threads, you are truly ignorant of the context and actions of the US intelligence groups in Latin America, calling it the illuminati is silly, I prefer the unsavory reality rather that pitiful attempts to ignore what happened in the past, regarding the undercover actions of the US in Latin America.
Although your language is scarcely GD-material, I agree with the underlying idea: nothing in the US’s history of activities in the Western Hemisphere, and especially nothing in the Republican party’s history of such, inclines me to believe the US has remotely benevolent motives for any of its activities in the region. Based only on what the US has done in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Argentina, I’m inclined to suspect the worst.
In this case, I can’t pretend to know WHY Bush is behaving the way he is toward Haiti. I only know he’s letting the country’s fledgling democracy go to shit. His advisors aren’t stupid; I can only guess that their motives are therefore malicious.
I would love to hear how what he’s doing is wise, though.
Left Hand of Dorkness: Yea, but being called a tin foil hatter can get to you. I am mostly resentful of the ignorance shown, those point or positions are truly pitiful, but not the person.
One more thing: The US bringing Aristide back to power then, was seen in Latin America as the signal to all wanna be military dictators that coup d’é·tats were no longer an option, this current president has given the signal to those (that by coincidence were trained at the school of the Americas (note: this is not a secret)) that he will look the other way when coups happen in the near future. (Or worse, intervene directly, if there is any truth to this “I was forced out” business)
I wouldn’t argue that Aristede was an angel, but the facts remain that he did resist the US pressures for privatisation and keeping the minimum wage low… Noam Chomsky called it the “threat of a good example”…
Is there a reason why these things aren’t considered valid motives? (note: not saying motive alone constitutes proof of a US driven coup)
I would love to hear, LHoD, how embroiling the US in the perenial Haiti quagmire WOULD be wise. I’d love to hear how, if GW had of sent in the military to prop up Aristide for a few more months would be a wise move on our part (I’d also love to hear what you think the Democrats would have made of Bush sending in the marines to prop up Aristide). I think that elucidator nailed this one on the head. Why don’t you give us your logic on why exactly Bush SHOULD have tried to prop up Aristide and what exactly you figured he could do about the present situation. And what you figure, in the end, could have been accomplished.
Well, without official administration sanctioning though, what could they do? Its like the anti-Castro crowd wishing down in Florida. They can WANT whatever they want, but unless you are saying they are some shadowy organization with imense powers, what can they do about it? Unless we are back to official Bush Administration sanction of this supposed US coup of course…and I’ve seen nothing but Aristide’s statement (which I took with a mountain of salt) and some dark mutterings about how evil the US has been in the past in Latin America. Again, I can see no plausable reason for the US to have involved itself officially by staging a coup in Haiti…and can think of a mountain of plausable reasons why we wouldn’t.
You remind me of the guys on the other side during Clintons administration, to be honest. He ALSO was accused of the same thing. To me its amusing. As with Clinton, with Bush I keep an open mind about things and take the crisis one at a time and make a judgement without past prejudices. Sometimes they lie…sometimes they don’t. This time I think its safe to say that Bush et al is NOT lieing. Next time? Well, we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. The point is, to not allow your hatred to cloud your judgement or your logic IMO and to try and keep an open mind.
Again, this gets into clouded by hatred territory. Bush, in the end, is simply a politician. He’s not the font of all evil…he’s also not stupid. Underestimating the man IS kind of stupid. He’s motivated, like all politicians, with getting re-elected. This IS the primary thing on his mind. Its certainly what is on the mind of his political handlers.
And ya, I think that he would take more than 15 seconds to look at the political ramifications of any action he takes…especially now when it looks like the election hangs by a thread. And frankly, nothing in Haiti is worth risking ANYTHING for. Better to ignore it completely. If the wheels come off, thats just a shame…hope they get better soon. sighs theatrically Moving right along, isn’t the economy perking up nicely? How about those flags waving in the breeze? Now, about gay marriage…
You’re kidding right? With the mood of the country right now against Bush?? If it were to come out (which it WOULD if it were real) that Bush had authorized the coup in Haiti the Democrats and the left wing would go absolutely nuts. Hell, they will probably (at least the less rational ones) go nuts at the IMPLICATION that Bush MIGHT have had something to do with it. If something solid actually comes out this will be HUGE…and I think this would be the last straw. This would sink Bush. THATS why so many of the raving left are going to (and by looking at this thread HAVE) latch onto this thing. They realize that Bush hangs by a thread and something like this would cut him loose into free fall. The problem is, this thing is, at least atm, smoke and mirrors and hangs on the unsubstantiated word of Aristide
Whatever US involvement that took place in getting Aristide out of the country was done to prevent a major bloodbath. The administration most likely feels that restoring order and assisting in setting up new elections are easier than propping up Aristide’s failed attempt at running this cess pool of a nation.
As for the credibility of those involved (going back to the OP)
Aristide
Maxine Waters
Bush
Colin Powell
You must lose a lot of money often. It’s a well known fact that the administration engages in deception. Uh, where are those WMD’s? It’s been almost a year already.
Your beloved Clinton administration also believed in their existence.
I don’t think it’s a question of if they exist, I think the question is where are they and who has control of them?
BTW, I forgot to include the honorable Rev Jesse Jackson’s name in my credibility list in the earlier post (he just couldn’t resist trying to place himself in the spotlight again).
Bit of a debate whether this was a deception or simply a mistake, no? Unless you have conclusive proof that I somehow missed showing that the Administration was aware there weren’t any WMD and chose to decieve the American people.
Hmmm, you seem to be putting words into my mouth here. I suggested that perhaps GW should have acted differently some years back, rather than now. Whether or not the US should have provided aid to Haiti under Aristide, it certainly didn’t need to block others from doing so. Maybe Aristide would have used the money to improve the lot of Haitians, and maybe he would have pocketed it. We won’t know, will we?
What remains is that Aristide was the democratically elected ruler of Haiti. He clearly hadn’t yet done the president-for-life number. He probably was far from a perfect leader, but since we haven’t set up guidelines for regime change (as I was advocating prior to our more famous recent instance thereof) it’s all kind of arbitrary as to whether someone’s been bad enough that we ought to violate another nation’s sovereignty and remove their head of state.
Ummm, we’re talking about the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, here. He is the Administration, unless his higher-ups choose to overrule his judgment. If the man in that office says, we should block aid to Country X, then if his boss (Powell) doesn’t have a strong case for overruling him, he’ll probably get his way. Or if Powell just is busy with another part of the world right then.
They didn’t need to really stage a coup; I haven’t claimed they did. All they needed to do was create an environment where one would eventually happen on its own, and then “rescue” him from the coup plotters by taking him out of the country.
And in addition to the simple hatred of Aristide which existed in the Helms camp, from whence Roger Noriega came, annaplurabelle has listed some pretty good reasons why mainstream Bushies wouldn’t like him.
They’ve lied about Iraq, the tax cuts, the budget deficits, and job creation/destruction in more ways than I can keep track of, quite honestly. They’ve lied about the environment (somehow, no matter what the problem with our forests, the solution always involves cutting trees (just like the economy and tax cuts); after awhile, you know they’re BSing us), they’ve lied about fuel conservation v. fuel exploration, they’ve lied about their Social Security plans, they lied to us about the California electricity crisis, what haven’t they lied about?
Quite simply, this is a bunch of guys who know what they want, and they will claim that some item on their agenda is the solution to whatever’s in the news that day, whether it fits or not.
And Clinton lied about a blowjob. Moral equivalence!
And I think nothing’s safe.
Hatred or not, it’s absolutely insane to ignore a man’s track record when you’re deciding whether to trust him now. And Bush’s track record with respect to honesty…damn, it’s starting to make Tricky Dick look good. And that should be impossible, but it’s clearly not.
You obviously didn’t follow that link I gave, about how the Bush administration made decisions.
He’s politically fairly crafty, and he may still somehow win this election, although I’m betting against it. (Literally; ask Bricker.) And he and his team have been extremely skillful about getting most of their agenda written into law over the past few years.
But in terms of understanding the consequences of that agenda, I’m honestly not sure he has much of a clue. When he doesn’t care about something, the mental blinders quite clearly come down. And there’s so much he doesn’t care about.
I bet this wasn’t exactly one of the things that crossed Karl Rove’s desk when the wheels were actually in motion.
Do you think he knew he was even risking anything?
We may not know for awhile, but I’m betting not. IMHO, all he was asked was whether we should send a plane down to rescue Aristide.
Apparently you’re responding to what you think I’ve said, rather than what I actually did. Like I said above, I think Noriega (with Powell’s rubber stamp) simply did what he could to ensure that Aristide never got any aid that might’ve prevented this day from coming. No fingerprints.
I’m not assuming Aristide didn’t agree to leave to save his neck, then change his mind once safe. Once again, I’m going with the minimal-fingerprints method of regime change here. But feel free to argue this with those who are making the case for more direct US participation in a coup.
What we do know, though, is that the folks who pushed Aristide out are some of the nastiest people you hope you’ll never meet. Somehow, encouraging people like that by giving in to their mob’s demands, seems the worst way to encourage democracy in a place like Haiti.
With regards to the deception or simple mistake issue, it’s no simple mistake IF it isn’t a lie… it’s a solossal mistake that shows just how inept military intelligence can be.
It reveals a total failure of military intelligence to get even the basics right, even with 12 years and hundreds of billions of dollars of resources. With all of the U.N and American inspections and surveillance over the years, and constant tracking of all military activiy in Iraq for a decade, with sattelite surveillance and an army of informants, it would seem ludicrous that such a mistake could be made, but if it was, it would clearly indicate that either way you cannot believe current American “intelligence”, because it’s either fabricated or completely incompetent. Again, the track record speaks for itself.
Well, gee, I wonder why? Did you actually read that crap?
That’s just absolutely staggering. The author brands the constitution “racist” because it says that “white men” can’t own or capture slaves. Kinda makes you feel sorry for those poor, oppressed white men. :rolleyes:
With colossal lies like that built into the text, wouldn’t that make you think twice about believing any of the rest of it?
The way I read that text, it means that white men can’t own real estate in Haiti. Which is indeed racist, but understandable under the tragic circumstances of the time and place.
Uou’re right. I got thrown by the word “master”. I knew that abolition was in there somewhere, and assumed that was it. I tracked the document down, and it turns out it contains a much less equivocal statement on slavery: