Haiti

As usual the truth that is beginning to trickle out about Haiti bears almost no comparison to the truth as its understood by everyone on the planet except the white House. Aristide didn't leave Haiti voluntarily. We made him. Now, as per usual I should point out that I'm not a very big Aristide supporter. He's an autocrat with a crappy human rights record, but in an argument that starting to get stale I'm forced to use it so often with this white house, this DOES NOT give us the right to throw him out of his country. He was elected, whether we like it or not. Aristide's election was, all things considered, MORE legitimate than Shrub's. There's a whole plethora of stories on this here

Why we're culpable. Again. Haiti, you may remember was a hot spot all through the 90's. Everyone from us to the UN did their best to calm things down in this terribly poor nation. A lot of progress was made, even if things were in no way perfect. But they held elections and Aristide, took power. He was deposed after a coup d' tat but was reinstated by international decree. So things went through the 90's. Then Shrub gets elected and his admin. makes it clear that he doesn't give a rat's ass about Haiti and there are rumors that we funneled money to the rebels there. (We won't know the truth about this for 10 years) What is incontrovertible is the tacit approval Bush's minions gave to the violence that is happening there right now. By saying outright the US wouldn't step in to stop the violence over the past 3 weeks or so BushInc. was giving the rebels the green light to try to take the country. This understanding of events may have been subject to interpretation. I was glad when I heard Aristide left on his own- we shouldn't have encouraged the rebels, but it was an internal affair (assuming we were not giving the rebels cash). But then Aristide comes on TV and says, "I didn't want to go. The US made me." Now, if there was any question as to what Bushco wanted, it's gone. Once again we've shat on democracy, and I won't be a bit surprised if Bush comes on TV at some point and says we did what we did (or didn't do) in Haiti to protect democracy. If he was ready to go on his own, good. If not. Well the man was elected and as much as we might not like him, that's the way democracy works, not matter how much that fact causes furrows of confusion to appear on Shrub's overprivelaged brow.
America has become so Orwellian it almost seems pointless to talk about anymore. Once again we are openly meddling in the affairs of foreign powers. Will anyone even say the word "war crimes?" I doubt it. But they probably should.