Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PartyTime who wrote (4272)	2/27/2004 10:21:06 AM
From: Mao II	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 173976

Haiti's terrorists got a free pass GORDON BARTHOS President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is on his knees begging the world to come to Haiti's aid before chaos and anarchy merge into massacre. "Should those killers come to Port-au-Prince, thousands may be killed," he warned this week. "We need the presence of the international community as soon as possible." In truth, Aristide should have had that help 10 days ago when a motley crew of 300 former death squad leaders, cashiered army officers and street thugs began terrorizing the country. They could have been stopped. And should have been. After all, U.S. President George Bush spared no rhetoric or energy rallying the world against the Al Qaeda killers who struck on 9/11. He defined the "war on terror" as a global moral crusade against the dark forces of anarchy. Spent $100 billion chasing Al Qaeda through Afghanistan and Iraq. But Bush's moral indignation and crusading zeal were nowhere in evidence as Haiti fell prey to terror. Until yesterday, when Bush belatedly mused about despatching an international "security presence," Aristide's foes had a free pass to wreak mayhem. "There is, frankly, no enthusiasm right now for sending in military or police forces to put down the violence," Secretary of State Colin Powell said coldly, consigning Haiti to chaos. And Prime Minister Paul Martin's new government hasn't done better. The few troops Canada was mobilizing yesterday, like the 50 Marines the U.S. despatched, will scarcely be able to secure our embassy, much less help thwart the putsch. Aristide is undeniably a divisive, imperious figure who relies on violent gangs of supporters, having disbanded the coup-prone army. He has failed dismally to bring Haiti the peace and prosperity he promised. But he also represents Haiti's democratic breakthrough, having been freely elected in 1990 and again in 2000. His term ends next year. Aristide pleaded back on Feb. 16 for help against the "terrorists." Aid agencies warned of "civil war." Prime Minister Yvon Neptune saw a "coup d'état machine in motion." Still, we abandoned them. The opposition Democratic Convergence drive to oust Aristide is a naked power grab by Haiti's rich elite, abetted by armed thugs who have murdered democracy before. The rebels are led by a seedy triumvirate: Louis-Jodel Chamblain, who once commanded an army death squad accused of massacring 34 people in 1987. Guy Philippe, a former police chief exiled for plotting a coup. And Remissainthe Ravix, a former corporal in the discredited, disbanded army. "We're not plotting a coup," Chamblain insisted this week. "We're plotting to liberate the people." Sure they are. By ousting Aristide, a populist who Haiti's tiny rich class has never stopped demonizing. By murdering police, torching government offices and looting a United Nations food depot. And by killing government supporters. "The people show us the houses," Claudy Philippe, a rebel, told the Associated Press. "If they are there, we execute them." Indeed the Democratic Convergence and their rebel allies flatly rejected an Organization of American States and Caribbean Community compromise to keep Aristide in office, but with reduced powers. The United States supported that plan. Bush should have despatched troops to stop the madness. They could have quelled the rebellion in hours, saved democracy, saved lives. And signalled that Bush is serious about thwarting terror. Instead, he let history repeat itself. In 1991, George Bush senior sat by as Aristide was deposed by some of the very officers who are gunning for him today. His son has done the same. Leaving Canadian and French diplomats scurrying around preaching restraint to terrorists. What's in store for Haiti now? Maybe Aristide's ouster. Maybe massacre. Maybe a "political settlement" that emasculates the presidency, empowers the elite and brings a new election. However it plays out, this has been a dismal setback for Caribbean democracy. And it has exposed Bush's "global" war on terror as a fiction. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gord Barthos writes editorials on foreign affairs. gbarthos@thestar.ca thestar.com

To: PartyTime who wrote (4272)	2/27/2004 6:51:08 PM
From: John Sladek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

ATTACK OF THE CHICKEN-HAWKS How come the military is antiwar, and the policy wonks want blood? It's very simple…. August 2, 2002 Forget the Senate hearings on Iraq, ignore Congress, and never mind our laptop bombardiers. How many of these guys have ever been anywhere near a battlefield? Instead, listen to what the US military is saying about the prospect of Gulf War II…. Today's [August 1] Washington Post reports "an increasingly contentious debate … within the Bush administration" over the Iraq question, with the divide between gung-ho civilian leaders and top military officers who smell a rat: "Much of the senior uniformed military, with the notable exception of some top Air Force and Marine generals, opposes going to war anytime soon, a stance that is provoking frustration among civilian officials in the Pentagon and in the White House." The Post paints the same picture that we've been drawing here on Antiwar.com for the past few weeks: it's Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz versus Colin Powell and the Pentagon. Defense secretary Rumsfeld is cited as saying: "The discussions that take place, the process that's been established, have been working as well as I have ever seen," but Capitol Hill Blue portrays a qualitative escalation in the war of the Policy Wonks and the Generals: "The differences over Iraq mark the sharpest disagreements among senior staff since the Bush administration took office with the Cheney and Rumsfeld calling those who oppose military actions 'cowards.'" "'It's getting nasty,' says one White House source. 'Meetings over Iraq now turn into shouting matches.'" [Full Story at: antiwar.com ]