Haiti Crime

I'm as guilty as everyone else for not keeping up on the happenings in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Now that the deed has been done, there are some good reports and commentary: Billmon, who has the best titled post by far, wonders if this isn't practice for the bigger prize of Venezuela (whose president recently castigated pResident Bush, openly referring to him as an asshole):

This isn't Venezuela, where there's an obvious prize (currently selling for about $35 a barrel) for overthrowing the legitimate, elected president. As far as I know, the only thing the U.S. government wants from Haiti is for the Haitians to stay there and starve quietly.

I can only assume the NSC's Latin America jefe, the aptly named Otto Reich, and his pet rock at the State Department, Roger Noriega, decided ex-President Aristide simply wasn't up to the job of keeping Florida relatively Haitian-free. Either that, or today's little charade in Port-au-Prince was just a modest dress rehearsal for a much more elaborate production to be staged in Caracas sometime in the near future.

Atrios linked to a Jeffrey Sachs' article on Maxspeak (originally Sachs' piece was published in the Financial Times) which asserts a cynicism on the part of the Bush and others within the administration regarding Aristide. Considering the, uh, questionable circumstances under which Bush assumed office, any allegations of "election irregularities" in Haiti are an example of the pot calling the kettle black. The real facts are that Team Bush has no use for Jean Bertrand, and have attempted to smear him as a communist for trying (with little success, thanks to sanctions) to alleviate some of the worst aspects of poverty within the nation.

Although the link appears to be down at present, here's a report from the San Jose Mercury News that quotes Congresswoman Maxine Waters saying that Aristide told her he was forced out of office, and out of the country, against his will. If you do a Google news search for "Maxine Waters" you will find that she has been out in front on the issue of Haiti for some time.

Meanwhile, Ron Dellums, the former congressman from California, denounced what he openly called a US sponsored coup d'etat on Tavis Smiley's NPR show. It's first just good to hear anything from Dellums, who for years was the leftmost member of Congress, representing, among other cities, Berkeley, California. Too bad he's only asked to speak when something tragic like this happens.

Finally, in what sadly is becoming as normal as rioting after the Superbowl, looters are running rampant in Port au Prince, just like they did in Baghdad following "Mission Accomplished." Unlike Baghdad, about the only thing worth protecting in the Haitian capital is the president's residence--which happens to be where the US Marines are now garrisoned. Well, if nothing else, we can hope that some attention will be paid to Haiti for a little while, at least until it all falls apart...

Anyone hear anything about Afghanistan lately? I didn't think so...