Is America taking over Haiti?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama and the U.S. moved to take charge in earthquake-ravaged Haiti on Thursday, dispatching thousands of troops along with tons of aid to try to keep order ...

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"The United States is providing a lot of the glue that is keeping people communicating and working together as we try to assert authority, reinstate the government and begin to do what governments have to do to rebuild," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Fox News Channel.

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The president announced "the first waves" of the American response were in place ... some half-dozen ships and 5,500 soldiers and Marines [are] making their way across the Caribbean.

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The government of Haitian President Rene Preval was severely disabled, with the president's own residences damaged and the Parliament building collapsed along with other ministries and departments.

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The large United Nations ... headquarters building was destroyed, and dozens of its personnel, including some leaders, were dead or missing — leaving it in need of rescue help itself.

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However, there was sensitivity in Washington to any impression the U.S. was taking over Haiti, a country that has seen dramatic American interventions before, not always to good effect, and is suspicious of involvement by its much larger and wealthier northern neighbor.

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"We have no intention of supplanting the leadership of Haiti," said Cheryl Mills, Clinton's chief of staff who is coordinating the efforts at the State Department.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100115/ap_on_...aiti_earthquake

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

We are not taking over Haiti... why do we keep having to repeat that?

P.J. Crowley [Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Public Affairs] ... stressed that while US troops sent to Haiti will be under US command, they are there primarily to support the United Nations' 9,000-member peacekeeping mission and to do what it is asked by the Haitians.

"We're not taking over Haiti," he said. "We are helping to stabilize Haiti, we're helping to provide them lifesaving support and materiel and we're going to be there over the long-term to help Haiti rebuild."

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

And damn, the socialists are PISSED!

The White House has responded with hypocritical and sanctimonious declarations, along with a pittance of aid. President Obama declared, in his latest public statement pledging $100 million to Haitian relief, that assistance to Haiti is a top priority of his administration. The actual figures give the lie to this preposterous claim. The $100 million US pledge amounts to barely one hour’s spending for the US war machine—and less than some of the bonuses being paid out this month to Wall Street bankers and speculators.

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Most major powers are making little effort to disguise their indifference. Germany, for instance, offered a derisory $2.2 million in aid. France sent in 100 soldiers from its island possessions in the West Indies, Martinique and Guadeloupe. None of the bourgeois governments in Latin America is sending more than a few dozen rescue workers or token planeloads of emergency supplies.

The hundreds of rescue workers who have arrived in Port-au-Prince are dwarfed in number by the military forces deployed or on their way. The 9,000 troops in the UN-led MINUSTAH peacekeeping force will soon by matched by an equal or even larger number of American troops, coming by air and sea.

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So dominant is the US military role that White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was compelled to deny Thursday that Washington was exercising de facto governing power in Haiti. Local press reports suggest that not a single government agency or building is currently functioning.

If one adds up the naval, air and ground forces deployed or dispatched by the Pentagon, the total is well over 12,000. At the same time, the US government has sent only 300 doctors—fewer than the number of Cuban healthcare workers already on the ground in Haiti (344), and less than half the number of volunteers working there from Doctors Without Borders (800).

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For the US government, the representative of the American financial aristocracy, the issue is one of defending imperialist interests in the Caribbean, both against the threat of unrest within Haiti itself, and the threat of any rival power taking advantage of the crisis to secure a foothold in a region long under nearly exclusive US domination.

According to a Reuters report, “senior US officials indicated their understanding that relief and reconstruction efforts will act as something of a test of US and multinational effectiveness and capacity.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton described the effort as “a real opportunity as well as a challenge.”

Edited January 15, 2010 by w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r

[christeen 966]

WHY would we want to take over Haiti??? However, they apparantly made a deal with the Devil, how much worse can a deal with the US be???

[mawilson 2,133]

WHY would we want to take over Haiti???

Why not? It's a nice island - or could be.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Why not? It's a nice island - or could be.

We already own nice islands in that region.. USVI and PR. Why do we need Haiti?

[scandal 951]

We already own nice islands in that region.. USVI and PR. Why do we need Haiti?

Because it's right next door to Dominican Republic. We're trying to gentrify the neighborhood.

[William33 110]

It's a mission of peace and goodwill, nothing more.....

[mawilson 2,133]

We already own nice islands in that region.. USVI and PR. Why do we need Haiti?

We need a new place to keep our Gitmo friends.

[scandal 951]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

JPost? What are you doing reading that rag?

Haaretz. Or Ynet (Yediot). Only sources I read there.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

It's a mission of peace and goodwill, nothing more.....

Workers World disagrees. Excerpt follows:

It was predictable that the U.S. government, while delaying any actual delivery of aid, put its military foot forward. Gen. Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, said that the U.S. would send the Aircraft Carrier Carl Vinson along with the U.S. Bataan, an amphibian ship with an expeditionary unit of 2,000 Marines to police the Haitians in Port-au-Prince, claiming that security was “a serious concern.” (New York Times blog, Jan. 13)

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In contrast Socialist Cuba, with the experience of sending medical brigades to meet emergencies in Pakistan, Bolivia, China, Guatemala and Indonesia, sent a team of 403 people to Haiti, 344 of them health care workers. On the first day they treated 800 Haitians and performed 19 surgical interventions. (TeleSur, Jan. 14) Cuba already had hundreds of medical doctors providing care in the Haitian countryside and provincial towns.

Chile, Nicaragua, Spain, Guatemala, France, Mexico and Russia all rushed aid, mostly food and water, to Haiti on Jan. 13, while the U.S. was still discussing how the Marines would land. China sent a 60-member search-and-rescue team with sniffer dogs.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I think it should become a U.S. Territory, provided the Haitian people are in favor of it.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I think it should become a U.S. Territory, provided the Haitian people are in favor of it.

What benefit would there to be to America?

[William33 110]

Workers World disagrees. Excerpt follows:

It was predictable that the U.S. government, while delaying any actual delivery of aid, put its military foot forward. Gen. Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, said that the U.S. would send the Aircraft Carrier Carl Vinson along with the U.S. Bataan, an amphibian ship with an expeditionary unit of 2,000 Marines to police the Haitians in Port-au-Prince, claiming that security was “a serious concern.” (New York Times blog, Jan. 13)

...

In contrast Socialist Cuba, with the experience of sending medical brigades to meet emergencies in Pakistan, Bolivia, China, Guatemala and Indonesia, sent a team of 403 people to Haiti, 344 of them health care workers. On the first day they treated 800 Haitians and performed 19 surgical interventions. (TeleSur, Jan. 14) Cuba already had hundreds of medical doctors providing care in the Haitian countryside and provincial towns.

Chile, Nicaragua, Spain, Guatemala, France, Mexico and Russia all rushed aid, mostly food and water, to Haiti on Jan. 13, while the U.S. was still discussing how the Marines would land. China sent a 60-member search-and-rescue team with sniffer dogs.

Overstated and wildly overestimated for sure. The USA will provide substantial aid and then withdraw, as usual. Yet, we will get beaten up in the press for the effort.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

What benefit would there to be to America?

It would be a long term investment...to rebuild the country, bring it out of dire poverty and give it stability.