19949: Knowles Re: 19849: radtimes: Another failed state (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Phil <phildk@prodigy.net>

Does this columnist, Helle Dale, know what he (she?) is talking about?  He
comes on like an expert, but  -

1)  "Our previous intervention was a totally misguided effort, not  to
mention an expensive one"
        Was this man there? Does he have a clue?  The intervention was very
well managed - 10th Mountain Division in PAP and Special Forces in the
countryside. I think we had one fatality - a Sergeant shot at a
heckpoint  - during the intervention by 20,000 troops.  We restored order
out of chaos, removed a terrible killer/dictator Cedras (over 3,000 Haitians
killed, parents shot in front of their kids, mothers raped in front of their
kids by his soldiers during his tenure). We  returned Aristide, who was the
elected president, to his office. We actually did quite a bit of
infrastructure repair - mostly by Special Forces people in the countryside.
We made friends one-on-one. I saw the signs around PAP in early 1995 - "USA
50 years" - they wanted us to stay.
But Clinton withdrew our forces as fast as he could. In one way that was
good - we did not want to repeat the US occupation of (approx dates)
1916-1932.  Haiti - and Aristide - were not up to the job of restoring their
country. Haiti has no history of law, democracy, or literacy.  Of course it
sank. We cut off aid, because there was evidence of corruption and misuse of
funds. But to say the intervention was a "misguided effort" is misleading
and woefully incomplete.
2)    "He [Aristide] even endorsed the practice of 'necklacing' of political
opponents, that is, hanging a gasoline-filled tire around a person's neck
and setting it on fire with a gruesome death to follow".
Was this man Dale there when Aristide said that?  Can he cite any evidence
Aristide said it, or said it regularly?  It sounds like - the inference -
Aristide went around whipping up people to 'necklace'. This charge is
basically an old urban legend. My impression is that he made ONE remark that
seemed to approve of necklacing. Well, that would be bad, but Aristide, with
all his faults, did not use this term or make this reference more than
nce  - and even that is contested.  So Mr. Dale is recklessly throwing in a
horrible accusation without evidence.

The obvious objective here is to make Bush look ok sending a few troops into
Haiti - without  letting Haiti seem like Iraq.  It's ok to spend $400
billion and 500 lives in Iraq  (a "threat to national security") and "stay
as long as it takes",  but not ok to help neighboring Haiti, a country where
we have regularly meddled but seldom helped, where a steady hand and a very
few billion $ could make a permanent and important difference.

For shame, Helle Dale.

For a far, far better analysis, see #19766, submitted by Greg Chamberlain,
from the March 3 International Herald Tribune.

Phil Knowles