20646: Nealy: RE: 20619: Antoine: 20577: Nealy: RE: 20547: Antoine: Re: 20513: Esser: Constitutionality in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: David Nealy <dlnealy@msn.com>

Re: Guy Antoine 20513:

I appreciate your second post, which clarified and strengthened your
positions. I respect your arguments and point of view, and I agree with much
of them.

For other list members, Guy rightly admonishes me for misquoting him in his
5th quote from my post. It was unintentional. I misplaced the quotation
marks. My point was that the official initial mission of the US marines, I
imagine something like "restore and preserve security, protect the embassy,
airport, port, and other key installations...etc..." in view of the lack of
security recently must have been uppermost in the minds of the marines,
ahead of "distributing potable water, food, medicine, seed, technical
knowledge, etc...".  (The security part was omitted in Guy's original post.)
I agree that the things you listed are important, but guess it is much to
expect initially from those marines. The difference in French and American
approaches cited elsewhere, in which the French troops wore berets rather
than helmets, spoke with the Haitians, mingled with them, etc. was very
interesting, and hopefully instructive for the Americans. Whether the
marines are trigger-happy as claimed by some or are simply responding
directly at those who fire at them I can't say. I'm not there. I agree with
you that radicalizing any "occupied" country is a real risk, and it appears
the French are better at avoiding this than the Americans. The language
aspect makes this easier for them, too, of course.

The "failure of governance" of President Aristide's regime, which I referred
to, and which has been noted in  other posts, wass relevant to the US
decision not to protect Aristide from the rebels, as I understand the US
position. It was not cited as a reason to remove him. That was to save his
life. It seems that noone, not other countries including the "Friends of
Haiti", not Haiti's own government's forces, were ready to support him by
fighting against the rebels. That seemed to be evident at the moment of his
leaving.

You ask who is defending the governance of...George W. Bush? I suggest that
his governance will be supported or opposed by our ballots, our donations,
our persuasion of our friends to vote for or against him. I expect you to do
your part as you say. An attempt by rebels to remove him before the end of
his term would, I am confident, lead to more support, by many who would not
choose to vote for him as well as by those who would. G.W. Bush has, it
seems, been a polarizing figure in the US, but perhaps much less so than M.
Aristide in Haiti, judging from what I have read and been told over the last
few years. In any case, that polarization has led to much violence, and
remains a source of violence. That brings me back to "butt-kissing" etc.
Let's try to tone down the polarization so Haitians can come together and
resolve differences. Aristide's presence in Jamaica, lawsuits, claims of
remaining President, etc. may be another barrier to the coming together that
the new regime seems to be pursuing. In another post, I suggest looking for
areas of agreement. Hopefully that can succeed.

David

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