IMAGINE AN OILY HAITI:The Terms Would Be Otherwise

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[B]IMAGINE IF THERE WERE OIL IN HAITI.[/B]
Posted by Wilgeens Rosenberg.

http;//www.HispanolaYoSoy.Skyrock.com/
April 27, 2008

Some people are actually surprised that the Bush administration twiddled its thumbs while the democratically elected president of a neighboring republic was run out of office by armed thugs.

The explanation is tragically simple: Haiti hasn't got anything the or US or perhaps the neighboring Dominican Republic want. Because of massive erosion, precious little grows there -- coffee, sugar, some mango trees and plantains.

Underground in Haiti today are modest quantities of copper, gold, bauxite and marble, but nothing we can't get in abundance elsewhere.

Nothing worth deploying a 100,000 troops over. Like oil. If only Haiti were sitting on half as much petroleum as Iraq, the United States and the Dominican Republic would have shown a much keener interest in what was happening there.

The Dominican Republic then, would have claimed all kind of unity prospects and perhaps then granted birthrights to Children and grand children of illegal immigrants there.

From the US Congress, you would have heard some stirring speeches about moral duty to help an ally in our own hemisphere under siege from outlaws.

Why, Vice President Dick Cheney himself would have lumbered out of his bunker and made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, warning of the grave global peril if Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide were overthrown by paramilitary goons, killers and drug smugglers.

Before you could say ''Halliburton stock options,'' a U.S. armada would have been steaming toward Port-au-Prince, while Cheney's pals in the private sector would have been ramping up to repair and secure the Haitian oil derricks.

Sadly, though, it is Haiti's fate to be hopelessly bereft of the natural riches that industrialized nations covet.

U.S. intervention would have been strictly an act of humanitarian motivation, with no payoff and plenty of headaches.

To President Bush there's no moral incongruity in spending billions of dollars and hundreds of American lives trying to install a first-time democracy in faraway Iraq, while miserably failing and turning his back on a crumbling democracy in our own backyard.

The truth is, we don't need another military engagement.

What we do need is a sane realignment of priorities.

Bush would insist that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was the larger menace, but in fact the turmoil in Haiti has a direct and costly impact on the United States, starting in Florida.

Coast Guard and Customs anti-terrorism patrols already spend much of their time rounding up boatloads of desperate Haitian refugees or intercepting Miami-bound freighters loaded with cocaine.

Haiti has become a choice trans-shipment point for South American drug smugglers, who are likely cheering the current chaos.

Once our token force of U.S. Marines is gone, the ports of Haiti will be wide open for dopers.

President Aristide surely was no prize.

He governed ineptly, autocratically and sometimes with the brutal assistance of the street gangs that are a bloody part of Haiti's history.

But the United States didn't help, orchestrating a cutoff of international funds and supplies that punished the poorest of Haiti's poor. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of peasants died for no reason.

Ousted by a coup in 1991, reinstated by American forces in 1994, Aristide wasn't popular with the right-wingers in the present Bush administration.

He was, however, Haiti's first and only duly elected president.

That he needed to resign became obvious.

Equally obvious was that the United States wasn't working very hard to make that happen peacefully.

Emblematic of U.S. indifference was the attitude of State Secretary Colin Powell.

A decade ago, at President Bill Clinton's request, Powell rushed to Haiti with former President Jimmy Carter to help smooth Aristide's return and avert a full-blown invasion by U.N. forces.

This time around, Powell wasn't going anywhere.

Every now and then, he would comment about the erupting chaos in the Haitian countryside, but only too late did he declare: 'We cannot allow these thugs to come out of the hills, or even an opposition to simply rise up and say `we want you to leave' in an undemocratic, nonconstitutional manner.'' Thugs they are, too. Among those leading the anti-Aristide mobs were convicted killers, death-squad assassins and crooked army officers.

Hilariously, they've now promised to ''lay down'' their weapons so that a new government can be formed.

Of course, not a soul in Haiti believes that these goons will voluntarily turn over all their guns to the Marines.

Watch what happens when the American forces leave.

Or, if you're like Bush, don't watch.

As every president since 1915 has learned, there's no obvious solution to Haiti's misery.

Woodrow Wilson sent troops that ended up staying 19 years.

Clinton sent troops that stayed less than two years.

Ronald Reagan sent a jet to carry away Jean-Claude Duvalier, after he'd stolen everything in Port-au-Prince that wasn't nailed down. Now Bush sends a jet to carry away Aristide, leaving the country to looters and criminals.

From exile in Florida comes a new prime minister, Gerard Latortue, who faces the Goliath task of uniting a country that's poor, sick, hungry and frantic.

He would be foolhardy to expect much support from the United States.

Unless, by a miracle, somebody discovers oil in Haiti's tear-soaked plains.

Wilgeens Rosenberg, April 27 2008, 12:33 AM

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