1. “The Two Faces of Interventionism
As the US military arrives in Haiti, with only the French and Hugo Chavez raising objections, our foreign policy of global intervention gets a new lease on life – especially on the home front, where it’s needed most. Even the hardest heart cannot be closed to the sight of Marines lifting the dead and the near-dead out of the rubble, handing out provisions to starving children and patrolling the lawless streets of Port au Prince amid scenes of desolation out of some post-apocalyptic Hollywood epic. We’re saving lives, not taking them. How can anyone be against that?
It isn’t the life-saving or the rubble-clearing that evokes the ire of such hard-core anti-interventionists as myself – it’s the dire prospect, confirmed by our own military and foreign policy officials, that we’ll be in Haiti for years to come. As David Wood reports over at Politics Daily: “US officials now anticipate a large and long-term US intervention in Haiti, including a major security role that will demand a commitment of troops and resources from an already stretched military.
…
Humanitarian aid is one thing: administering the country, under UN auspices or not, is quite another task, one that we should not take up – and are already taking up, even as I write these words of warning. Our “humanitarian” liberals cavil that Haiti has no government, but the problem goes much deeper: in its present state, the country is ungovernable. An inquiry into the reason for Haiti’s fate can perhaps be illuminated by asking why the other half of that Caribbean island, the Dominican Republic, is relatively stable and prosperous. Such a project, however, is far beyond the capabilities of the US military, which is a peerless fighting machine – and not so talented when it comes to advanced anthropology and sociology, in spite of its recent foray into that field.
This conception of the American military as an institution capable of performing any task, no matter how far removed from its legitimate functions, is a delusion shared by liberals and conservatives alike. It is a specifically American conceit, born of post-cold war hubris and an older tradition that can be traced all the way back to Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. “Send in the Marines!” is an almost magical invocation, a panacea capable of solving most if not all the world’s problems. Like all magical incantations, however, it is not based on reality – as we will learn in due course if our Haitian mission of mercy turns into a long-term or even medium-term project.
Not every problem has a solution: not every tragedy can be avoided or ameliorated, and certainly government – which is, in essence, armed force – is a notoriously blunt instrument, a broadsword where a surgical scalpel is what’s called for. The irony is that one of the few things we can do to immediately bring economic relief to Haiti is deemed “controversial” – abolishing trade restrictions [.pdf] imposed on Haitian products that enter the US. It’s doubtful President Obama’s union supporters will sit still for that.”
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/01/19/the-two-faces-of-interventionism/
2. No, you don’t need to be able to invade anywhere:
“British Navy Chief: We Need to Be Able to Invade More Than Just Afghanistan“
3. No, it wouldn’t be discrimination, it would be Constitutionally-required neutrality:
“U.S. Military Officially Endorses Crusade
Meanwhile, a lawyer and former training officer for the US Army Reserves says that any attempt by the US government to cancel its contracts with an arms supplier that enscribes biblical references on its rifle sights would be “discrimination.”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/01/us-miliatary-officially-endorses.html
4. “Washington Shuts Door on Haitian Refugees
The Obama administration has taken extraordinary measures to prevent desperate Haitians from entering the US since a January 12 earthquake devastated the Caribbean nation, killing an estimated 200,000, making at least 1.5 million homeless, and orphaning 1 million children. The effort to bar Haitians from entering the US—including the wounded seeking medical treatment—illustrates that the priority of the US-led intervention is not to save lives, but to establish military control over the population.
Five US Coast Guard ships have joined US Navy vessels deployed off Haiti’s coast—not to deliver food, water, and medicine to the sick and dying, but to stop any Haitians who might attempt to escape. Coast Guard commander Chris O’Neil told the New York Times that anyone fleeing Haiti would be seized and sent back, but that so far his units have witnessed no attempts. “None, zero,” O’Neil said, “and no indication of anyone making preparations to do so.”
…
The Obama administration is also making plans to incarcerate Haitians who might attempt the dangerous sea voyage to the US, which every year claims the lives of hundreds. Officials told the Times they are “laying plans to scoop up any boats carrying illegal immigrants and send them to Guantánamo Bay”—the US military base in Cuba notorious for the abuse of “terror suspects”.
…
The State Department has gone so far as to refuse visas for sick and dying Haitians seeking treatment at an emergency field hospital adjacent to Miami’s airport. Dr. William O’Neill, dean of the University of Miami medical school, which established the hospital, called the callous policy “beyond insane.” The State Department is headed by Secretary Hillary Clinton, who, along with her husband former President Bill Clinton, has postured as a friend to Haiti’s earthquake survivors.
The measures to stop Haitians from seeking refuge in the US border on the sadistic. While the US has refused to allow numerous relief flights to land at the Port-au-Prince airport, each day, a US Air Force cargo plane has circled for hours above Haiti’s desperate population broadcasting the following Creole-language radio message: “Listen, don’t rush on boats to leave the country. If you do that, we’ll all have even worse problems. Because, I’ll be honest with you: If you think you will reach the US and all the doors will be wide open to you, that’s not at all the case. And they will intercept you right on the water and send you back home where you came from.”
The Miami Herald reported Tuesday that the US has banned commercial flights from Haiti, not because of damage to the airport, but because potential passengers cannot be screened against terrorist watch-lists and put through metal detectors. Spirit Airlines and American Airlines have been flying cargo and relief workers into Port-au-Prince since last Wednesday, but their flights return “with hundreds of empty seats.” An exception came Monday, when a few dozen US college students and Fox reporter Geraldo Rivera were granted a security clearance by the State Department and flown back on Spirit.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17115
5. “International Criminal Court Complaint Filed Against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Rice, Gonzales”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17091
6. “US corporations, private mercenaries, Washington and the International Monetary Fund are using the crisis in Haiti to make a profit, promote unpopular neoliberal policies, and extend military and economic control over the Haitian people.
…
Disaster Capitalism Comes to Haiti
As Noami Klein thoroughly proved in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, throughout history, “while people were reeling from natural disasters, wars and economic upheavals, savvy politicians and industry leaders nefariously implemented policies that would never have passed during less muddled times.” This push to apply unpopular neoliberal policies began almost immediately after the earthquake in Haiti.
In a talk recorded by Democracy Now!, Klein explained that the disaster in Haiti is created on the one hand by nature, and on the other hand “is worsened by the poverty that our governments have been so complicit in deepening. Crises—natural disasters are so much worse in countries like Haiti, because you have soil erosion because the poverty means people are building in very, very precarious ways, so houses just slide down because they are built in places where they shouldn’t be built. All of this is interconnected. But we have to be absolutely clear that this tragedy, which is part natural, part unnatural, must, under no circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti, and, two, to push through unpopular corporatist policies in the interests of our corporations.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17089
7. “Blame the all-powerful left!
In what universe must someone be living to believe that the Democratic Party is controlled by “the Left,” let alone “the furthest left elements” of the Party? As Ezra Klein says, the Left “ha[s] gotten exactly nothing they wanted in recent months.” The Left wanted a single-payer system, then settled for a public option, then an opt-out public option, then Medicare expansion — only to get none of it, instead being handed a bill that forces every American to buy health insurance from the private insurance industry. Nor was it “the Left” — but rather corporatist Democrats like Evan Bayh and Lanny Davis — who cheered for the hated Wall Street bailout; blocked drug re-importation; are stopping genuine reform of the financial industry; prevented a larger stimulus package to lower unemployment; refuse to allow programs to help Americans with foreclosures; supported escalation in Afghanistan (twice); and favor the same Bush/Cheney terrorism policies of indefinite detention, military commissions, and state secrets.
The very idea that an administration run by Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel and staffed with centrists, Wall Street mavens, and former Bush officials — and a Congress beholden to Blue Dogs and Lieberdems — has been captive “to the Left” is so patently false that everyone should be too embarrassed to utter it. For better or worse, the Democratic strategy has long been and still is to steer clear of their leftist base and instead govern as “pragmatists” and centrists — which means keeping the permanent Washington factions pleased. That strategy may or not be politically shrewd, but it is just a fact that the dreaded ”Left” has gotten very little of what it wanted the entire year. Is there anyone who actually believes that “The Left” is in control of anything, let alone the Democratic Party? The fact that Lanny Davis — to prove the Left’s dominance — has to cite one provision that was jettisoned (the public option) and another which the Left hates (the mandate) reflects how false that claim is. What are all of the Far Left policies the Democrats have been enacting and Obama has been advocating? I’d honestly love to know.
…
As I note in my NYT contribution today, the reasons for the Democrats’ failings generally — and the Scott Brown victory specifically — are complex, and shouldn’t be simplified in order to declare vindication for pre-existing beliefs (Obama loyalists: it was all about Coakley!; right-wing Democrats: it’s all the Left’s fault!; Republicans: it’s a rejection of liberalism!). But whatever else is true, the Left, as usual, has very little power, both within the Party and in general. Blaming them for the Democrats’ failings is about as rational as the 2006 attempt to blame them for the collapsing Iraq War. The Left is many things; “dominant within the Democratic Party and our political discourse” is not one of them.
* * * * *
All that said, and as horrible as the Democrats have been all year, the most amazing — and depressing — aspect of all of this is how Americans have so quickly forgotten how thoroughly the Republicans, during their eight-year reign, destroyed the country. Whatever the source of our national woes are, re-empowering that faction cannot possibly be the answer to anything.
…
Exactly. Of course, none of those things has happened, precisely because the Democrats under Obama (and before) have been doing everything except “governing from the Left.” But our political discourse, as usual, is so suffuse with blinding stupidity that this clichéd falsehood — Democrats have been beholden to the Left — will take root as Unchallengeable Truth and shape what happens next. That’s already happening.”
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
8. “It’s ironic. It’s hypocritical. It’s a fraud. The “war on terrorism” branded by America is a propaganda cover for the worst terrorists in the world.
What was the invasion and occupation of Iraq but an act of terrorism? Everyone now knows that the faux war was born of a fraud. The deception had no legitimate purpose except to terrorize countries that (a) produce oil, (b) harbour Al-Qaeda or (c) threaten Israel.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24457.htm
