Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Haiti- It just doesn't make sense

People of goodwill everywhere are sympathetic to the plight of these poor folks in the wake of the disaster that has overtaken their pathetic nation in the days prior. Private donations and volunteerism have been at the best I have ever seen them pouring in from all over the world, but most especially so from the US. And this is a good thing, isn't it? So, why I am I bothered by this display of bubbly, selfless humanitarianism? To put it simply, I cannot remember such an all out "relief" effort by our nation's military, and government forces following a natural disaster anywhere in the world, not even in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina did our own fellow citizens receive the kind of federal treatment that Haiti is presently receiving.

I have been to Haiti-twice. Both times as part of a United Methodist mission to assist in the building of schools, and churches. I have met the people, and witnessed the poverty of that land first hand. This took place in the days when "Baby Doc" Duvallier was the resident tyrant, and the "Ton-ton macout"(Haitian military police) reigned unchecked. I was asked by our Haitian interpreter on one occasion why we(America) would not help Haiti win their freedom from oppressive government when they(Haiti) had helped us(America) win ours I was unsure at that time what he had meant by that statement. But upon the administration of an in-depth history lesson which I gave to myself, I learned that their were 700 Haitian sailors on board the French ships that were instrumental in the defeat of Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, a footnote that has been overlooked by most writers of the history of that event. I think that for the record, it should be noted that Haiti was then a French possession, which would give explanation as to why this turn of events took place. It also bears noting that Haiti was the first black republic in history to gain its independence from France in 1803 under the leadership of Toussaint L'Overture, who was something of a black version of George Washington in terms of his visionary leadership for this infant nation. His place in Haitian national history has the status that can only be accorded to a figure of such prominence.

Unfortunately, the story of the Haitian republic does not have a happy ending. There have been many reasons given as to why this is so, including the one that is most often circulated by members of the establishment churches that the Haitians "made a deal with the devil", and thus lost the favor of God over their nation. Of course, this could be the excuse for most of the problems of any of the other nations of the world in this respect, including the USA. But before I digress... every plea made by this people to the world, and most especially the US government, has fallen on deaf ears... until this year, and until this disaster. It is certainly not because the plight of our Caribbean neighbor has not been known until now. It is certainly not because this catastrophe has suddenly reduced the standard of living, and created chaos in a nation that has been a stable democratic republic up to this point. In further talks to my Haitian friend Jean Baptiste, he mentioned to me that "20,000 US troops strategically deployed would be enough to give Haiti its freedom".

It is interesting to note that as of January 24, there were 20,000 US troops in Haiti operating on ground, and offshore. Suffice it to say that without opposition from any Haitian national forces the United States military is now completely in charge in Haiti. Barack Obama called the Haitian situation "especially cruel, and incomprehensible". It would have been better, and closer to the truth, for him to say that the Haitian political, and economic climate is what has made the Haitians helpless in the face of natural disasters, and that this fact is what is most "especially cruel, and incomprehensible". I also shared this observation with my friend in our talks of yore as to why I believed that an American staged coup would not achieve the desired result for his homeland.

Walter Williams has rightly observed in his column dated 1/20/10 entitled "Haiti's Avoidable Death Toll" that "corruption is rampant in Haiti, and crime is ubiquitous with little real law enforcement. Private property rights are non-existent. Like most third world countries, people live in tyranny, and bondage to insensitive, power-mad strongmen who enrich themselves on the country's resources at the expense of their people". Williams concludes his work by saying that "Haiti's disaster demands immediate Western assistance, but it is only the Haitian people who can relieve themselves of the deeper tragedy of their self-inflicted poverty".

All of this being said, there is still something that "is rotten in the state of Denmark," to quote Shakespeare, about the Haiti story. For one thing, why was an earthquake of this magnitude not felt beyond the city limits of Port-au-Prince? All of the testimonies that I have read from people living in the adjoining country of the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, which were quoted by sources other than the US controlled media, have said universally that they felt nothing. If that is true, then the devastation was almost exclusively felt in and around Port-au-Prince. Having been a teacher of Geography, and a lifelong student of earth science, that is very strange to me. Even most of the roads remained open in the wake of the "quake".

Another oddity is the fact that this earthquake did not produce a tsunami of monumental proportions like the Asian quake of "06" did swamping the shores of Thailand, and India thousands of miles away. For the record, Port-au-Prince is just 750 miles from Miami, Florida. An earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter Scale would have had to have produced a tsunami that would have affected everyone in the Caribbean region and beyond, even to the shores of the USA.

Furthermore, Agence France-Press, which is closely affiliated with French Intelligence, filed a report on January 14th which contained the following sentence: "On Wednesday, Obama ordered a "swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort to save lives" in Haiti following the murderous earthquake, as massive US Aid mission swung into action, using troops, naval forces, aircraft, and rescue teams". An earthquake is an "act of God", or a natural calamity, and can, therefore, not be considered "murderous", unless one considers God Almighty a murderer.

However, by any definition, the use of the word "murderous" must imply that someone is doing the murdering. Upon further scrutiny, I discovered speculative reports that the "earthquake" may have been the work of US Black Ops, which "flattened the French embassy, and many of its officials, imploding the United Nations' own establishments in the Haitian capital, which would serve as cover for any evidence of US Government, and rogue official drug-running involvement which has been known to be channeled through the Haitian capital for years. All of this is in the wake of intelligence reports that have been circulating about the possible disruption of liens, and seizures of trillions of dollars by the international community relative to the past criminal activities committed by former Presidents Bush 1&2, and Bill Clinton, which were being channeled through Haiti's Central Bank. If this information were to come to light, it is very understandable why the Haitian capital would need to be destroyed.

For those of us who have been paying attention to such matters, it is well known that certain members of the Bush and Clinton families have been involved in the international smuggling of illicit drugs for decades. Those who have been in positions to know such things have stated emphatically that both the then Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, and the then President George H.W. bush were so-called "partners in crime" in assisting CIA drug running out of Mena, Arkansas, which would explain why they have been so "buddy-buddy" lately. And it has been reported that the CIA used Army Special forces(Black Ops) to facilitate the smuggling of drugs out of Indo-China during the Vietnam War, has it not? So, there is no reason to not believe that rogue elements in the US Government would use war, or even "earthquakes"(Project Destiny) as cover for illegal drug smuggling, or money laundering.

While I realize it is very difficult for Americans to contemplate that members of their own federal government could be evil enough to be involved in any such thing as this, the words of Thomas Jefferson ring true when he said: "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in any man, 'cept in him who is bound from mischief by the chains of the Constitution".

Just today I read a quote in the local newspaper coming from none other than Venezuelan strong-man Hugo Chavez that was worded: "the US Government has used the Haitian disaster as an excuse to invade, and occupy a sovereign nation". Lest you be fooled, I am no friend of this pompous Latin blowhard. However, his statement, when taken in light of the prescient evidence, has some weight, and cannot be thus summarily dismissed as just more Anti-American propaganda from some left-wing crackpot.

What I am trying to say here is that there are a lot of loose ends that just don't come together no matter how hard you try to put them together. They just don't add up in regards to what is going on in Haiti. The way the so-called "earthquake" behaved, the lack of seismic related activity normally associated with quakes of this magnitude, the unprecedented involvement of the US Government, and military forces being used for "relief efforts" when US commanders are desperately trying to equip combat theaters in Iraq, and Afghanistan, the occupation(military) of another independent nation, the vast sums of US taxpayer dollars being expended, the devastation that has been done to key Haitian Governmental, and financial institutions which were known channels for international financial disbursements, with none of the devastation experienced elsewhere, all add up to beg the question; What's really going on in Haiti? It doesn't make sense!

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