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| Caribbean-Latin America | ||
| Myers vows crackdown as Haiti tensions rise | ||
| 2004-03-14 | ||
The United States' top soldier has vowed that foreign peacekeepers would take tough action against trouble-makers in Haiti, hours after Marines killed two more gunmen in a firefight in the tense Caribbean nation. General Richard Myers, chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew into Port-au-Prince at the end of a Latin American trip. He is visiting US Marines, who are leading a force sent to restore order after deposed president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was exiled last month. "The multilateral force will not tolerate violence against [itself] ... nor violence against Haitian civilians," General Myers said. "Those who take up arms and those who take up violence will be dealt with properly."
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| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 I just wish the ABC would figure out the difference between a battle and a skirmish... |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-3-14 10:07:36 PM |
| #6 The only thing that could help Haiti is for all the Black churches of this country to set up shop and help bring them some sanity. Other than that it's backoff and let the poor devils have at it. From what I can tell the place is a backward bunch of exslaves on PCP. Pretty funny what that French guy said. I wonder if the Frenchies have a marching song about their Haitian campaigns in the past. "They kicked us in the ass, our enemy didn't have any class" "They chopped us up at night, before we had a chance to fight" "We told them we'ed be back, it's late now so we'll hit the sack" |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-3-14 3:49:09 PM |
| #5 Old Spook: I'd feel a lot better about the possibility if we hadn't already tried this from 1916-1934, with dismal results. I have to admit, US politics of the era (especially Wilson's egregious stupidity) played a heavy hand in making the bad problems in Haiti worse, and I don't expect Bush II to make similar mistakes. I also don't believe there's an easy or even reasonable answer to the problems in Haiti. To "do it right" may take several decades, and more billions than it would be worth. Unlike Iraq, where there was a working society to begin with (although severely repressed), there is nothing similar in Haiti to build on. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-3-14 12:30:58 PM |
| #4 Hait now is just a delayed cleanup from the botched intervention under Clinton. We didnt finish the job right in the 1990's so we are now payign the price for letting Haiti fester for a decade under the bandit Aristde. Anyone want to pull out of iraq now is risking the same thing on a much larger scale. WIht a lot more loss of life for the US. Haiti and Iraq must be committed to for the long term - to rebuild the infrastructure and people to where they cna actually rna a democracy instead of a kleptocracy or mullah led dictatorship. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-3-14 11:53:30 AM |
| #3 I agree this is a political trap by Dems to hold the Republicans to the same standard of intervention for poor-ass countries versus potentially very rich countries, like Iraq or Kuwait. The irony is that if the Marines didn't step in, there would have been a blood bath, and Mr Aristide would have ended up hanging from a lightpost. Sometimes doing the right thing isn't always the smartest thing. This could end up biting Bush in the Ass, but lets remember that Somalia was Clintons failure, not Bush senior. GWB doesn't put restrictions on the military's use of force, so the likelyhood of this turning into Somalia is nill. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-3-14 10:59:44 AM |
| #2 quagmire quigmire run run. Seriously this is not a quagmire, have there been hundreds or thousands of soldiers from any nationality killed yet, no not even one,are the soldiers 'bogged down' by the eneamy as the term quagmire implies in this situation,answer agin no, the troops are free to do as they wish under the rules of engagement and have absolutly no tactical threat that can or will stop them doing what they wanna do. I suggest you learn a little about warfare before banding about words like quagmire so readily |
| Posted by: Jon Shep U.K 2004-3-14 6:49:43 AM |
| #1 After the USA liberated Kuwait in 1991, the anti-war Left demanded the USA deploy troops to Somalia. After the liberation of Iraq, the anti-war Left demanded the USA intervene in Liberia then Haiti. Both Presidents Bush fell for the cruel joke. Now, the US military is up to here in a quagmire in Haiti as was the case in Somalia. |
| Posted by: Garrison 2004-3-14 4:09:01 AM |