Not long ago President Aristide in a way was our Poster Boy for benevolent intervention But questions lingered over whether Aristide left office voluntarily. As to exactly how the US intelligence community could have aided the A senior US military official acknowledged that some American weapons The Central Intelligence Agency declined to respond to questions yesterday According to news reports at the time, the exercise apparently came The Vietnam war in the 60’s and 70’s was a shocking, eye-opening experience Could it be possible, we began to wonder, after growing up steeped in Now its all coming back like a bad acid flashback. Once again we feel In Iraq, it is becoming increasingly clear that American foreign policy To make matters worse, we are in the embarrassing position of being But it just LOOKS bad to have the news full of Iraqi’s demonstrating And in Saudi Arabia, it definitely looks to us that we are backing the We will forego casting aspersions on US policy vis a vis Israel and The central principal of a democracy is that if you don’t like your The Dowbrigade weeps for what quotes from the Boston Globe<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is happening in the streets of Haiti is more than a tragedy and a travesty of supposed American support for Democracy. We are seeing a death struggle between an immoral gang of thugs, killers and dope dealers and a … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/haiti5.jpg\")
What
\n is happening in the streets of Haiti is more than a tragedy and a travesty
\n of supposed American support for Democracy. We are seeing
\n a death struggle between an immoral gang of thugs,
\n killers and dope dealers<\/a> and a well-intentioned but misguided
\n and unrealistic regime trying to end centuries of neglect, social decay
\n and external exploitation. And
\n once again, improbably, the United States seems to be on the wrong side.<\/p>\n
\n and support for Democracy. Now he is just in the way. Although the State Department admits to “encouraging” him to leave office, the reality seems to have been a bit more emphatic. From today’s
\n Boston Globe<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n
\n Ira Kurzban, Aristide’s Miami-based lawyer, said yesterday that the
\n 50-year-old Haitian leader was “kidnapped” by US troops and
\n taken forcibly from the National Palace. Kurzban said he was not able
\n to contact Aristide
\n and feared for his safety.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n rebels, there are rumors that a mysterious (even to the DR) “security
\n exercise” on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic last
\n year was designed to funnel thousands of assault rifles to the rebels,
\n arms which are even now pouring into Port au Prince in the hands of drug-crazed
\n teenagers.<\/p>\n\n
\n sold to the neighboring Dominican Republic last year may have ended up
\n in the hands of opposition forces in Haiti, but stressed that they were
\n not provided as part of some covert US activity and could have been acquired
\n from the Dominican military.<\/p>\n
\n whether it had any role in Haiti.<\/p>\n
\n as a surprise to the country’s foreign minister, who publicly denounced
\n the operation. The US official said 20,000 M-16s were provided to the
\n Dominican forces to help the country guard its border with Haiti and
\n that all the weapons could not be accounted for.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/zombie1.jpg\")
The
\n Dowbrigade has been getting a lot of Vietnam flashbacks lately, although
\n we have
\n never
\n actually
\n visited
\n that
\n unfortunate
\n nation.
\n However,
\n we are currently suffocating under a blanket impression that our
\n beloved country, which
\n used to stand for Truth, Justice and the universal human aspirations
\n for dignity, security and moral values, is being used to ends that,
\n although perhaps in our commercial or geo-political interests,
\n completely ignore the values on which our country was built.<\/p>\n
\n for the young baby boomers. We had been brought up believing that
\n our country was ALWAYS on the right, winning side. The US was the
\n beacon of truth and justice in a backward world still clinging to the
\n totalitarian traditions of the past. The Dowbrigade, for one, truly believed
\n this down to the depths of his soul. But how were we supposed to reconcile
\n these core beliefs with what we were seeing on the TV sets in our kitchens
\n and living rooms? The incessant carpet bombing of cities and villages
\n not only in North Vietnam but also Laos and Cambodia? The naked napalmed
\n children running screaming down the roads? The towns and hamlets razed
\n as euphemistic “pacification”? The drained and haunted returning veterans
\n offering first-hand testimonials to the moral
\n bankrupcy of the war effort and confessing to atrocities in the name
\n of America? <\/p>\n
\n the Audie Murphy and
\n John Wayne iconography of won wars, evil Nazis and Japs and heroic GI’s,
\n that this time WE were the bad guys? What a world view shakeup that was!
\n Is it any wonder an entire generation went off the deep end?<\/p>\n
\n unclean, ashamed, unable to explain or elucidate exactly how
\n we
\n got onto
\n the wrong
\n path,
\n but instinctually
\n certain
\n that
\n something
\n has gone horribly, horribly wrong. It is not only in Haiti that it
\n seems the US is allied with shadowy forces of darkness.<\/p>\n
\n has been hijacked in the name of some dark 19th century inter-family
\n blood vendetta between the Bushes and the Husseins. Although no fan of
\n the latter, the Dowbrigade sincerely believes that there are more serious
\n and immediate threats to our person and nation, and that the diversion
\n and waste of so much money, effort and accumulated goodwill, not to mention
\n an ever-expanding list of American boys and girls who can never come home except in a box, on such a petty,
\n personal, embarrassingly transparent revenge scenario amounts to a criminal
\n abuse of power.<\/p>\n
\n OPPOSED to holding elections for a new Iraqi government. Didn’t
\n we “liberate” these people in order to allow them to freely choose their
\n own leaders? Now, the Dowbrigade is NOT an expert in Middle Eastern Foreign
\n Policy, and there may very well be good reasons why we can’t hold fair
\n and safe elections there yet. After all, even after we kicked out the
\n British, it took a few years before we had a functioning constitution
\n and an elected president in place.<\/p>\n
\n in FAVOR of elections and the occupying army of the United States saying
\n “No way.” It’s bad enough that we are the occupying army, without seeming
\n to be holding down the legitimate democratic aspirations of the local
\n population.<\/p>\n
\n wrong guys. We are deeply committed to supporting a completely
\n non-Democratic feudal family dynasty which constantly trashes the human
\n rights of more than half their population (the women) and encourages
\n an virulent anti-Americanism in the disenfranchised population which
\n led directly to the 9\/11 tragedy. In what amounts to America’s foremost
\n Venal Sin, we do it because we need their oil as much as any junkie needs
\n a fix, because the withdrawal pains of even cutting back our consumption
\n would be so terrible regimes would fall and millions could die.<\/p>\n
\n the Palestinians because it seems to the Dowbrigade that there is no
\n “right side” in that one, no “good guys” at all, just a tragic and deadly
\n dance between death-besotted fanatics on all sides.<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/haiti3.jpg\")
Perhaps
\n we are engaging in a bit of old-fogeyism here, pining for a clearer world
\n that never was, but we don’t think so. There was a time
\n when there was a clear-cut line between
\n right
\n and wrong,
\n and
\n our country at least tried to be on the right side of it at
\n all times. When we were friends with Democracies and enemies of dictatorships,
\n and in those dictatorships offered moral and financial support for authentic
\n resistance and liberation movements (South Africa, for example).<\/p>\n
\n government, you don’t need to kill anybody, just wait until the next
\n election and vote the bums out. Despite the smoke and mirrors from the
\n White House and the State Department, it looks
\n like
\n we had more
\n than
\n a little
\n to
\n do with
\n the premature
\n departure
\n of Haiti’s democratically elected President, who, according to AP, “fled
\n the country under heavy American guard”.<\/p>\n
\n America has become. We long to feel again the
\n righteous
\n pride
\n in
\n our
\n country,
\n and
\n its position
\n in
\n world
\n affairs. Not
\n as an invader or occupying army or even as “peace keeping” troops, but
\n simply as a moral example and as a beacon of liberty to oppressed and
\n freedom-loving people the world over.<\/p>\n