The Fool
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2002
- Messages
- 16,532
what are the interesting differences Luke?Luke T. said:
Some interesting differences.
what are the interesting differences Luke?Luke T. said:
Some interesting differences.
crackmonkey said:Because Noriega didn't answer questions to your satisfaction you conclude that the conspiracy theories are therefore true?
Remarkable logic.
This explains a lot...
The departure of Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a victory for a Bush administration hard-liner who has been long dedicated to Aristide's ouster, U.S. foreign policy analysts say.
That official is Roger Noriega, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, whose influence over U.S. policy toward Haiti has increased during the past decade as he climbed the diplomatic ladder in Washington.
"Roger Noriega has been dedicated to ousting Aristide for many, many years, and now he's in a singularly powerful position to accomplish it," Robert White, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, said last week.
White, now president of the Center for International Policy, a think tank in Washington, said Noriega's ascent largely has been attributed to his ties to North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms, an arch-conservative foe of Aristide who had behind-the-scenes influence over policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean before retiring from the Senate two years ago.
"Helms didn't just dislike Aristide, Helms loathed Aristide because he saw in Aristide another Castro," said Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, which has been strongly critical of the Bush administration's policy on Haiti.
Working hand in hand with Noriega on Haiti has been National Security Council envoy Otto Reich, who, like Noriega, is ardently opposed to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, say analysts such as Birns. Washington diplomats have seen Aristide as a leftist who is often fierce in his denunciations of the business class and slow to make recommended changes such as privatizing state-run industries.
"On a day-to-day basis, Roger Noriega [has been] making policy, but with a very strong role played by Otto Reich," Birns said.
Reich is a controversial Cuban-American criticized by some who have lingering concerns about his contacts with opposition figures who plotted a short-lived coup against Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chávez, two years ago. Reich also is linked to the Iran-contra scandal of two decades ago that was part of President Ronald Reagan's policy of defeating Marxists in Central America.
crackmonkey said:Noriega flatly denies any kidnapping (as did Powell)...
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/politics/04CAPI.html
Ziggurat said:Where's an Isreali lesbian robot Aristide impersonator when you need one?
crackmonkey said:My article contradicts you. It says clearly that Noriega denied ousting him.
Another article saying the same...
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aptKDL.Bzyro&refer=home
yet another
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2004/03/mil-040303-34e7f947.htm
It appears your source was incorrect. If you can find a transcript showing my sources to be wrong, I'll be happy to admit error...
The front pages of major American newspapers and the talking heads on the news channels would have you believe that the resignation of Jean-Bertrand Aristide from his presidency in Haiti was voluntary. Questions have been raised, however, about the manner in which his departure unfolded. In short, there is mounting evidence to suggest that Aristide was removed involuntarily from power by American forces.
Randall Robinson, founder of TransAfrica and a close friend to Aristide, was interviewed on CNN by Wolf Blitzer on Monday afternoon about the events unfolding in Haiti. Robinson, who is one of the few people to actually speak with Aristide since yesterday, said, "We have undertaken a coup against a democratically elected government in Haiti." Congressman Charles Rangel, who also spoke to Aristide, said later on CNN, "He was kidnapped. He resigned under pressure. He and his wife had no idea where he was going. He was very apprehensive for his life."
Powell said that "it might have been better for members of Congress who have heard these stories to ask us about the stories before going public with them so we don't make a difficult situation that much more difficult."
He called Aristide "a man who was democratically elected, but he did not democratically govern or govern well," he said. "Now we are there to give the Haitian people another chance."
Randall Robinson, an African-American activist, told CNN he received a similar phone call from Aristide. And the ex-president's attorney, Ira Kurzban, said that if it is true Aristide was abducted, it would be "a gross violation of human rights."
"It is the worst kind of 19th century gunboat diplomacy," he said. "If this is President Bush's order, the Congress needs to investigate and determine if it's an impeachable offense."
Kurzban said that Aristide did not resign, and suggested that the statement he allegedly signed was either fake or signed under duress.
a_unique_person said:According to this, and it is quoting a US Congressman, he was kidnapped.
WildCat said:Why don't Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel just end this controversy by plucking him out of Africa and bringing him back to the warm embrace of his beloved Haiti and her peaceful people who wouldn't dream of hacking him into little pieces after dragging him behind an SUV for a while?
I'll bet that would require a real kicking and screaming kidnapping...
Which was my point! Do you really think it required a kidnapping to get him out of there?a_unique_person said:
It sounds like half the people after him are the previous dictator and his cronies, who did go around hacking people to death and other atrocities. Like I said, "Baby Doc" is back in town. A man with plenty of blood on his hands.