| Old Articles | | Friday, January 22 | | · | Haiti: An Unwelcome Katrina Redux |
| Thursday, January 21 | | · | Venezuela Steps Up Aid Effort to Haiti, Questions U.S. Military Deployment |
| · | Haiti’s tragedy: A crime of US imperialism |
| Wednesday, January 20 | | · | Legacy of US-Haitian Relations Dating Back to 1804 |
| · | Misinformation and Racism Hamper Recovery Efforts in Haiti |
| Tuesday, January 19 | | · | Profiting From Haiti's Crisis |
| Monday, January 18 | | · | Disaster Capitalism Headed to Haiti |
| · | The Arrogance of Empire, Detailed |
| · | The Lesson of Haiti |
| Sunday, January 17 | | · | Why the US Owes Haiti Billions – The Briefest History |
| · | Shock Therapy? Haiti, Where America Never Learns |
| · | Reparations, not handouts, for Haiti |
| Friday, January 15 | | · | Help Haiti: The Unforgiven Country Cries Out |
| · | Haiti: The Aid Masquerade |
| · | Cuba's Response to Haiti’s Earthquake |
| · | A dirty war in Aden: Britain’s role in Yemen’s history |
| · | Haitian Earthquake Disaster: Made in the USA |
| Thursday, January 14 | | · | Catastrophe in Haiti |
| · | Our Role in Haiti's Plight |
| Wednesday, January 13 | | · | Obama’s Alternate Universe |
Older Articles
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 | | Caribbean: Chomsky on Haiti (interviewed by Keane Bhatt)
Wednesday, March 10 @ 17:53:53 AST |  Aid Should Go to Haitian Popular Organizations, Not to Contractors or NGOs
By Keane Bhatt
March 09, 2010 - counterpunch.org
For decades, Noam Chomsky has been an analyst and activist working in support of the Haitian people. In addition to his revolutionary linguistics career at MIT, he has written, lectured and protested against injustice for 40 years. He is co-author, along with Paul Farmer and Amy Goodman of Getting Haiti Right This Time: The U.S. and the Coup. His analysis "The Tragedy of Haiti" from his 1993 book Year 501: The Conquest Continues is available for free online. This interview was conducted in late February 2010 by phone and email. The interviewer thanks Peter Hallward for his kind assistance.
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World Focus: Quo Vadis, Africa? Some historic Reflections about a truncated Future
Wednesday, March 10 @ 17:50:03 AST |  Quo Vadis, Africa? Some historic Reflections about a truncated Future
By: Franz J. T. Lee
March 10, 2010
"Ex Africa semper aliquid novi"
(Gaius Plinius Secundus (23 - 79)
"If the American people knew what we have done, they would string us up from the lamp posts."
George H. W. Bush (Daddy Bush) 2/07/06
An article I wrote half a decade ago and which was published by VHeadline on April 3, 2005, "Kwame Nkrumah: The dark face of the Bolivarian Revolution" has, over the years, brought about vivid discussions, with reference to the future of the natural and social resources of the African and American continents, to their respective peoples and therewith to humanity as a whole.
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War and Terror: Behind Washington’s Iran policy: Myths and reality
Saturday, March 06 @ 18:32:36 AST |  By Stephen Gowans
February 26, 2010 - gowans.wordpress.com
While Washington’s Iran policy is often described as oriented toward containment of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the aims are much broader, and the assumption that Iran has nuclear weapons ambitions is without foundation. US policy is directed at eclipsing the rise of Iran as an independent economic, military and political power, and seeks as an ultimate objective the subordination of Iran to Washington, economically, militarily and politically. Washington’s short-term goal is to prevent Tehran from developing an independent nuclear power industry that is sufficiently advanced to establish a breakout capability — the potential to rapidly manufacture nuclear arms in response to a crisis. An Iran able to rapidly add a nuclear deterrent to its defensive capabilities threatens Washington’s containment policy by taking away the option of low US and ally casualty level military aggression. Since the Vietnam War the United States has avoided engagements or combat modes that would imperil the lives of large numbers of US soldiers. A war waged against a non-nuclear Iran could be long and drawn out, but is unlikely to produce US casualties of such magnitude as to touch off major resistance within the United States. A war waged against a nuclear-armed Iran, however, would be an altogether more dangerous affair.
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Inside U.S.A.: Empire and Oligarchy: Whatever Happened to "We the People"?
Monday, March 01 @ 20:21:39 AST |  By Ralph Nader
March 1, 2010 - counterpunch.org
The twin swelling heads of Empire and Oligarchy are driving our country into an ever-deepening corporate state, wholly incompatible with democracy and the rule of law.
Once again the New York Times offers its readers the evidence. In its February 25, 2010 issue, two page-one stories confirm this relentless deterioration at the expense of so many innocent people.
The lead story illustrates that the type of massive speculation—casino capitalism, Business Week once called it—in complex derivatives is still going strong and exploiting the weak and powerless who pay the ultimate bill.
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Latin America: Morales in Mexico
Friday, February 26 @ 03:38:37 AST |  By Michael Collins
February 25, 2010 - americasmexico.blogspot.com
It was a hot afternoon in central Coyoacán and the sun beat down heavily on the crowd as they awaited the appearance of charismatic Bolivian leader, Evo Morales. The public queued patiently and edged slowly into the Jardín Hidalgo, following mandatory security checks that are the norm at events of this nature. As the area filled, the more eager of the spectators began to climb onto the bandstand, trees and fences, to get a glimpse of their hero. The smaller members of the audience stood on their tiptoes in preparation for the Bolivian leader’s arrival. A scuffle broke out in the crowd, and the two perpetrators were comically berated by onlookers who reminded them that, “We are socialists, not neocons! Keep the peace.” To warm up the crowd, an M.C. read out some of Evo’s achievements since he began his presidency in 2006. Evo Morales has made Bolivia a literate nation. In 2008, during the financial crisis, Bolivia’s GDP increased by 6%. Evo has successfully nationalized the nation’s gas reserves. He also intermittently entered the stage to give updates on Evo’s whereabouts. “He’s leaving the airport now!” Cheers from the crowd. “His car’s just arrived!” Cheers again. “He’s making his way through the crowd! Yet more cheers.
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Caribbean: American Genocides: Is Haiti Next?
Monday, February 22 @ 15:37:50 AST | By Stephen Lendman
February 22, 2010
Distinguished historian, scholar and activist Gabriel Kolko studied "the nature and purpose of (American) power (since) the 1870s," calling it "violen(t), racis(t), repressi(ve) at home and abroad (and) cultural(ly) mendaci(ous)." It's been the same since inception, historian Howard Zinn calling colonial America:
"a class society from the beginning. America started off as a society of rich and poor, people with enormous grants of land and people with no land. And there were riots, there were bread riots in Boston, and riots and rebellions all over the colonies, of poor against rich, of tenants breaking into jails to release people who were in prison for nonpayment of debt. There was class conflict. We try to" portray a benevolent nation. We weren't then. We're not now.
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Africa Focus: Zimbabwe: Sophists for sanctions
Friday, February 19 @ 03:41:56 AST |  By Stephen Gowans
February 19, 2010 - gowans.wordpress.com
Tony Hawkins, a professor of economics at the University of Zimbabwe, thinks that Western sanctions on Zimbabwe should be maintained but that their effects "are minimal" and that "their continued existence really plays into the hands of some people in Zanu-PF."
You would think, then, that Hawkins would favor the lifting of sanctions. After all, why continue to play into the hands of Zanu-PF, if, like Hawkins, you're opposed to the party, its direction and its program, and the sanctions' effects are minimal anyway?
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Latin America: Venezuela: From Revolution sui generis to Fifth International
Wednesday, February 10 @ 23:16:34 AST |  By Franz J. T. Lee
February 10, 2010
A. Towards a New International
All previous Marxist Internationals
had a sound theoretical
revolutionary foundation. The ideological battles of reformism and
Stalinism, accompanied by brutal assassinations and witch-hunt trials,
against revolutionary theory, against brilliant men and women,
like Leon Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg, were so fierce that the ruling
classes
practically destroyed four promising emancipatory endeavors within 160
years. Plato died long ago but in capitalism his ideas are more alive
than ever. Leon Trotsky was assassinated on Latin American soil, but
his international 'dum spiro spero' (as long as I breathe I hope!), his
Fourth International still yearns for concrete realization, for
permanent world revolution, for emancipation in embryo.
In the attempt to revive massive international working class struggles,
inter alia, theoretically what have we in Venezuela especially to take
into account?
In this short commentary, for
Venezuela, and for the rest of the globe,
let us theoretically highlight some essential elements and reflections
which are indispensable for the building of a New International.
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Racism Watch: Why the Oscars are a Con
Wednesday, February 10 @ 23:12:01 AST | 
By John Pilger
February 10, 2010 - johnpilger.com
Why are so many films so bad? This year’s Oscar nominations are a parade of propaganda, stereotypes and downright dishonesty. The dominant theme is as old as Hollywood: America’s divine right to invade other societies, steal their history and occupy our memory. When will directors and writers behave like artists and not pimps for a world view devoted to control and destruction?
I grew up on the movie myth of the Wild West, which was harmless enough unless you happened to be a native American. The formula is unchanged. Self-regarding distortions present the nobility of the American colonial aggressor as a cover for massacre, from the Philippines to Iraq. I only fully understood the power of the con when I was sent to Vietnam as a war reporter. The Vietnamese were “gooks” and “Indians” whose industrial murder was preordained in John Wayne movies and sent back to Hollywood to glamourise or redeem.
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War and Terror: Budgets, War and Blind Ambition: The Limited Minds of the American Elite
Monday, February 08 @ 19:52:59 AST |  By Chris Floyd
February 08, 2010 - chris-floyd.com
The American elite's unbounded, unquestioned, indeed unconscious sense of imperial entitlement and dominance -- based ultimately on war, the threat of war and the profit from war -- is one of the defining characteristics of our age. And if you would like to see a glaring example of this attitude in action, look no further than the front page of Tuesday's New York Times, where one David Sanger gives us his penetrating "news analysis" of the Administration's just-announced $3.8 trillion budget.
Sanger focuses on the huge, continuing deficits that the budget forecasts over the next decade. Completely ignoring the plain truth that his own expert source tell him later in the story -- that "forecasts 10 years out have no credibility" -- Sanger boldly plunges forward to tell us just what it all means. You will not be surprised to hear that the upshot of these big deficits is that neither Obama nor his successors will be able to spend any money on "new domestic initiatives" for years to come. But let's let Sanger, savant and seer, tell it in his own words:
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War and Terror: Liberals Get a War President of Their Very Own
Monday, February 08 @ 19:32:50 AST |  By Murray Polner
February 08, 2010 - hnn.us
Suddenly and surprisingly, we have a Bush-like Obama Doctrine. To the applause of liberal hawks and formerly critical neocons, the president declared in his Nobel Peace Prize speech that the U.S. will continue to wage war—though naturally, only “just” war—anywhere and against anyone it chooses in a never-ending struggle against the forces of evil. His antiwar supporters can take seats on the sidelines. It’s all reminiscent of John F. Kennedy and the prescient George Ball, and afterward Ball and Lyndon Johnson. In the early ’60s, JFK—reluctantly, we are told by his admirers—decided to send 16,000 “trainers” to Vietnam to teach the South Vietnamese how to play soldier and to stop the Communists from sweeping over Southeast Asia. Vast quantities of money and assorted advisers were shipped without accountability to the corrupt gang of thugs running and ruining that country.
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Latin America: Obama's base pact with Colombia accelerates 'dangerous trend'
Tuesday, February 02 @ 21:48:12 AST |  By Sherwood Ross
February 02, 2010
The Obama administration’s pact to use seven Colombian military bases accelerates “a dangerous trend in U.S. hemispheric policy,” an article in The Nation magazine warns.
The White House claims the deal merely formalizes existing military cooperation but the Pentagon’s 2009 budget request said it needed funds to improve one of the bases in order to conduct “full spectrum operations throughout South America” and to “expand expeditionary warfare capability.”
“With a hodgepodge of treaties and projects, such as the International Law Enforcement Academy and the Merida Initiative, Obama is continuing the policies of his predecessors, spending millions to integrate the region’s military, policy, intelligence and even, through Patriot Act-like legislation, judicial systems,” writes historian Greg Grandin, a New York University professor.
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Caribbean: Q & A with the State Department on Haiti
Friday, January 29 @ 14:41:22 AST | Sending in the Marines
By Judith Scherr
January 29, 2010 - counterpunch.org
The French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet accused the U.S. of “occupying” Haiti rather than helping in the wake of the devastating January 12, 7.0 earthquake. Doctors Without Borders and officials from the Caribbean community expressed similar frustrations, as US military personnel controlling the airport turned away their planes. With just under 20,000 U.S. boots on the ground in Haiti or just off shore, the U.N. military force has augmented its numbers to around 12,000. Still, more than two weeks after the disaster, Haitians lack water, food, medicine, shelter and equipment to dig out those that may still be alive under the rubble.
On January 25 I spoke by phone to Virginia Staab a state department deputy press advisor for Western Hemisphere affairs. I asked about the role of the U.S. and U.N. military forces in post-quake Haiti, and the U.S. reaction to former President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s announcement that he wants to come home [Aristide was ousted in February 2004 by the U.S., France and Canada and exiled in South Africa]. I wanted to know who will rebuild Haiti and how Guantanamo fits into the picture. The transcript that follows has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
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Caribbean: Media Failures on Haiti: Great Television, Bad Journalism
Monday, January 25 @ 13:47:24 AST | By Robert Jensen
January 25, 2010 - commondreams.org
CNN’s star anchor Anderson Cooper narrates a chaotic street scene in Port-au-Prince. A boy is struck in the head by a rock thrown by a looter from a roof. Cooper helps him to the side of the road, and then realizes the boy is disoriented and unable to get away. Laying down his digital camera (but still being filmed by another CNN camera), Cooper picks up the boy and lifts him over a barricade to safety, we hope.
“We don’t know what happened to that little boy,” Cooper says in his report. “All we know now is, there’s blood in the streets.” (To view the CNN story, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Unh4v1lFU0.)
This is great television, but it’s not great journalism. In fact, it’s irresponsible journalism.
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Caribbean: Haiti, Katrina, and Why I Won't Give To Haiti Through the Red Cross
Friday, January 22 @ 06:41:03 AST | By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
January 22, 2010 - blackagendareport.com
What's charitably given isn't always charitably distributed. In 21st century American and its empire, our corporate and military elite wield immense power. Corporate philanthropy serves corporate interests, not human interests, and corporate control over government, culture and media ensure that even funds donated by ordinary citizens can be directed and harvested for elite purposes too.
In the wake of the man-made disaster of Katrina, Americans freely gave tens of millions to the American Red Cross, which used a great deal of it to effectively disperse the population of black New Orleans to the four corners of the continental U.S. Millions more were diverted to their administrative overhead or other projects. But the local Louisiana elites who benefited from the exile of hundreds of thousands of black New Orleans residents were able to use Red Cross funds and personnel to work their will.
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