In Sweeping Critique, Kerry Condemns Bush for Failing to Back Aristide

[Chicago Democrat]

By DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID M. HALBFINGER

Published: March 7, 2004


OUSTON, March 6 — Had he been sitting in the Oval Office last weekend as rebel forces were threatening to enter Port-au-Prince, Senator John Kerry says he would have sent an international force to protect Haiti's widely disliked elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

"I would have been prepared to send troops immediately, period," Mr. Kerry said on Friday, expressing astonishment that President Bush, who talks of supporting democratically elected leaders, withheld any aid and then helped spirit Mr. Aristide into exile after saying the United States could not protect him.

"Look, Aristide was no picnic, and did a lot of things wrong," Mr. Kerry said. But Washington "had understandings in the region about the right of a democratic regime to ask for help. And we contravened all of that. I think it's a terrible message to the region, democracies, and it's shortsighted."

Mr. Kerry's critique on Haiti, which Bush campaign aides dismissed as political, was emblematic of how he is already using national security issues in his head-to-head contest with the president.

rest at

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/politics/campaign/07KERR.html?hp

[drthais]

1. you should have been watching C-spen today....

the COngressional Black Caucus
was taking Noriega DOWN DOWN DOWN
and his table of white boys

I actually came in from working in the garden
and sat down to watch
it was great fun
they called the administration on each aspect
of the Aristide debacle

[WarNoMore]

2. Where are you to be

lucky enough to be out in your garden? I"m longing for Spring and the garden.

[K8-EEE]

15. I Was Gardening Today Too (In Los Angeles)

This is the best gardening season -- along with Fall, since the summer is too hot for a lot of things.

I have sweet peas, snow peas, "monet" mixed lettuce, cilantro, nasturtium and pink jasmine doing AWESOME right now.

[drthais]

19. I'm in Louisiana

north of Baotn ROuge
so here, it is most DEFINITELY spring
down in New Orleans, though
it's Spring on Steroids!!!!

like all other Februarys
we can work in the yard toward the garden
but cannot plow because it is still too wet
so we have flats of veggies in the greenhouse
ready to go any minute now

[I AM SPARTACUS]

23. howdy from the swamps o' Tangipahoa...

...and yes, I'm a-waiting to do some tillin' as well...

[Duck90MPH]

9. and his table of white boys

How sweet.

[Tinoire]

30. Maybe you should watch it. It would be a change from the RW sites

you've been getting your news on Haiti from and linking to in your posts.

[Just Me]

12. I finally got to witness the debacle from a couple days ago,...

,...and found it, at worst, challenging *LOL* and, at best, provoking and totally inspiring!!! I witnessed little "appeasement" towards an evolved corporatefascist regime!!! I hope people, all people, will recognize that the modern slavery to corporatists is something we must join to overcome. Corporate fascists do not discriminate in enslavement; yet, their endeavors are the most evil against humanity.

[eablair3]

16. it's available online at c-span.org

right now it's still listed as one of the "Most Watched" video clips at http://www.c-span.org

It's listed as:
"House Int'l Relations Subcmte. Hearing on Haitian Political Situation (03/03/2004)"

[Tinoire]

29. Awesome! Am going to watch it now! THANKS! n/t

[daleo]

3. Kerry is talking a good game

I hope his behavior is congruent, if he is allowed a fair election in November.

[Darranar]

4. Wow!

Good for Kerry!

:toast:

[Frances]

5. I was so proud of the people who questioned

Bush's guy.

The questioners had done their homework and they were hot.

If the other Dems had been as strong and united and forceful as these people were, Gore would be sitting in the White House today.

[Malva Zebrina]

10. Yes they did their homework and were not about to be

scruffed by the lies and the spin of fat boy, Noriega

I admired them immensly.

[Chicago Democrat]

14. It was a very proud moment and made me so happy

to be a Democrat.

[hippiechick]

6. Were there a Dem in office last weekend ....

Aristide never would have 'resigned under duress' and been escorted at gunpoint to Central Africa in the first place.


:hippie:

[Nlighten1]

7. Kerry is kicking ass...

I hope to hear more of this sort of talk...

[Duck90MPH]

8. Does John Kerry endorse Aristide?

Was that his message too?

[I AM SPARTACUS]

13. No. He endorses democracy and elected officials...Read the article.

[I AM SPARTACUS]

11. notice that Kerry said this while in Texas today...

...and in Texas, this sums to be an offer for a good ol' fashion Southern throw-down...

other quotes from the article:

"I think simply Powell, who I know, like and admire, has been never permitted to be fully a secretary of state in the way that I envision the secretary of state. I think Powell — I'm not sure they didn't lock the keys to the airplane up sometimes."
<snip...>
He said he might take a foreign trip during the campaign — he would not say where — an event that would emphasize a diplomatic style distinct from Mr. Bush's.
<snip...>
"This administration has given billions to Halliburton and requested $82 million to protect Iraq's 36 miles of coastline," he said. "But they call this basic body armor a `nonpriority' item."
<snip...>
"Everybody who knows anything about Libya and Qaddafi knows that is not what brought him around (Iraq). They will claim it, they want the linkage, but it is not true, like much of what they say. That deal was on the table several years ago. No matter how much they bluster and futz, they can't fake it."
<snip...>
"There's a reason the Bush administration walked that backwards and chose Iraq. And the reason is in the first eight hours of a conflict with North Korea, you'd have over a million casualties, and they knew that in Iraq you wouldn't."

[K8-EEE]

17. Whoa!! Keep It Up John

I think they should speak out like this and not be all walking on eggshells like Gore. The Truth!! REFRESHING!

[eablair3]

18. Haiti's "widely disliked" elected leader ?

Senator John Kerry says he would have sent an international force to protect Haiti's widely disliked elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

you've got just love the NY Times and other corporate media when they make up statements like this. Did John Kerry say he is "widely disliked"? I doubt that, and it's not in quotes.

Where Aristide "widely disliked"? In the Bush Admin? If he is so "widely disliked" how did he get elected twice with landslides of 67% in about 1990 or 1991 and then later 90% of the vote in 2000 in elections that were more highly regarded than the U.S. presidential election in 2000 that was held prior to the U.S. Supreme Court halting the counting of votes before it appointed Bush as President.

[kiahzero]

21. He got 90% in the last vote, at least,

because the opposition parties were convinced it was fixed, and sat it out.

On edit: Link - http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/12/07/haiti.clinton.ap/

[eablair3]

26. yes, I know ... but it was declared by observer to be fair

the observers who watched the election in 2000 which Aristide won with 90% of the vote called them "fair and peaceful." OAS considered them flawed". The only reason they were supposeldy "flawed" was because the opposition right decided to boycott them. They knew they would lose.

That is not the fault of Aristide.

here's a write up on it:

Two elections took place in 2000. A range of political parties, including Aristide's Lavalas party, contested elections in May. As a result, Aristide dominated the new parliament, holding 19 of the 27 Senate seats and 72 of the 82 lower house seats - 200 international observers assessed the elections as satisfactory. Peter Hallward of King's College London comments in the Guardian:

"An exhaustive and convincing report by the International Coalition of Independent Observers concluded that 'fair and peaceful elections were held' in 2000, and by the standard of the presidential elections held in the US that same year they were positively exemplary."

Why then were the elections criticised as "flawed" by the Organisation of American States (OAS)?

"It was because, after Aristide's Lavalas party had won 16 out of 17 senate seats, the OAS contested the methodology used to calculate the voting percentages. Curiously, neither the US nor the OAS judged this methodology problematic in the run-up to the elections." (Hallward, 'Why they had to crush Aristide', The Guardian, March 2, 2004)

Methodology was contested in the election of eight senators out of a total of 7,500 posts filled. President Aristide persuaded seven of the eight senators to resign. He also agreed to OAS proposals for new elections. The opposition Democratic Convergence, however, did not, demanding instead that Aristide immediately vacate the presidency. Analyst Yifat Susskind explains:

"Members of Haiti's elite, long hostile to Aristide's progressive economic agenda, saw the controversy as an opportunity to derail his government." (Susskind, 'Haiti - Insurrection in the Making, A MADRE Backgrounder', www.zmag.org, February 25, 2004)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=5070



You can't just decide to sit out fair elections, when you know you are going to lose, and then declare them to be corrupt. Nice strategy, but it doesn't fly. And, it didn't fly with the observers of the election. If that were to fly, then all U.S. elections are flawed in the sense that many people, sometimes the majority, sit them out. IF you don't vote, don't bithc.

[lostnfound]

28. Well put. It's not like he was appointed by a Supreme Court..

Or that he disenfranchised white voters by declaring them to be felons.
Or had his cousin arrange to have the election called in his favor on TV.

From the pictures that Tinoire posted, it doesn't look like he restricts protesters to 'free-speech zones', either.

And I doubt that he raised much in corporate campaign funds.

[Disturbed]

20. Kerry and Powell

"I think simply Powell, who I know, like and admire."

Can he really, I mean really mean that? Powell is a lackey, liar for Bushco.

"Widely disliked." Who widely disliked Aristide?

It OBVIOUS that Buscho don't believe in Democracy. They crush it everywhere they can do so. btw Amerika is NOT a Democracy. It's a Plutocracy or some like the term Oligarchy. Amerika is run by the wealthy. Wealthy Presidents and members of Congress are carrying out the bidding of wealthy Americkan and Multi-Corporations.

[Malva Zebrina]

22. He said that about Powell?

Ugh--I cannot stand this politiking.

Why can't people just say honestly what their policies are?

There is no reason whatsoever to say he likes and admires Powell. Why? What reason has Powell given him that is so pending that it impelled him to "like" and "admire" Powell?

I am an ordinary person-and made up my mind more than a year ago that Powell was not a person I could ever like or admire. I clenched that observation when he appeared before the UN and told all of those lies.

and now I supporting a man who says he "likes" and "admires" Powell?

I will never understand it.

I am forced to vote for Kerry--I wish him good luck, but my heart is not in it. I am voting ABB

[I AM SPARTACUS]

25. please read the original quote - not an out-of-context exerpt...

I read it as another jab at Smirko, not an enthusiastic endorsement of Bowel...

"I think simply Powell, who I know, like and admire, has been never permitted to be fully a secretary of state in the way that I envision the secretary of state. I think Powell — I'm not sure they didn't lock the keys to the airplane up sometimes."

[I AM SPARTACUS]

24. you've taken the quote out of context...

...the full quote is:

"I think simply Powell, who I know, like and admire, has been never permitted to be fully a secretary of state in the way that I envision the secretary of state. I think Powell — I'm not sure they didn't lock the keys to the airplane up sometimes."

see the article and my post #11 above...

[leesa]

27. Failing to back him?? He overthrew the elected leader.

Why would he back someone he's overthrowing?