Pentagon Expands Duties of U.S. Marines in Haiti

[I AM SPARTACUS]

Filed at 6:52 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Marines in Haiti, in an expansion of their mission, plan to hunt down caches of illegal firearms as part of efforts to disarm militants and prevent violence, a senior U.S. commander said on Wednesday.

Army Gen. James Hill, who oversees the Haiti operation as head of Miami-based U.S. Southern Command, told a Pentagon briefing that Marines now will confiscate weapons from any Haitian they encounter in the capital Port-au-Prince ``unless he has a valid permit by Haitian law and is in the process of conducting some valid security job -- anybody.''

``In addition to that, as we develop intelligence and can find weapons caches, we are going to go after those,'' Hill said. ``This is to do two things. First, it's a force-protection issue for my forces. And, secondly, it is to help develop a more secure and stable environment inside Haiti,'' Hill said. Hill said the 1,600 U.S. Marines leading a multinational stability force in the impoverished Caribbean nation had new written instructions ensuring they ``had the ability to go and intervene (in) Haitian-on-Haitian violence.''

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[rwheeler31]

1. ? where did all these poor Haitians get these guns

Could we be the source?

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. Nah, they got no money, but there are lots of guns around

from all the revolutions and lootings of armories and such over the years.
If you look at a crowd, the modern guns are few and far between, most of them are bolt action rifles and such... M1's or M14's being the most common new ones, from the French Army.
AK's come from Nicaragua or Cuba.
the groups with M16's are the ones we are backing... those were recently smuggled in over the Dominican Republic border.

Guns last longer than money does. Bullets even longer.

They can do plenty damage with just machettes, however.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. Can you say Mission Creep? This is exactly the kind of order

which has led to lots of very big messes.

[I AM SPARTACUS]

4. seems Poppy sent troops somewhere just before he was shown the door...

rotten fruit don't fall far from the tree...

[pfitz59]

3. Take the beach, hold the country........

protect the BFEE installed government......oh yeah, watch out for zombies and voodo witch doctors! Can anyone say "mission creep"?

[whistle]

5. Man, this is looking more and more like a coup...

...is the American public getting dumped on again???:hurts:

[dax]

7. Where have you been-it IS A COUP

Even NPR was reporting today as they glossed on the "new government-the host asked the reporter w-"what about the 85% of Haitians who are unemployed-how do they feel about their new government-and the reporter replied that they don't accept it at all, they are angry and want Aristide back and that is why security will be so difficult-they don't like being occupied.

[Just Me]

8. A coup via corporatist backers,...

,...who pay others to have bloody fingers. Meanwhile, the "corporatists" have their media addicts consumed by the likes of Martha Stewart, steroids, obesity and critics of Kerry calling the corporatists what they are, "corrupt liars".

[Moderator]

9. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=410833