15 April 2021 — Covert Action Magazine
U.S. soldiers at Bagram air base in Afghanistan. [Source: nytimes.com]
On Wednesday April 14th, President Joe Biden announced that he would end the U.S.’s longest war and withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan on the 20th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.
22 March, 2010 — HLLN
Haiti & Africa: The Horrors of Humanitarian Aid
www.burbankdigest.com/node/275
Bipartisan oppression of Haiti- Clinton/Bush together in an occupied Haiti where majority party and masses excluded, banned from elections since Bush Regime change 2004
“U.S.-promoted agricultural policies, such as forcing Haitian rice farmers to compete against U.S.-subsidized agribusiness, cost an estimated 830,000 rural jobs.” bit.ly/clXFeC
Clinton apologizes for neoliberal policies that destroyed Haiti’s rice production…| bit.ly/aoxLSo
USAID paid at least $160 million of its total Haiti-related expenditures to the Defense Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, two local U.S. search and rescue teams and, in at least two instances, itself. Tens of millions more went to U.S.-based aid groups…much of that bought food and other necessities for Haitians, often from U.S. companies — including highly subsidized rice growers whose products are undercutting local producers, driving them out of business. One cent of every dollar has gone to the Haitian government… (Billions for Haiti, a criticism for every dollar By JONATHAN M. KATZ (AP) – Mar 5, 2010) bit.ly/cmy6SE
27 January, 2010 — Global Research – February 29, 2004
“Washington seeks to reinstate Haiti as a full-fledged US colony, with all the appearances of a functioning democracy. The objective is to impose a puppet regime in Port-au-Prince and establish a permanent US military presence in Haiti.
“The US Administration ultimately seeks to militarize the Caribbean basin.
“The island of Hispaniola is a gateway to the Caribbean basin, strategically located between Cuba to the North West and Venezuela to the South. The militarization of the island, with the establishment of US military bases, is not only intended to put political pressure on Cuba and Venezuela, it is also geared towards the protection of the multibillion dollar narcotics transshipment trade through Haiti, from production sites in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.” — (Michel Chossudovsky, The Destabilization of Haiti, Global Research, February 28, 2004)
Author’s Preface
This article was written almost six years ago in the last days of February 2004. It was published on February 29th, 2004, on the same day as the US sponsored coup d’Etat, which led to the kidnapping and deportation of the country’s elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The coup d’Etat had been prepared will in advance. Following consultations behind closed doors in Ottawa in January 2003, the US, with the support of France and Canada took the necessary steps to carry out a Coup d’Etat and forcefully abduct President Aristide.
Barely two weeks following the February 2004 coup d’Etat, a puppet regime was installed by the “international community”. In April 2004, a contingent of over 8000 UN ”peace-keeping” forces under Brazilian command entered Haiti.
Haiti has been under foreign military occupation for the last six years. In this context, the January 2010 earthquake has provided Washington with a justification to bring in an additonal 10,000 foreign forces into the country. This influx of US combat troops into Haiti reinforces MINUSTAH’s “peacekeeping” contingent bringing total occupation forces to more than 20,000.
This article largely focusses on the history of the 2004 US led coup d’Etat, including its preparations. It also outlines the process of economic destabilization under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank which played a key role in the events leading up to the military coup.
18 January, 2010 — Rebel Reports
The Orwellian-named mercenary trade group, the International Peace Operations Association, didn’t waste much time in offering the
“services” of its member companies to swoop down on Haiti for some old fashioned humanitarian assistance disaster profiteering. Within hours of the massive earthquake in Haiti, the IPOA created a special web page for prospective clients, saying: “In the wake of the tragic events in Haiti, a number of IPOA’s member companies are available and prepared to provide a wide variety of critical relief services to the earthquake’s victims.”
While some of the companies specialize in rapid housing construction, emergency relief shelters and transportation, others are
private security companies that operate in Iraq and Afghanistan like Triple Canopy, the company that took over Blackwater’s massive State Department contract in Iraq. For years, Blackwater played a major role in IPOA until it left the group following the 2007 Nisour Square massacre.
In 2005, while still a leading member of IPOA, Blackwater’s owner Erik Prince deployed his forces in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Far from some sort of generous gift to the suffering people of the US gulf, Blackwater raked in some $70 million in Homeland Security contracts that began with a massive no-bid contract to provide protective services for FEMA. Blackwater billed US taxpayers $950 per man per day.
The current US program under which armed security companies work for the State Department in Iraq—the Worldwide Personal Protection Program—has its roots in Haiti during the Clinton administration. In 1994, private US forces, such as DynCorp, became a staple of US operations in the country following the overthrow of Jean Bertrand Aristide by CIA-backed death squads. When President Bush invaded Iraq, his administration radically expanded that program and turned it into the privatized paramilitary force it is today. At the time of his overthrow in 2004, Aristide was being protected by a San Francisco-based private security firm, the Steele Foundation.
What is unfolding in Haiti seems to be part of what Naomi Klein has labeled the “Shock Doctrine.” Indeed, on the Heritage Foundation blog, opportunity was being found in the crisis with a post titled: “Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S.” “In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region,” wrote Heritage fellow Jim Roberts in a post that was subsequently altered to tone down the shock doctrine language. The title was later changed to: “Things to Remember While Helping Haiti.”
4 September, 2009 — Project Censored
The US government plans to expropriate and demolish the homes of hundreds of Haitians in the shantytown of Cité Soleil to expand the occupying UN force’s military base. The US government contractor DynCorp, a quasi-official arm of the Pentagon and the CIA, is responsible for the base expansion. The base will house the soldiers of the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH). Cité Soleil is the most bullet-ridden battleground of the foreign military occupation, which began after US Special Forces kidnapped and exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on February 29, 2004. Citizens have since been victimized by recurring massacres at the hands of MINUSTAH.
DynCorp’s $5 million contracts include expansion of the principal base, the rebuilding of the Cité Soleil police station and two other militarized outposts, as well as training support and procurement of equipment.
According to Cité Soleil mayor Charles Joseph and a DynCorp foreman at the site, the State Department’s US Agency for International Development (USAID) provides funding for the base expansion—a very unorthodox use of development aid.
Lawyer Evel Fanfan, the president of the Association of University Graduates Motivatd For A Haiti With Rights (AUMOHD), says that about 155 buildings would be razed as the base expansion moves forward. As of March 2009, eighty homes have been demolished. Most of the buildings targeted are homes, but one is a church.
PSC supporters routinely say that PSCs are more cost-effective than their public sector counterparts. They might be right, but how can one be sure if one doesn’t even know how many PSCs are under contract or what the total cost of their services is? — By David Isenberg
14 November, 2008 — Washington (UPI)
It is always difficult to write about private security contractors in Iraq because of the paucity of hard data. But we can now say that there are far more of them than we thought and that we are paying more for their services than previously known.
According to a recent government audit, first reported in The New York Times, at least 310 PSCs from around the world have received contracts from U.S. agencies to protect American and Iraqi officials, installations, convoys and other entities in Iraq since 2003, at a cost of about $6 billion.
24 September, 2007
Mercenary armies are not new. Before conscription most wars were fought with hired hands, often consisting of soldiers from many countries serving under a single flag, so the use of mercenaries in Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia (and let us not forget the hired killers who fought under the South African flag all across Southern Africa, see below) should not come as a surprise, nor should the BBC’s constant use of the term “civilian contractor” instead of mercenary come as a surprise to us either.
18 May 2003
‘Mercenaries are outlawed under Article 47 of the Geneva Convention. In December 1994 the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 49/1150 urging all nations ‘to take the necessary steps and to exercise the utmost vigilance against the menace posed by the activities of mercenaries’. The UN International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries has been signed or ratified by twenty-one countries.’ – http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/sheppard.htm
The New Dark Age 