#1
http://www.thenation.com/article/163846/wikihaiti-leaked-us-cables-paint-portrait-brutal-ineffectual-and-polluting-un-force

Nothing surprising, although the details of course are shocking to hear.

In one “astonishing” case, according to the cables, UN troops fired 28,000 rounds in just one month in Cité Soleil, a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince known for resisting the UN occupation and the February 2004 coup that ousted Aristide.

“Civilian casualties in Cité Soleil … from 100 wounded in October to between 170 and 205 in December ,” wrote then Chargé d’Affaires Timothy M. Carney in a secret January 19, 2006, cable. “Half of these are women and children. Assertions that all were used as human shields strain credulity.”

Just six months prior, acting under intense U.S. and Haitian elite pressure, 1,440 UN troops sealed off the pro-Aristide slum, firing 22,000 rounds and causing dozens of casualties in just one seven-hour night-time raid on July 6. UN troops continued their attacks throughout the year, regularly firing 2,000 rounds a day, one UN official told the Sydney Morning Herald.



also, there's some more info on the UN resistance to owning up to causing the cholora epidemic. The article references a Haitian columnist named Dady Chery (incredible name) who has a bunch of articles here that I'm reading now.

#2
haiti is hopeless and should be nuked to spare future generations the suffering. imo
#3
[account deactivated]
#4
What is the future for Haitians though? What happens to an island so ecologically broken. do we set up some form of like enviornmental reclamation, employ people that way, do big public works projects and just reboot the country? I mean if we actually want Haitians to have a future?



I'm big Daddy Chery, oooh~! When I was in the separation barracks after I got hurt at bootcamp there was a shifty little black kid who was getting kicked out for stealing who was just called Cherry, he was really really black and if you talked to him his eyes would dart to either side of you, and he was always trying to steal donuts at breakfast. Cherry

In my division, before I got hurt, there were like 80 people total and maybe `9 black guys, and because of my lack of enthusiasm for boot camp and misery we just sort of glommed together and on sunday, our only free day, we'd sit in a circle while we ironed and starched our underwear and t shirts (for skivvy stacks) and do freestyles and it was honestly the only decent thing that happened to make it less miserable, before I got hurt and went to the separation barracks and met a spanish boy who I spent the rest of my months with ,while he waited for his green card thing to be resolved. That's another story though
#5
why are brazil and other latin american countries so invested in going along with this whole thing? do they actually fear an "anti-market" government in haiti, or is it just to score a few points with the US?
#6
Wikileaks releases steampunk wedding photos
#7

VoxNihili posted:
why are brazil and other latin american countries so invested in going along with this whole thing? do they actually fear an "anti-market" government in haiti, or is it just to score a few points with the US?


brazil in particular is angling for a permanent seat on the un security council so it has to beef up its beat-cop child-molestation credentials in haiti. maybe in ten years they can take traditional peacekeeping duties over from france in some small sliver of west africa, and after that the skys the limit

#8
[account deactivated]
#9

discipline posted:
I saw julian assange at occupy london. he said for us to remember that society is made up of individuals and I started to brainstorm how to drag him down to the embassy ...



hahahhahaha