Twitter This Commentary In The News: Because there were already 2000 organizations operating on Haiti there are already a number of them with 'boots on the ground'. There are two companies of the US Army's 82nd airborne setting up security and logistics for the 5,000 more Airborne and 5000 Marines with heavy equipment and helicopters expected to arrive shortly. Some satellite photos of the damage in Port-au-Prince HERE. If you need reliable donation and relief fund information see this article at The Nation Magazine for a comprehensive list of reliable 'boots on the ground' in Haiti for your donation considerations or, per Alternet, AmeriCares (Claim: 99% of AmeriCare funds go to direct aid). Also see this comprehensive list from The Peace Alliance. More thoughts about those '2000 organizations', in the commentary. Thoughts on the apparently benign US military presence? Ted Rall, Cartoonist/Commentator, comments on that oft used phrase that you're going to hear even more of in the near future: "Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere...", and informs us "In Haiti this week, don't blame tectonic plates. Ninety-nine percent of the death toll is attributable to poverty."

As grim accounts of the earthquake in Haiti came in, the accounts in U.S.-controlled state media all carried the same descriptive sentence: "Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere..." Gee, I wonder how that happened? You'd think Haiti would be loaded. After all, it made a lot of people rich. How did Haiti get so poor? Despite a century of American colonialism, occupation, and propping up corrupt dictators? Even though the CIA staged coups d'état against every democratically elected president they ever had? It's an important question. An earthquake isn't just an earthquake. The same 7.0 tremor hitting San Francisco wouldn't kill nearly as many people as in Port-au-Prince. "Looking at the pictures, essentially it looks as if (the buildings are of) breezeblock or cinderblock construction, and what you need in an earthquake zone is metal bars that connect the blocks so that they stay together when they get shaken," notes Sandy Steacey, director of the Environmental Science Research Institute at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. "In a wealthy country with good seismic building codes that are enforced, you would have some damage, but not very much." When a pile of cinderblocks falls on you, your odds of survival are long. Even if you miraculously survive, a poor country like Haiti doesn't have the equipment, communications infrastructure or emergency service personnel to pull you out of the rubble in time. And if your neighbors get you out, there's no ambulance to take you to the hospital--or doctor to treat you once you get there. Earthquakes are random events. How many people they kill is predetermined. In Haiti this week, don't blame tectonic plates. Ninety-nine percent of the death toll is attributable to poverty. So the question is relevant. How'd Haiti become so poor? The story begins in 1910, when a U.S. State Department-National City Bank of New York (now called Citibank) consortium bought the Banque National d'Haïti--Haiti's only commercial bank and its national treasury--in effect transferring Haiti's debts to the Americans. Five years later, President Woodrow Wilson ordered troops to occupy the country in order to keep tabs on "our" investment. From 1915 to 1934, the U.S. Marines imposed harsh military occupation, murdered Haitians patriots and diverted 40 percent of Haiti's gross domestic product to U.S. bankers. Haitians were banned from government jobs. Ambitious Haitians were shunted into the puppet military, setting the stage for a half-century of U.S.-backed military dictatorship. The U.S. kept control of Haiti's finances until 1947. Still--why should Haitians complain? Sure, we stole 40 percent of Haiti's national wealth for 32 years. But we let them keep 60 percent. Whiners. [In Full]

Good Luck With That! Italy claims it is going to take over the government operations in Somalia, it's old colony, including a Coast Guard to do anti-Somali-piracy patrols on the coast that European MAFIA RELATED nuclear waste dumpers use. Do you suppose the dumping will stop? (ROTFLM M/F AO!) Four more hours of negotiations on the Health Care Reform bill last night turned out an agreement allowing the draft to be forwarded to the Congressional Budget Office for analysis, but in Massachusetts, the seat vacated by the recently deceased Edward Kennedy is under the gun. According to one poll the Republican candidate is 4 points ahead of the Democratic heir to the seat. If the Republican is seated there will no longer be a Democratic 'veto-proof' majority in the Senate and the Health Care Reform bill will most likely be 'euthanized' by Senate Republican inaction, filibustering, and obstruction. The Obama administration plans to put a 10 year $90 million dollar fee on the 50 top financial institutions and banks to indemnify them against the financial derivatives they create... but due to the amount of leverage applied on instruments such as 'Indexes of indexes on futures derivatives of short sales against C minus grade Fannie Mae loans' (yeah... I made that up... but it's not too far off the mark), expect that 'prophylactic' fund to last about ...one millisecond... in any future panic trading. -30-
Creative Commons Copyright Courtesy of Cabale News Service, KPIG Radio, and KVMR Radio. Listen to KPIG, Listen to KVMR Recorded & transcribed by The Buffalo Amongst Wolves @ Razed By Wolves In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 and The Berne Convention on Literary and Artistic Works, Article 10, the news clippings and images used in this posting are made available without profit for research and educational purposes.

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