The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the UN Occupation in Haiti

by Batay Ouvriye Solidarity Network
October 26, 2010

At first glance, one might wonder what the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have in common with a UN “peace” mission on the opposite side of the world, in Haiti, a non Muslim country. Indeed, from the standpoint of US military casualties or US military expenditures, there is little in common.

But for a few weeks earlier this year, after the January 12th earthquake, there were proportionally as many US troops in Haiti as in Afghanistan in 2009, before Obama’s surge. And the death toll of over 300,000 and the devastation which left more than 1.2 million people homeless certainly made Haiti look like a war zone. The militarization of rescue efforts, which gave absolute priority to establishing and maintaining military control rather than to the distribution of critical aid left piling up in airport hangars, and the division of Port-au-Prince into red, orange and green security zones, were eerily reminiscent of US occupation policies. And although military control was soon handed back to a beefed-up UN multilateral mission, the MINUSTAH, this relatively brief US military incursion was quite revealing in terms of US political and strategic interests. Why did the US react with such a massive troop deployment in Haiti? What is at stake for the US in Haiti? Why should the US anti-war movement consider Haiti as another front in the US military campaigns of aggression? What do these policies have to do with the US New World Order globalization agenda? [...]

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