Adam B. Kushner and SF Chronicle Smears Aristide. Call or Write and Ask Why.

"Turns out Aristide had a closet full of skeletons. For example, he admired mob rule. During his days as a radical, populist priest in the slums of Cité Soleil, the Catholic Church tried to persuade him several times to eschew sermons about class struggle. "

So according to Adam B. Kushner, that makes Aristide evil and worthy of being overthrown???

The only other negatives mentioned:

"he butted heads often with the legislature"
Why is this strange or bad?

"Then, in 1993, the CIA -- under R. James Woolsey -- leaked a classified study of Aristide to congressional Republicans. It claimed that Aristide had incited a rabble to "necklace""
but he later mentions that "Some of the report's contentions were discredited"

His only other accusation is that "Human Rights Watch reminded them that Aristide had not repudiated 25 lynchings performed in his name in 1991".
He isnt accusing Aristide of carrying out killings, encouraging killings or anything else, he is accusing Aristide of "not repudiating" something that happened before Aristide was re-elected (and nobody has contested Aristide's first elections).

And thats it, yet its an article written to justify the US kidnapping a world leader, arming former death squad members with M16s and looking the other way as they massacre Aristide's followers. Its ok for the US to subvert democracy because a world leader has "not repudiated" something that other people did 10 years ago. None Mr Kushner's attacks on Aristide even mention recent events, so he is in effect saying that third world countries do not have a right to elect leaders if he doesnt like them. Or does it have something to do with the race of the people involved? Its interesting how racism from self proclaimed liberals usually comes in the form of this form of paternalism. America's conservatives pushed for involvement in Haiti because of a desire to prevent Haitians from fleeing to Florida, while the liberal establishment that gets press asks what the US can do for Haiti to help its people without ever asking if taking action against a democratically elected leader without the consent of the Haitian people was in fact a bad idea. The US media always presents world conflicts this way. Listen to CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC or NPR and you hear the same thing; policy wonks debate how and why the US should impose its will on other countries and the right for these countries to control their own destiny through the democratic process is always ignored. Get ready for next months (or years) justification of another US backed coup in Venezuela. And after that will teh US get more bold and try to take our Lula in Brazil? The US probably wouldnt risk it but there is no doubt in my mind that if the US did decide get rid of an elected leader there, the US press and people like Adam B. Kushner would jump on the bandwagon independent of what excuse the US actually would give.

Here is a link to this article at the Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/05/EDGIV5EJQB1.DTL
and here is an contact info for the Chronicle:
chronfeedback [at] sfchronicle.com
http://www.sfgate.com/feedback/
901 Mission St.
San Francisco CA 94103
415-777-1111

Here is Adam B. Kushner's
contact info:
The New Republic
1331 H Street, NW
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20005
United States
Phone: 202.508.4450
Fax: 202.628.9385
akushner [at] tnr.com