In February 2004, the two traditional torturers of Haiti - France and the United States - combined to back a military coup and send President Aristide off to Africa. The U.S. denies him permission to return to the entire region.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
One should also remember that the U.S. is the biggest exporter of torture weapons in the world, though the U.K. is not far behind in the league table. We never stopped, even under Robin Cook's supposedly ethical foreign policy.
Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French... and they got together and swore a pact to the devil.
The president of the United States let the consulate in Libya become a death trap.
Without U.S. input, the countries of South America joined forces in 2008 to shut down a coup attempt in Bolivia and prevented a war between Ecuador and Colombia.
We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.
Rendition is just sending people abroad to be tortured.
I am not suggesting that all those missionary organizations working in Haiti should pack up and go home, but I am urging them to understand that Haiti does not need clever Americans with newly contrived schemes for saving their country.
America does not torture. We never have, and we never will.
We do, and there is a law in the United States - the Torture Convention - that prohibits the United States from deporting an individual to a country where there is a reasonable expectation that he will be subjected to torture - physical, mental or otherwise.
You know, we do not want the militarization of Haiti. We do not see a Haitian as a protectorate where it relinquishes its own sovereignty.