Posted on 06/30/2005 12:38:03 PM PDT by No Longer Free State
UNITED NATIONS, June 29 -- United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan asked the United States this week to consider sending troops to Haiti to support a U.N. peacekeeping mission beset by mounting armed challenges to its authority, according to senior U.N. officials.
Annan told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a meeting at U.N. headquarters Tuesday afternoon that he may have to ask for American "boots on the ground" in the coming months to reinforce more than 6,500 Brazilian, Chilean, Argentine and other peacekeeping forces serving in Haiti, the officials said.
He expressed hope that the United States would participate in a planned U.N. rapid reaction force, authorized by the Security Council earlier this month, that would have the firepower to intimidate armed gangs threatening the country's fragile political transition. Officials said that similar requests are being considered for other countries, including Canada and France. "We want scarier troops," one senior U.N. official said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Putting the UN in Port au Prince would have the same irony as having the US feds in Washington DC--demonstrating that the lawmakers have no idea how to run anything. Now, I have an idea. We have about a half million Haitian refugees here in South Florida. If Anan would supply the helmets, maybe we could get them to go back home.
(he may have to ask for American "boots on the ground")
I'd like to send a few boots up his &**!
I'm referring to two occasions in the past week or two where he encouraged member countries to provide financial support to the emerging Iraqi government because Iraq is stabilizing but can use a little help.
I was thinking "No blood for reggae"...
....he can go sit on a tack!
Kofi ask the great Mexican Army to help you and send French cooks along also.
They are a bit ... whimpy?
Better yet, the Sikhs.
please... he's GOT to be kidding... right??? the mind boggles...
Send the Frogs.... they know the language.
....The FRENCH screwed it up.. ...
I believe the French were massacred and no replacements were ever sent. The screwup was between coloreds and negros..... a class thing.
"freedom is not free".
Suppose they have tried shooting at them? That usually established authority fairly quickly.
Send in the French! They speak the language, too!
Koffi - grab your politically correct muzzle loader and baby blue hat and haul your cowardly a$$ down there and solve the problem yourself. Oh, don't to forget to take a couple hundred thousand of oil for food money to grease the skids with if needed. If you need reinforcements call your son to come bail you out.
"Seems like fighting men who fight are handy when you're in a tough spot."
You speak of Cap Hatien. I had the pleasure (/sarcasm off) of being deployed there a couple months after the USMC turned the Cap Haitien police station into a colander. Needless to say, we did not have any problems with regime loyalists the whole time I was there.
P.S. The police station was in the middle of city block and had more bullet holes than I could count. But, I did not see any bullet holes in the adjacent or abutting buildings. Very impressive.
Gee -- kinda sounds like the France we see today --- trying to get the EU to support them in a manner to which they've become accustomed, but too lazy to earn for themselves..
According to the CIA:
The native Arawak Amerindians - who inhabited the island of Hispaniola when it was discovered by Columbus in 1492 - were virtually annihilated by Spanish settlers within 25 years. In the early 17th century, the French established a presence on Hispaniola, and in 1697, Spain ceded to the French the western third of the island - Haiti. The French colony, based on forestry and sugar-related industries, became one of the wealthiest in the Caribbean, but only through the heavy importation of African slaves and considerable environmental degradation. In the late 18th century, Haiti's nearly half million slaves revolted under Toussaint L'OUVERTURE and after a prolonged struggle, became the first black republic to declare its independence in 1804. Haiti has been plagued by political violence for most of its history. It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
The Eastern half of the Island -- Dominican Republic --- NON-FRENCH--- is in a hell of a lot better shape....
Semper Fi
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