Why was Aristide forced from power?

"Believe it or not, if a vote was taken now, Aristide would get 85 percent."

Thanks to Flagrancy to Reason.

How the US Press Missed the Story

"The fact that the group in charge of Haiti policy today in the State Department has been literally gunning for Aristide since before his initial election as a champion of democracy in 1990 has been left all but unmentioned by the US press."

The modus operandi of Noriega and company is unmistakeable: fund an opposition, report every clash as repression against the population, arm pliable thugs and mercenaries in exile, embargo the government, precipitate acute crisis, play up the discontent of a hungry population, and then happily leave it to internationalist liberals to lead the charge for military intervention on humanitarian grounds.

Whiskey Bar on the story.

I doubt whether the media cares enough about Haiti -- or about a couple of old fascists like Roger Noriega and Otto Reich -- to make a honest-to-God scandal out of what increasingly looks like a old-fashioned, U.S.-sponsored coup d'etat, albeit this time with French and Canadian participation.

I keep having to add to the Haiti posts. Liberal Oasis on four questions not answered and more Powell betrayals.

Particularly interesting is the Black Commentator piece from last April, which may have foreshadowed today’s events:

A few select members of [Aristide’s] Lavalas party recently described …what they view as the first phase of Washington's scheme for Haiti.

They defined its three major concurrent objectives as:

1) to create an opposition force capable of seizing power,

2) demonize Aristide and Lavalas within and without Haiti and,

3) separate the base of Lavalas from the leadership.

One good post among many on Haiti at Body and Soul.