I am pissed off. Again we have to bear the burden. 1,000 marines are going to Hatie, and only 200 frenchmen. The French want to intervene in this cespool, but dont think Iraqi who were dying was worth the cost. When our boys start shoot back at the looters, are we going to be asked to send more men by Chirac. I have had it. It is good we can help a people but I will be damned if I understand how John Kerry can say we did not act fast enough in Hatie, but acted too soon in Iraq.
see article below
http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/19 ... uters.html
Cheering Crowds Greet Rebels in Haitian Capital
Mar 1, 11:45 AM (ET)
By Jim Loney and Alistair Scrutton
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Armed rebels who helped oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide paraded round the National Palace in central Port-au-Prince on Monday, greeted by thousands of cheering Haitians as U.S. Marines began a mission to restore order.
The rebels, whose leaders said they would lay down their arms and halt their 24-day uprising, had begun arriving in the chaotic city on Sunday, hours after Aristide fled the country.
A convoy of pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles raced through the streets of the capital and were greeted by joyous supporters who waved flags and flashed V for victory signs.
The rebels, heavily armed and wearing military fatigues, sounded a police siren as they moved through the streets.
One of their leaders, former senior police chief Guy Philippe, was in the convoy, which halted at a police station near the palace. Thousands of people were gathered nearby celebrating, some shouting "Guy Philippe, Guy Philippe."
Outside town, U.S. Marines secured Haiti's main airport and unpacked gear as they began their mission to halt the turmoil in the country, the poorest in the Americas, that began even before the uprising against Aristide erupted on Feb.5.
Aristide, once a champion of Haiti's fledgling democracy who was driven out by the rebel uprising and foreign pressure to quit, left for Africa early on Sunday in a hasty departure arranged by the United States.
Looting and gun battles erupted in the wake of his departure. Looters struck shops, police stations and the homes of Aristide supporters, carting off refrigerators, doors, televisions and clothing.
The contingent of 150 to 200 Marines, joined by over 100 French troops, unloaded machine guns, grenade launchers and bottles of Evian water at the airport on Monday, prepared to guard key sites and restore order.
"I have no clue how we're going to be received," 21-year-old U.S. Lance Cpl. Eric Hafford said as he munched candies atop a Humvee at the airport.
The Marines force is expected to grow to about 1,000.
"They're going to welcome us and we're glad to be here," said Col. Dave Berger. Marines lounged on couches in the VIP section of the airport as Humvees, armored vehicles and trucks were unloaded from planes onto the airport tarmac.
VICTORY SIGNS
On the road to the airport, some Haitians held up two fingers in a "V for victory" sign. Others held up three fingers, a sign of dismay that Aristide's presidency ended after three years of a five-year term.
With the city returning to a semblance of normality, a street market was packed with people and "tap-taps," the colorful Haitian taxis fashioned from pick-up trucks, although traffic was lighter than usual because of fuel shortages.
Aristide, a former radical priest who preached against Haiti's dictators in the 1980s and was exiled by a military coup in 1991 during his first term as president, arrived on Monday in the capital of the Central African Republic.
"By toppling me they have cut down the tree of peace, but it will grow again," he told state radio in Bangui.
The arrival of the U.S. Marines was the third major deployment of U.S. troops to Haiti in the past century. Ten years ago President Bill Clinton sent 20,000 Marines to restore Aristide to power after he had been ousted in a coup.
More than 100 French troops arrived, and Canada, which has about 50 troops in Haiti, said it could send another 100 at short notice. Chile said it would send 270 troops and Brazil was expected to contribute to the force, given an initial three-month mandate by the U.N. Security Council on Sunday.
In Washington, a U.S. official said the United States was scrambling to create a "council of elders" to run Haiti, organize early elections and disarm rebels.
"There's going to be a tripartite commission, made up of the opposition, the government and the international community, who will form a sort of 'council of elders,"' a State Department official said.
Washington was focusing on having Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre, who replaced Aristide after he flew into exile, work with Haiti's Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and "probably" a representative from the Caribbean nations bloc, CARICOM, to form the council of "a dozen eminent Haitians," he added.
The death toll in February's violence rose to nearly 80 as opponents of the president hunted down his dreaded "chimeres" -- street toughs armed by Aristide to enforce his will in the sprawling slums.
An official at the Port-au-Prince morgue said on Monday the bodies of 10 people, all shot, had arrived in the last day.
Aristide's second presidency unraveled under months of often violent protests by political foes who accused him of becoming the kind of corrupt dictator he once railed against, capped by the rebellion by former soldiers and gang members.
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